State looking to limit frost protection water again
Ukiah Daily Journal Staff
Ukiah Daily Journal
01/09/2010
Mendocino County's agricultural community is facing another attempt by the state of California to limit Russian River water use for frost protection in the spring.
Growers can protect plants from a spring frost by spraying them with water, which freezes around the spring buds, protecting them from the frost.
First District Supervisor Carre Brown has asked the Board of Supervisors to discuss the issue at Tuesday's meeting in preparation for a state Water Resources Board meeting Jan. 19 at which state staff will recommend severely limiting frost protection water from the Russian River it believes hurts the river's fish populations.
In April 2008, a severe salmon die-off due to low water levels in the river spurred the state to consider new regulations on orders from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service.
In 2009, the state Water Board held workshops with the agricultural community to look at ways to preserve fish and keep frost protection available.
However, the upcoming Jan. 19 meeting agenda proposes only a new regulation limiting the frost protection. The proposed regulation would declare that "any diversion of water from the Russian River stream system, including the pumping of closely connected groundwater, for purposes of frost protection between March 15 and June 1 that the (state water) board has determined to be significant shall be considered unreasonable and a violation of Water Code section 100."
In a letter to the state in December 2009, the county suggested that frost protection was not the cause of the 2008 die-off and that a cooperative organization known as the Upper Russian River Stewardship Alliance (URSA), was well on its way to providing solutions for the fish and the farmers and urged the state not to further regulate stream flows.
In the letter, the Board of Supervisors wrote that scientific studies have shown that flows out of Coyote Dam over the years have contributed to problems like streambed reshaping that harm fish stocks and that "direct diversion for frost protection did not cause these problems and a ban on direct diversion will not prevent them. It must be understood that conditions in the tributaries are highly variable and the blanket imposition of policies may have little or no benefit to listed species, yet have severe consequences for the regulated community."
