County Supervisors Approve 2,500-Home Friant Ranch Despite Confirmed Water-Supply Gap — AI-generated illustration
County Supervisors Approve 2,500-Home Friant Ranch Despite Confirmed Water-Supply Gap
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday certified the environmental review and approved the Friant Ranch development — a 2,500-unit, 942-acre project near Friant — after the county’s own lawyer confirmed on the record that the project’s claimed multi-year water reserve cannot actually be stored as planned.
County counsel Doug Sloan told supervisors he had verified with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that Millerton Lake, the project’s backup water source, can hold carryover water for only one year, not the multiple years county staff had assumed in their report to the board. The board voted unanimously to certify the environmental review anyway. Supervisor Brian Pacheco cast the lone dissenting vote on a separate zoning motion, citing “issue after issue on water” in foothill developments.
The approval moves forward a project first proposed in 2011, calling for more than 2,200 units designated for residents 55 and older. Developer Brian Wagner said the project “is now in a regional development area” surrounded by Madera County development. The project still requires superior court review to confirm compliance before construction can begin.
The water-supply question came to a head after reporting by Fresnoland documented that the county’s planning staff had relied on a 2008 water analysis — written before the 2014-2015 drought — and had never updated it to test whether the developer’s 2016 storage plan would hold up in a multi-year drought. The 2016 amendment to the project’s water contract attempted to create a carryover reserve in Millerton Lake, but the Bureau of Reclamation confirmed to Fresnoland and then to county counsel that “rescheduled Class 1 water cannot be carried over through multiple consecutive water years.”
Supervisor Luis Chavez summarized the gap: “There’s paper water, and then there’s real water.” Supervisor Garry Bredefeld said the water questions had been “adequately addressed to my satisfaction.” County lawyer Sloan told the board the developer, not the county, would pay to defend the approval in court.
Radley Reep, a Clovis resident working with the League of Women Voters, told the board the approval was legally vulnerable: “If this goes to court, the court will overturn you in two seconds for recognizing changed conditions and new information, and not allowing the public to participate in that discussion.”
Fresno County’s foothill subdivisions have a documented history of water failures. Supervisor Pacheco, a farmer, noted the board had dealt with repeated water crises in the area in recent months. One prior county-approved subdivision’s water supply became contaminated with uranium.
Supporters, including former Friant resident Bruce Kinabrew, said the project would provide needed housing for future generations. Opponents, including Friant resident Johnny Osburn, raised concerns about impact on local wells; county staff stated the project would rely entirely on lake water and would not affect wells. Supervisor Nathan Magsig said the project would improve aging infrastructure for existing residents by moving them off septic systems.
The Breakdown
- The project: 2,500 residential units on 942 acres near Friant, more than 2,200 of them age-restricted to 55-plus residents.
- The water gap: County staff claimed the project had a “multi-year surface water supply” stored in Millerton Lake. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation confirmed to county counsel that carryover water can be held for only one year, not multiple years.
- The outdated analysis: The county’s environmental review relied on a 2008 water assessment, written before the 2014-2015 drought. A 2022 memo from the developer’s own consultant, which the county adopted, did not include new drought data.
- The backup plan: If Millerton storage runs out, the project relies on Lower Tule River Irrigation District’s “best efforts” to swap river water, freeing up Millerton supply — a plan that predates current groundwater restrictions and assumes growers can pump through dry years.
- The vote: Supervisors unanimously certified the environmental review. Pacheco dissented on a separate zoning motion.
- Next step: The project returns to superior court to show compliance before moving forward.
What This Means for You
You elected these five supervisors to oversee land-use decisions that affect public health and taxpayer liability. This vote commits the county to a project sized to house roughly 7,000 people, based on a water analysis the county’s own lawyer confirmed contains a false premise about drought reserve capacity.
If a repeat of the 2014-2015 drought leaves Friant Ranch without water, the county — meaning taxpayers — may be left scrambling to fund an emergency water supply, as has happened with prior foothill subdivisions the county approved and later had to bail out. The board made this decision knowing the developer, not an independent source, vouched for the water plan, and knowing the legal defense cost would fall on the developer, not the county, if the approval is challenged in court. Supervisor Magsig represents the district that includes this project.
What You Can Do
The project still requires superior court review. Court filings and hearings related to Friant Ranch are public record in Fresno County Superior Court.
Contact the Fresno County Board of Supervisors at (559) 600-4290 or through the county website to state your position on the approval or to request the updated water-supply data the county did not require before voting.
What to Watch
This approval rests on a documented factual error — county staff told the board the project had a “multi-year” water reserve, and the Bureau of Reclamation confirmed that claim is false. Radley Reep, representing critics of the project, told the board a court would likely overturn the approval “in two seconds” for acknowledging changed conditions without reopening public review. That’s not a remote risk — the California Supreme Court already threw out this project’s air-quality analysis once, in 2018, forcing the current redo. If a lawsuit succeeds again, the county will have spent years and unknown staff resources on an approval that doesn’t hold, and the developer — per county counsel Doug Sloan’s statement to the board — will have paid the legal bills to defend a decision the county knew was built on bad information.
The real public-cost question isn’t the legal fees. It’s what happens if the project gets built and the water runs out. Fresno County’s foothill subdivisions have a documented pattern of water failure — one so severe that a prior subdivision’s supply turned up uranium contamination. Supervisor Pacheco, the one dissenting voice, acknowledged the board has dealt with “issue after issue on water” in the area. The material names no consequence for the county if Friant Ranch’s backup plan fails, and no independent verification that the plan will work — only the developer’s lawyer stating he is “confident” it will.
Specifically: who pays if 7,000 people need an emergency water supply the county didn’t plan for? The developer? The residents who bought homes based on the county’s approval? Or Fresno County taxpayers, again, as has happened before? The board was asked this question and voted yes without a stated answer.
A separate, larger structural question: why does Fresno County keep approving subdivisions whose water plans later collapse, while Madera County, per Supervisor Pacheco’s own observation, does not? Pacheco said he didn’t know “if it’s developers, planning, or what the issue is.” That’s the question a voter weighing this board’s competence or this planning department’s accountability ought to demand an answer to — not as speculation, but as a documented pattern with a cause someone is responsible for.
