State may approve farm water runoff cleanup
Alex Breitler
The Modesto Bee
04/06/2011
State water cops may approve a long-term plan Thursday to clean up runoff
from millions of acres of farmland, despite the fact that after seven years of
testing, they don't know if a similar existing program has led to widespread
water-quality improvement.
The infamous "ag waiver" allows tens of thousands of farmers to join
coalitions rather than obtain individual wastewater discharge permits, as
factories, businesses and cities must do.
The coalitions sample for pollutants such as pesticides, bacteria and heavy
metals including copper and arsenic. They share results with the state, then
encourage upstream growers to clean up the water draining from their fields.
The long-term program would keep the coalitions indefinitely, with some
changes.
Farmers say the proposal, which would require them for the first time to
monitor pollution leaching into groundwater, is too strict. Environmentalists
say it's too lenient.
Either way, it may be awfully expensive, with estimates ranging from $200
million to $1.3 billion per year — most of that cost tied to growers' projects
to improve water quality.
While the debate goes on, pollution persists in Northern San Joaquin Valley
streams.
"It's difficult to just say, 'Have things improved, or have they not?' " said
Joe Karkoski, with the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. "I
would say it's too early to really quantify how much things have improved. We're
not seeing water quality getting worse."
The East San Joaquin Water Quality Coalition has been monitoring streams in
the area east of the San Joaquin River in Stanislaus, Merced and Madera
counties. It reported in January that seven waterways of concern "are now
showing very few to no exceedances since 2009, after coalition representatives
held more than 115 individual grower visits."
A growers' coalition representing parts of San Joaquin, Alameda, Contra Costa
and Calaveras counties says in its most recent monitoring report that while
"substantial improvement" has been found in many areas, water quality in most of
the region still is not protective of drinking water, agriculture, recreation
and aquatic life.
"We're doing a lot of outreach and education, and evaluation of farms in
areas where we know there are water-quality issues," said Mike Wackman, a
spokesman for the San Joaquin County and Delta Water Quality Coalition. "And
we're having impacts. We're noticing guys are using less chemicals in those
watersheds. They're changing some of their practices — we're changing the
culture."
Wackman said many meetings have been held with growers encouraging them to
manage runoff by installing newer irrigation systems, or capturing runoff and
pumping it back for reuse on the same fields.
Environmentalists dislike the coalitions as a whole, saying the groups shield
individual farmers and fail to hold them accountable for pollution they
discharge.
The end result is a "license to pollute that, like the current program, does
not mandate that any farmer reduce or eliminate a single molecule of pollution
in their discharges," the Stockton-based California Sportfishing Protection
Alliance said in comments to the state.
