Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
June 19, 2007
4. Water Quality -
Suit seeks tougher rules on farm runoff -
Sacramento
Environmentalists' lawsuit targets water board's 'ag waiver'
Stockton
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Suit seeks tougher rules on farm runoff
Sacramento
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg - Bee Staff Writer
The suit, filed in Sacramento Superior Court, argues that the current program has been ineffective and violates state and federal clean water laws.
At stake is how to manage runoff from roughly 7 million acres of farmlands, from rice fields to orchards, in the
Runoff from those lands has been called the biggest unregulated source of water pollution in the state, bearing pesticides, fertilizers, salts and other chemicals toward fragile rivers and ultimately the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Since 2003, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has been trying to manage farm pollution through a program of waivers that it hopes will quantify and fix a problem that's been building for decades.
"A common fallacy is that we're waiving a permit," but in fact the waivers give the board more flexibility to impose rules on farmers than a permit would, said Ken Landau, the board's assistant executive officer.
It hasn't worked, said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, which joined the Baykeeper group in suing the water board.
"Over the last three years of the waiver, farmers cannot identify a single pound of pollution they've reduced," said
It is true that there have been some start-up problems with the self-monitoring called for under the waivers, but those problems are being addressed, said Parry Klassen, executive director of the East San Joaquin Water Quality Coalition. His group is one of several formed to measure pollutants and then work with the water board on potential solutions.
"Some of these folks would like us to go from zero to 100 mph immediately and that is not possible," Klassen said.#
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/229692.html
Environmentalists' lawsuit targets water board's 'ag waiver'
By Alex Breitler
Tens of thousands of farms are illegally exempt from laws requiring the monitoring and reporting of toxic water runoff, environmental groups said in a lawsuit filed Monday.
The lawsuit targets the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board's "ag waiver" program, which allows farmers to join coalitions rather than test their own runoff.
Millions of pounds of pesticides and fertilizers are applied to these farmers' lands, later washing into creeks and streams and, ultimately, into the Delta. There, the toxins imperil threatened fish such as the Delta smelt, environmentalists say.
What it means
• The lawsuit filed Monday targets an "ag waiver" program that allows farmers to avoid individually monitoring and reporting toxins in the water discharged from their lands.
• Under the program, many farmers join coalitions and pay a fee "” $1.75 per acre in
• Critics say there is no evidence that the waivers have improved water quality and coalitions are a shield protecting farmers from clean water laws.
They first sued in 2003, when the waiver program began. That lawsuit was dismissed. The waivers were extended last year, and a new lawsuit was filed Monday in Sacramento County Superior Court by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and San Francisco-based Baykeeper.
Water officials still don't know the answers to basic questions, the lawsuit says, such as how many discharges are taking place, which chemicals and how much of them are released into the environment, and whether the coalitions have made any improvement in water quality.
"These coalitions are not responsible," said Sejal Choksi, program director for Baykeeper. "They're a shield or a cover to (farmers) not being held individually accountable."
Farmers' advocates called the latest lawsuit a "frustration."
Coalitions allow farmers to avoid a costly sampling, monitoring and reporting process that can approach $30,000 to $40,000 per year, said Mike Wackman, a consultant who represents the
About 80 percent to 85 percent of the irrigated farms in this area belong to that coalition, which charges farmers $1.75 per acre for water-quality monitoring services, he said.
"The coalition is trying to make the program work," Wackman said. "Now we're getting sued again."
The coalition conducts testing of farmers' runoff and talks to growers about ways to lessen their impact on water quality, such as avoiding the use of certain pesticides when a coming storm is likely to wash them into waterways.
"I think we're moving ahead and doing pretty well," Wackman said.
The lawsuit claims that extending the waivers last year violated state environmental law as the Delta's ecosystem sinks from "bad to catastrophically bad." Record-low numbers of smelt have been surveyed this spring, triggering a shutdown of the state's water export pumps near
Regional Water Quality Control Board officials could not be reached for comment Monday.#
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070619/A_NEWS/706190321
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