Agency staff told the Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency board on Nov. 3 that incomplete and missing semiannual groundwater extraction statements threaten the agency's ability to calculate annual carryover and levy overuse assessments.

"We cannot calculate carryover and use and overuse if we're missing information from any of these periods," said Dr. Farai Kasake, agency staff, summarizing reporting work done for the 2025-2 reporting period. Kasake said staff mailed 405 semiannual "com" code statements; as of Nov. 3 about 195 (roughly 48%) had been returned and 90 of those were processed as complete. He later said staff had processed a higher count (239) by a subsequent internal check.

The agency has been pushing outreach and software changes to increase compliance. Kasake described bilingual user-guide videos, QR codes, a newly updated website, and a reporting tool released Oct. 1 that gives each WMID holder a custom link. He said staff will send notices of violation in December to nonreporters or incomplete reporters and that enforcement steps could follow.

Board members and staff detailed practical obstacles that lead to bad or slow submissions: low-quality meter photos from third-party services, many incompatible meter manufacturers, owner/operator contact information that is out of date, and manual staff review that can stretch into 30–45-minute calls per account. "It takes an enormous amount of staff effort to just get these reports in," said an agency staff member describing front-desk walk-ins and lengthy phone follow-up.

To reduce staff burden and improve data quality, staff and directors discussed technical approaches: stronger AMI (advanced metering infrastructure) integration, narrowing acceptable meter models, and triangulating self-reported readings with historical trends and open-source evapotranspiration data. "Given those three different means, we figure we can kind of triangulate on a reasonable estimate for what's been extracted," staff said, proposing invoicing at defensible estimates plus a staff-cost charge where needed.

The Watermaster side of reporting uses WMIDs and a consultant (Regional Government Services) to administer forms. Kasake said high response rates were achieved for some reporting periods (about 85% for one period cited), but to complete the annual allocations accounting the remaining nonreporters must be compelled to submit complete data.

The board directed staff to continue outreach and return with a compliance update after notices of violation are issued. Kasake said staff plans to send notices of violation in mid- to late December and report compliance numbers back to the board in January.

Ending: The board treated the item as informational and asked staff to return with updated compliance figures and any proposed pilot programs that would reduce manual reporting and verification work.