Education For Environmental Responsibility

New requirements governing farming runoff water begin in January

This article appeared in the November 23, 2004 issue of the Monterey County Herald newspaper.

By Virginia Hennessey, staff writer

When Benny Jefferson's great-great-grandfather founded the family's Salinas Valley farm in 1863, there was no such thing as the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act.

The next two generations didn't have to worry about it either. Even Jefferson's father got a pass. Like all farmers and ranchers, he was granted a waiver from worrying about where his agricultural runoff went.

But starting Jan. 1, Jefferson will not only have to worry about where his runoff goes, he'll also have to post a plan for the state detailing how he will keep it on his farm and pay to monitor any that escapes.

The new year marks the deadline for Central Coast farmers to meet the requirements of the Conditional Waiver of Agricultural Discharge Program. Commonly known as the "ag waiver" by local farmers -- who have other, less publishable, names for it as well -- the program is the first effort in the country to monitor pesticides, fertilizer and sediment that washes from farms and ranches into nearby waterways and eventually into the ocean.

For Jefferson, a fifth-generation farmer, it's a "burden," another in a parade of bureaucratic regulations that grows longer each year. But he'll meet the requirements. After all, he helped establish them.

Jefferson is chairman of the agricultural committee that sat down with environmentalists and regulators to work out an agreement on implementing the law. The results pleased no one. Farmers complained the regulations would be too costly; environmentalists said the monitoring program wasn't strong enough.

Regardless of what they think about the new regulation, by next year all farmers within the six-county boundary of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board are required to complete 15 hours of education on runoff and erosion control and prepare a farm plan on the potential problem areas on their farms and how they plan to manage them.

The first week in December, the regional board will also send out forms on which farmers must indicate if they plan to join cooperative monitoring programs, or go it alone and pay for their own monitoring.

It's a mammoth change for an industry that's been exempt from such concerns for decades.

When the state Legislature passed the Porter-Cologne act in 1969, the major focus was on point-source polluters, such as factories. In 1983 the law's scope broadened, but farms, ranches, construction and a few other industries were given blanket waivers.

In the interim, said Alison Jones of the Regional Water Quality Control Board, scientists learned a lot more about how agricultural runoff was affecting the state's waterways. Pesticides were killing aquatic life, nitrogen-based fertilizers were choking waterways with unwanted algae and grasses, and erosion sediment was stifling spawning grounds.

In 1999, after a successful lawsuit by environmentalists, the state passed legislation setting a 2003 deadline for the end of the blanket waiver program, and requiring each of the state's regional water boards to establish new waiver programs.

Only two regions have passed their programs to date. The Central Valley regional board unilaterally passed a program in time to meet the 2003 deadline, but it is mired in litigation by farmers and environmentalists.

That leaves the Central Coast region the first in the state to actually implement a program

Central Coast farmers were way ahead of the game, said Bob Martin, outgoing president of the Monterey County Farm Bureau and general manager of Rio Farms in King City. Over the past seven years, many were already working with the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to voluntarily implement farm practices minimizing runoff into Monterey Bay.

"It put us light years ahead of the ag field in the rest of state," Martin said.

Even before that, Martin and Jefferson said, many farmers were using environmentally friendly practices for economic reasons: Farmers save money when they recycle water and use less pesticide and nitrogen fertilizers.

Eight years ago, the owners of Rio Farms and Gill Ranches were drip-irrigating 25 percent of their 6,000 south county acres, Martin said. Today, they have the ability to drip-irrigate almost 95 percent.

Jefferson put in his first "sediment pond" in 1996, three years before Porter-Cologne was amended. The pond, one of several on his 1,200 acres, collects runoff and filters sediment from erosion. The water is recycled for pre-planting irrigation and road-spraying.

The land is worth too much money not to protect, said Jefferson.

"We've come a long way from the way our fathers and grandfathers farmed," he said. "We consider ourselves the last true environmentalists."

While his practices will not have to change drastically because of the new regulations, Jefferson still finds them irritating. Levees and topography on his family's acreage bordering the Salinas River in Castroville make it impossible for water to run off into river.

"It's another way to stack the bureaucracy, to have Big Daddy watching over you," he said. "But it doesn't do any good to cry about it because it's here."

Instead Jefferson made sure he was involved in the region's planning. He laughs when he recalls needing three meetings with the regional board and environmentalists just to establish "how we could talk to one another."

And he relishes the achievement of getting 23 agricultural groups to agree on a plan.

"It's pretty hard to get just two organizations to agree on what time the sun came up," he laughed.

Martin said he's confident a vast majority of farmers in Monterey County are prepared for the new regulations, though "there's always going to be some people behind the gun."

He assured those still resisting the inevitable that the program wasn't going to be as painful as they thought.

The first year's monitoring costs are being covered by settlement money from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. for illegally releasing heated water into the bay beginning in 1974.

After that, Martin said, "the cooperative monitoring program is going to be much less costly and onerous than monitoring on an independent basis."

Jefferson hopes the region's plan will hold up after the bugs are worked out.

"If this follows through, we have an opportunity to write our own destiny," he said. "We could become a model for the state."

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