Runoff Has Panel in Hot Water

The normally placid irrigation waters of the Central Valley are proving stormy for regional regulators, who have been sued, investigated and condemned for their handling of the pesticide residues that roll off the region’s farmland into the waterways of Northern and Central California.

Farm runoff has largely escaped environmental regulation throughout the nation, and California’s halting efforts to adopt some sort of controls have thrust the Central Valley water regulators into an uncomfortable limelight.

There are an estimated 7 million acres of irrigated cropland in the valley. Pesticides are washed off them by winter storms and summer irrigation waters. The runoff then drains into streams and canals and ultimately the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a source of water for millions of Californians.

Meeting today and Friday in Sacramento, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board will try to calm the dispute over runoff regulations, possibly by scrapping a program it adopted in December and which environmental groups have criticized as weak.

“We’ve had a lot of problems. We’ve acknowledged that,” board Chairman Robert Schneider said this week. “I think this board is ready to sit down and do the work that’s necessary.”

The board’s problems reached a climax last month when the state attorney general’s office concluded its actions had been “irreparably tainted by a potential or actual conflict of interest.”

The possible conflict centered on Beverly Alves of Princeton, who occupies a board seat reserved for representatives of irrigated agriculture.

Alves co-owns a 1,200-acre farm in the Sacramento Valley and is a member of the California Farm Bureau. She took part in votes and discussions on the runoff issue even though her farming interests would be affected by the board’s decisions, the attorney general’s office found.

In a June 2 letter, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen. Peter Siggins said his office would not file a complaint against Alves, but he recommended that the state Water Resources Control Board take over the runoff issue.

The state board decided against that, and this week the regional board is reconsidering the runoff regulations without Alves’ presence.

But a fresh vote will not end the intense pressure and scrutiny the board is under.

The Legislature and environmental groups have for years pushed state regulators to crack down on farm runoff, long exempt from water discharge controls. In December, the Central Valley water quality board extended the exemption for two more years, asking farmers in the meantime to form watershed groups to monitor contamination levels and develop ways of reducing the runoff pollution.

Environmental groups called the move inadequate and filed a lawsuit, alleging that the board was allowing the continued fouling of state waters. The groups also accused Alves of a conflict of interest.

In April the groups were further incensed when the board set aside staff recommendations that it impose fees on agricultural dischargers to help pay for a control program.

“From our viewpoint, the regional board has really poisoned the well on this issue and has not fairly and objectively considered this issue,” said Jonathan Kaplan of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Without a real fee, this program is just a lot of paper. Everyone knows if there’s no funding source, there’s not going to be [an enforcement staff] and if there’s not a staff, there’s not going to be a program.”

On the other side, agriculture groups have mounted an intense lobbying campaign against tough runoff standards for individual farms, arguing that they are unnecessary and would hamstring crop cultivation that has made the Central Valley one of the nation’s produce capitals.

Hammered from all sides, regional board members say the runoff issue is the most difficult one they have faced.

“We’ve wrestled with it.... How do we clean these waters? How do we keep agriculture in business, focus on the problem areas and not punish everyone?” asked Schneider.

Fellow board member and retired farmer Alson Brizard defended the panel.

“We don’t feel we’re moving too slowly,” Brizard said. “We’re attempting not to move too fast to totally alienate an entire segment of our society and culture.

“There’s just in the Central Valley region between 5 and 7 million acres involved and over 25,000 dischargers,” Brizard added. “That’s quite a bit different from all the other industries and cities and towns we regulate. It’s a whole other ball game. The culture of farming is different from the culture of managing sewage plants.”

Critics argue that agriculture’s clout in the valley is far too great for the regional agency to withstand.

“These are not bad people. I’ve developed a fondness for most of them,” said Bill Jennings of DeltaKeeper, who has hounded the board for years to impose runoff controls on farmland. “But they’ve been handed a job they’re not equipped to handle.”

Though the state water resources board declined to wrest the matter from the region’s hands, it will have the authority to modify, reverse or affirm the regional board’s final decision.