Farmers’ Waiver on Water Pollution Controls Survives

Central Valley regulators Friday continued a controversial policy of exempting the region’s farmers from water pollution controls but left open the possibility that they may yet end the exemption.

The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board voted 5 to 2 to extend until the end of 2005 a long-standing waiver that exempts agricultural runoff from state water discharge requirements. But the board also said it would reconsider the matter in January and directed staff members to develop a possible permit and fee system.

“We tried to make progress, recognizing the work that the agriculture community has done so far while leaving the door open to other members of the board who want to pursue other options,” said board Chairman Robert Schneider of Davis.

The board vote, which capped a two-day meeting here, pleased neither farmers nor environmentalists, who have been battling over farm runoff pollution for years.

“The extended waiver is a slap in the face of every Californian who has to pay fees or abide by regulatory requirements,” said Bill Jennings, representing the group DeltaKeeper, who contended that the waiver system amounts to preferential treatment for agriculture. Jennings, whose group sued the Central Valley board over a previous waiver vote, said it would very likely sue again. “The clock is ticking and they’ve left us no alternative but to continue to litigate this case.”

Agriculture industry representatives were unhappy with the board’s decision to take up the matter again in January. Farmers also objected to some of the strings attached to the continuing exemption.

“The conditions of the waiver are such that they may in fact be unachievable,” said David Cory of Dos Pasos, an attorney who farms 1,500 acres of row crops.

The board voted in December to extend the long-standing agriculture exemption. But the state attorney general’s office concluded last month that one of the board members should not have participated in the vote because her farming interests would be affected by the panel’s decisions. Meeting without that member on Thursday, the board rescinded its December action. On Friday, it approved a new waiver, but with various conditions.

Farmers are to form watershed groups that will monitor water quality and promote field practices to reduce the level of pesticides washing into the valley’s waterways. In a provision that agricultural interests said would be impossible to meet, the board directed that all farmers participating in the watershed groups be identified by November.

Board members Christopher Cabaldon of West Sacramento and Robert Fong, a Sacramento attorney, voted against extending the waiver.

“It seems like we are asking the folks whom we are supposed to be regulating to regulate themselves,” Fong said. He added that trying to terminate the waiver in January “would be like trying to catch a train that is already going down the tracks.”

Other board members, notably retired farmer Alson Brizard of Patterson and Mark Salvaggio of Bakersfield, said delaying extension of the waiver would run the risk of alienating the already touchy farm community.

There are an estimated 25,000 agricultural dischargers farming 7 million acres of irrigated cropland in the Central Valley. Farm interests contend the cost of pesticide pollution monitoring and reporting requirements would be an extra burden that only a few larger farms could afford.

California Farm Bureau water resources director Tony Francois estimated the cost at $7,000 to $15,000 per farm.

He said the possibility that the board might kill the waiver in January would make it harder to meet fall reporting deadlines. “It will be difficult to organize a watershed group knowing that two months later, it could all be for naught.”

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Tempest reported from Sacramento and Boxall from Los Angeles.