Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
September 12, 2007
4. Water Quality
PERCHLORATE:
WELL WATER:
District OKs well water treatment - San Bernardino Sun
PLANNING ISSUES:
Supervisors to study sewer plan - Stockton Record
SLUDGE DISPOSAL:
Supervisors OK disposal of sludge at area landfill - Ventura County Star
AG ISSUES:
Tainted Greens; E. coli panic puts farmers in the crossfire - California Coast and Ocean
PERCHLORATE:
By Jason Pesick, staff writer
The contamination is not new nor has an emergency been officially declared, but
It found its way into the groundwater from the past manufacturing at industrial facilities of military rockets, fireworks and other explosives.
On Aug. 29, members of the City Council met in
Dunmoyer suggested that
"It's the only way we can get emergency funds from the governor. We have to do it," said City Councilman Ed Scott, concerning the possible declaration of a state of emergency.
Scott is a member of the council's perchlorate subcommittee.
The council will likely vote at its next meeting on whether to declare the emergency, he said.
Perchlorate, which could cause a number of health effects by interfering with the thyroid, has been flowing through
It could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up.
The contamination has generated more attention in
The city laid out its funding request in a letter to Cindy Tuck, undersecretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency.
The city would use the money to stop the perchlorate from continuing to move through the
Much of the money
The city wants to use the state money to gather that information, Scott said.
Then
"We are seeking an emergency cleanup while we urge the state to toughen its enforcement effort against the (potentially responsible parties)," reads the letter, signed by Scott and Councilwoman Winnie Hanson, the other member of the perchlorate subcommittee.
In another move that could provide Rialto with millions of dollars in cleanup money, the state Assembly last week amended legislation, which had already passed in the Senate, to provide about $50 million in remaining Proposition 84 money for drinking water cleanup.
The money set aside by the Assembly amendment should go to the poorest, most populated and most contaminated areas, said Alicia Trost, a spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland.
Perata wrote the original bill.
"So
Scott said he hopes
Both Assembly chambers were expected to vote on the legislation during an all-night session on Tuesday. #
WELL WATER:
District OKs well water treatment
By Joe Nelson, staff writer
It will cost about $285,000 to install the water treatment equipment and about $680,000 a year to treat the contaminated water. About 1,500 acre-feet of water will be treated each year at a cost of $453 per acre foot, said Robert Martin, general manager for the East Valley Water District.
In about two months, Rancho Cucamonga-based Basin Water, Inc. will begin installing two water treatment units resembling large cargo containers at the well near
A salt tank used to regenerate resins and two brine tanks to filter waste products from the treated water will also be installed, Martin said.
Perchlorate - a chemical found rockets, airbags, fireworks, and Chilean fertilizers - has been discovered in drinking water throughout areas of
Between August 2002 and August 2007, 251 wells statewide were reported as having perchlorate at a level of four parts per billion or higher. Of those, 114 were in
The state is working on setting a standard of six parts per billion. Perchlorate at higher levels found in drinking water would be deemed unsafe for consumption.
Martin said the plan is to have the water treatment system on line by the end of the year.
"We'll have to go out and pour some concrete pads for the units," Martin said, adding that the cost could be levied against the district's budget for next year. But customers shouldn't see any immediate rate increases to their water bills.
In other water district news, the board voted 4-0, with board member Don Goodin absent, to hire a
The board wants to be more vocal in legislative issues pertaining to water regulation.
With this year's legislative session wrapping up, the immediate goal of the water district, Martin said, was to work with the lobbying firm in organizing meetings with Assembly members, Senators and their staffs to get to know one another.
Then it will come time to dive into any existing rules and regulations from the state Air Quality Control Board, the Water Resources Control Board and the Department of Public Health, which oversee water regulation in
http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_6867235
PLANNING ISSUES:
Supervisors to study sewer plan
SAN ANDREAS - Fears that a sewer capacity crisis will stop virtually all growth in San Andreas prompted
Large developers, including the proponent of the 130-home Saddleback Hills project proposed at the south end of town, are willing to front the money for a sewer plant expansion but won't send a check to the San Andreas Sanitary District until their projects are approved by the county. And at least at the moment, the Calaveras County Community Development Agency is unwilling to put projects up for approval when sewer capacity isn't yet built for them.
"We do not believe that is prudent," Community Development Agency Director Stephanie Moreno said.
Saddleback Hills developer Bill Rodriguez said the problem could be solved by requiring that his project have sewer service available before lots or homes are sold. "It's very simple language," Rodriguez said.
Supervisors scheduled a study session for Sept. 25. #
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070912/A_NEWS/70911020
SLUDGE DISPOSAL:
Supervisors OK disposal of sludge at area landfill
By Tony Biasotti, staff writer
The Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a scaled-down version of a facility that would treat and dispose of processed sewage waste at Toland Road Landfill near
The Ventura Regional Sanitation District, which owns and operates the landfill, would be able to treat up to 265 tons a day of sewage sludge — the material left after sewage is treated at a wastewater treatment plant.
