Important Decision and Water Turn-on for 2025

The CVTIA (Columbia View Terraces Irrigation Association) annual meeting for 2025 will take place on April 5, 2025 in Hank LuBean’s front yard (or porch) at 6:00 p.m. The meeting agenda will be on the CVTIA website (lubean.com/cvtia) and handed out at the meeting. Irrigation turn-on for 2025 will be on April 12, 2025 (the WRD plan is to begin filling the canal on April 7, 2025)

IMPORTANT: This announcement is being sent out because we need a decision on whether to continue purchasing 4 shares of irrigation water at $500 per year or revert back to the amount of water formerly used to meet our needs. Hank explained at last year’s meeting that our neighborhood is not using as much water in the past several years as was previously used (prior to 2020) and therefore we may not need the additional water that these shares provide. Additionally, if CVTIA were to adjust their watering times, we would certainly not need the additional water these shares provide.

The owner of the 4 shares is Robert Graham who now lives in Colorado and the agreement we have is to provide him with our payment of $500 by March 15^th each year of the agreement. The 5^th year of the agreement was 2024 and Robert was notified that it would be a possibility that we could decide not to renew our agreement, which is an option. Since March 15^th is only a few days away and since we won’t have our annual meeting until April 5^th,  I need input from as many of you as can respond to move forward.

Hank’s view is that we would probably not be hurt by not continuing this agreement. Our irrigation bank account (now at about $5600) can’t build funds as fast as desired when we pay this $500 amount each year for additional water that we may not absolutely need as well as routine maintenance of about $200 per year. Also, we only get about $1350 each year from dues. If we keep the additional water shares, we should increase our dues from $20 per year per lot to $30 or $40. Our goal was to build the bank account to an amount that could be used for a major expense like digging up the road to repair a leak or break or to replace valves or headgate plumbing any of which could use up all our funds in one fell swoop. The other items on our annual meeting agenda this year can be discussed and decided at the April 5^th meeting. I need responses on this issue soon (email preferred or a phone call: hlubean@gmail.com or 509-679-4259), I prefer not to make an executive decision on this without input from our members.

******************************************************

You are in this association if you are a lot owner and live in the Columbia View Terrace Irrigation Association’s (CVTIA) neighborhood (East Wenatchee – Sunset Hwy to Aurora – 15th to 18th Streets). We have 72 lots (62 lot owners) in our neighborhood. As lot owners we voluntarily maintain and operate our own system separate from the WRD. Your property covenants require (expect) you to be a member of this association and pay dues for its upkeep. Lot owners purchase water from the WRD annually via County property assessments or directly from WRD. WRD delivers the water to our headgate on the canal near the middle of the golf course; our system starts at the headgate; CVTIA owns and maintains everything from the headgate to our homes. We began collecting annual dues in 2021. A notice will be sent out on 3/15/25 for this year’s dues.  A copy of the notice is shown below. 

Each lot has a main valve that attaches to the main irrigation lateral lines. Lot owners are responsible for the irrigation piping down-stream of their main valve. The CVTIA administrators Hank and Adam and helpers) maintain the headgate, main valves, main lines, lateral valves, and lateral piping to each lot’s main valve. When we charge our system each spring, we check for leaks and ensure that each lot’s main valves are either closed or under proper control so leaks can be observed. To do this check, we may need to enter your yard and verify that your main irrigation valve or valves are off as well as look for main line and lateral pipe leaks. If you don’t want us in your yard and you can ensure that your main valve is off and that there are no main line leaks, please call or email me to let me know (see below for info), otherwise on Saturday morning about 10:00 a.m. on 4/12/25, you will see a couple of your neighbors wandering through the neighborhood and into each yard, if needed, checking valves and working with lot owners/renters for identifying any leaks or problems. We will attempt to notify you by knocking before entering your property. If you have a locked yard, please leave it open or have someone available to open it for us. If we can’t get in, and if there are leaks, the entire lateral will be shut off until repairs are made; meaning you and your close neighbors won’t have irrigation water until then. Also, those who have not paid their annual dues for this year or any previous year could have their valves closed until they pay us. 

As noted above, as lot owner or lot user (if renting), your lot is automatically a member of our irrigation association and the lot’s property covenant gives the association an easement to maintain the irrigation system as necessary including entering your yard to do so (just like gas, water, electricity, telephone, etc.).

This website was created for our irrigation system. It has detailed information about our irrigation system, check out the site.  You might want to bookmark it for information updates (outages, turn-on / turn-off dates, etc.). The website is:  Lubean.com/cvtia. (if clicking on this link doesn’t load, try entering the full URL: https://lubean.com/cvtia/ )

We have been doing this annual turn-on action each year for at least six decades. If you have questions, concerns, or information, give me a call on my cell 509-679-4259, email me at: hlubean@gmail.com   or stop by my house at 1700 North Aurora.

I am Hank LuBean, your neighbor and current CVTIA Administrator.