Water Board Backs Off Runoff Curbs

Water regulators backed away Thursday from tough restrictions that would require Central Valley farmers to cut tainted runoff considered a key pollutant in the region’s streams and rivers.

For the last 20 years, farmers in the state’s agricultural heartland -- 7 million acres of fields and orchards that provide 25% of America’s food and fiber -- have been allowed to skirt clean-water rules that apply to industries such as factories and refineries.

State lawmakers ordered that exemption slashed by Jan. 1, but the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board voted after a five-hour meeting here to move toward rules that allow the valley’s 25,000 farmers to avoid strict pollution controls for another two years.

The board also agreed to revisit the matter in March as part of a 10-year plan to clean up the Central Valley’s water.

Under the new plan, growers must take steps to voluntarily begin monitoring and reducing the mix of pollutants -- pesticides, fertilizers and concentrations of toxins leached from the soil -- that flow off their fields and end up in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a drinking-water source for much of the state.

Environmentalists said the new voluntary approach falls far short of the mandatory limits needed to force farmers to clean up runoff into Central Valley rivers. Of the 25 million acre-feet of irrigation water used by Central Valley farmers, 20% flows back into waterways.

“This is really leaving the fox to guard the henhouse,” said Bill Jennings, head of DeltaKeeper, an environmental group that shepherds the broad nexus at the eastern edge of San Francisco Bay. “This isn’t going to make them do much more than they do now. It doesn’t come a quarter of the way.”

Jennings said environmentalists will appeal the regional decision to the state water board and almost certainly will sue over the new rules. He said it is unfair to treat agriculture differently from other businesses in the state. “What we’re asking,” he said, “is that agriculture be subject to the same regulations that thousands and thousands of businesses, including mom and pop operations, have to comply with.”

Farmers long have said that tougher rules would pose a government intrusion into their businesses that could prove costly.

The California Farm Bureau Federation supports the conditional waivers, but officials with the group suggested that some new rules could be onerous for small farmers.

Tess Dunham, California Farm Bureau director of water resources, described the new waiver system as “a whole new ballgame .... The devil’s going to be in the details.” But the new rules undoubtedly will be better than mandatory limits for runoff, she said.

More than 500 miles of rivers and streams and nearly 500,000 acres of waterways in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are considered impaired because of pollution.

Tainted water can suffocate aquatic life and kill tiny insects that are the first link in the river food chain.

The pollution also balloons the cost of water treatment for Sacramento, Contra Costa County and other regions that depend on the rivers or delta for their drinking water.

State water regulators announced plans last March to adopt rules requiring growers to begin monitoring drainage and institute better erosion and pesticide controls.

But the State Water Resources Control Board later backed away from statewide requirements for agriculture, leaving it to California’s nine regional water boards. Environmentalists contend that the state board yielded to pressure from the state’s powerful farm lobby.

Under the plans now envisioned, farmers in a particular watershed would join together in voluntary efforts to monitor and slash pollutants. But they would face no mandatory goals.

Some farmers are already taking steps to clean up their runoff, impounding irrigation water on their land and reducing pesticide use.

One option left to the board would be to revoke the waivers if farmers did not make a satisfactory cleanup effort. But environmentalists remain unconvinced that the board would take such a step given the political power of farmers in California.

In addition, conservationists worry that the state’s growing budget deficit will end up killing many of the monitoring programs that might call attention to ongoing problems.

They contend that the water board should adopt a program that requires farmers to pay fees to ensure that monitoring and enforcement can take place. Other industries are required to participate in such fee-based programs.