Education For Environmental Responsibility

Farmers express confusion over water runoff regulations

This article appeared in the Modesto Bee on April 28, 2004

By Juliana Barbassa, The Associated Press

FRESNO -- California's contentious experiment to monitor water pollution from farms got off to a rough start this month as thousands of confused farmers failed to comply. Regulators remain unsure how to enforce the measure and environmentalists have sued to impose tougher rules.

As they stand, the new rules require between 25,000 and 80,000 growers who have irrigation water or stormwater running off their land to submit a plan for testing canals and creeks that eventually empty into the Central Valley's rivers. They had until April 1 to report what they grow and what pesticides or fertilizers they use.

Water authorities still hope monitoring for pollution can begin July 1. But the whole process has been thrown together so quickly that no one knows how many farmers have complied -- or even exactly how many properties the rules apply to.

Until this year, farms enjoyed a blanket exemption from California's water quality law, which requires businesses and cities to apply for permits to discharge runoff and submit plans to reduce pollution.

Under pressure from environmental groups, the State Water Resources Control Board in February 2003 issued the new rules, which require farmers to submit the plans in order to continue getting the waiver.

While farms don't have to follow the same tough rules as other businesses, they now have to test water runoff at key periods -- during irrigation and after storms -- and report findings to the regional water board.

A plan with uncertain costs

Farming groups say only a fraction of the tens of thousands of the growers have taken steps to comply.

Part of the problem is that there has never been an attempt of this scope to monitor the impact of agriculture -- a $27.5 billion dollar industry statewide -- on water pollution. Many farmers don't know about the new regulations, and those who do are hesitant to sign up for a plan with uncertain costs.

"This is an overwhelming task," said Bill Croyle, senior engineer with the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. "But we're committed to getting things up and running."

Part of the confusion stems from the fact that many people -- such as farmers in arid areas, or someone with a tiny parcel zoned for agricultural use -- don't know the rules apply to them.

"Water is very expensive for us," said Danny Andrews, who farms 2,000 acres of cotton, fruits and vegetables near Bakersfield with his father, Robert Andrews. He said he doesn't think the new rules apply to his farm, since they see as little as 5 or 6 inches of rain a year and do their best not to let any run off their property.

There are no clearly defined penalties for failing to submit the required plans and data, and no one expects growers to be fined, though the water board will try to reach farmers who have not complied to notify them that they need to do so.

"The regional water board has to send notices telling farmers of deadlines," said Tony Francois, director of water resources for the California Farm Bureau Federation. "There can be penalties if you refuse, but the regional board has not even sent out those notices."

Farmers can either come up with the monitoring plan themselves, at an estimated cost of at least $2,000 per year after startup costs of up to $10,000, or join a coalition of farmers to share the burden. By November, eight coalitions had formed, carving up the Central Valley into separate water basins.

Confusion reigns, leader claims

Local agricultural commissioners, commodity groups and the industry leaders have tried to help spread the word to farmers. But the water board has only five staff members, and no new resources to spend on outreach.

"It's been extremely confusing for individual farmers," said Mike Mendes, the chief of water resources for the Kings River Conservation District. He's part of the Southern San Joaquin Valley Coalition, which includes Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties.

Only 300 of the area's 5,000 growers have signed up.

Critics who argued for more stringent rules say the process was flawed from the start.

"One can't deny that this is a historic step, possibly the most significant step in the nation toward regulating agriculture," said Bill Jennings, of Deltakeeper, a Stockton-based group focused on water quality. "But the failure to grapple with accountability and setting a goal that has to be complied with are the seeds of the plan's own failure."

Deltakeeper sued the water board, along with the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Environment California, Natural Resources Defense Council and Ocean Conservancy, alleging the new rules have no teeth.

"We were willing to consider a watershed approach if there was a goal of when compliance would be achieved, with interim milestones and standards, but this contains none of those," said Jennings.

The groups say the water board is losing an important opportunity to clean up one of the state's worst sources of water pollution. The California Public Interest Research Group and WaterKeepers Northern California said in a report in 2000 that 96 percent of state surface water sites tested over 10 years had some pesticide contamination.

Parry Klassen, a Selma farmer on the board of the East San Joaquin Valley Water Quality Coalition, has been answering growers' questions for months. Still, his group has signed up only 1,300 of the estimated 6,000 growers in Merced, Stanislaus, Mariposa and Tuolumne counties.

"Those of us who were organizing the coalitions knew this was coming, but some growers have never heard of the plan," said Klassen.

Part of their reluctance comes from the program's vague objectives, farmers said. No particular chemical or nutrient is targeted, and no specific bodies of water have been identified as a problem.