The district had asked for permission to treat twice that much.
According to the approval granted Tuesday, the district would have to return to the Board of Supervisors for a separate approval to expand the capacity to 530 tons.
The supervisors said they would approve the second phase if the Sanitation District runs the facility successfully and without environmental violations for two years.
The sludge, sometimes referred to as biosolids, will be taken to Toland Road Landfill in trucks from sewage plants throughout the county. It will be dried in covered hoppers until the water content is down to about 25 percent. The final product will then be used to cover part of the exposed portion of the landfill, and the water that's released will be used to keep dust down.
Proponents say it's the most environmentally sound way of disposing of sludge. It would save energy, because the sludge-drying equipment would be powered with electricity generated by gases coming from the landfill.
It would also eliminate the need for about 1 million miles a year of truck trips, because most
"This is a good green solution at a time when we need green solutions," Supervisor Steve Bennett said.
Opponents of the project, most of them residents of the surrounding area, said it would pose an unacceptable risk of contamination to neighboring fields and orchards.
The Board of Supervisors first considered the proposal in July. The supervisors seemed ready to approve it but tabled the matter at the request of Supervisor Kathy Long, whose district includes the
On Tuesday, Long put forward a motion to deny an approval, but withdrew it when she saw it had no support. Instead, she insisted on a number of conditions, including the requirement to build the facility in two phases.
The review after Phase One will give the public another chance to evaluate the project, she said.
"I believe there's no question there's a significant part of this county that hasn't been included in the regional dialogue," Long said, referring to residents of nearby Fillmore and
Cities in
A voter initiative that would have banned the practice passed in 2006, though it was overturned in court last month.
Despite the recent ruling that allows sludge importing, for now, representatives of
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/sep/12/supervisors-ok-disposal-of-sludge-at-area/
AG ISSUES:
Tainted Greens; E. coli panic puts farmers in the crossfire
By Carl Nagin, Berkeley-based reporter
Late in August 2006, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in
Bacteria in stool samples of hospitalized patients were genetically matched to pathogens in pre-packaged, "ready to eat" Dole brand spinach that they had recently purchased and consumed. Further, product codes on the bags indicated that the contaminated greens had been processed during one shift on August 15 at a plant then owned and operated by Natural Selection Foods. The company's records showed that the spinach had been harvested from four fields in
Just how the spinach became contaminated and where in the process from field to package the bacteria originated will probably never be known. An investigative report released last March by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could make "no definitive determination" as to "how E. coli 0157:H7 pathogens contaminated spinach in
this outbreak."
The consequences of the crisis fell heavily on
The farmers' predicament is jeopardizing the future of sustainable agriculture and of the habitat and clean water it supports, according to the Nature Conservancy's Monterey Project Director Chris Fischer: "Farmers and conservationists in California have been working together for more than 20 years to develop practices that help protect water quality and wildlife habitat, but since last fall, farmers have been under enormous pressure from their buyers to go the other direction," she said. "To stay in business, they are being forced to build miles of fences along streams, cut down trees, and bulldoze ponds. Some actions, like creating bare-earth buffers along waterways, may actually increase the risk of contamination downstream."
Search for the Source
The E. coli outbreak of August 2006 was "one of the worst ever reported in produce," stated a 2006 "Critical Issues" report by the nonprofit
Hank Giclas, vice president for science and technology for Western Growers, a produce industry group, remembered the day the nation's spinach industry was shut down. "I was in my office, and we were frantically summoned to a conference call with FDA officials. Their advisory took everyone by surprise. It was an unprecedented action. They'd never before issued any kind of blanket 'Do not consume spinach' warning. The industry ground to a halt."
Members of Western Growers in
On September 20, five weeks after the Natural Selection Foods plant had processed the spinach for Dole, FDA investigators began taking soil and water samples from four of the ranches where it had been grown and harvested. Samples from one ranch in
Whatever the origin and pathways of the outbreak, the washing procedures at the processing plant failed to eliminate the pathogens, and its quality assurance protections failed to detect it after the processing. The FDA report was heavily redacted for "proprietary reasons," advantageous to Natural Selection Foods' operators, who were quick to divert attention back to the fields and away from the manufacturing end.
In an October 15, 2006 article in the New York Times ("The Vegetable-Industrial Complex"), author Michael Pollan, who has written widely about food and its production, noted that "a great deal of spinach from a great many fields gets mixed together in the water at that plant, giving microbes from a single field an opportunity to contaminate a vast amount of food. The plant in question washes 26 million servings of salad every week. In effect, we're washing the whole nation's salad in one big sink."
The FDA, which is responsible for safeguarding 80 percent of the nation's food supply, had known about contamination problems in spinach and other Central Coast and Salinas Valley produce for years. Over the last decade, nine other E. coli outbreaks associated with the area's leafy greens had been documented. Prior warnings from the FDA and the California Department of Public Health included letters to
However, the FDA has little enforcement authority over the food industry, in contrast with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which monitors and regulates meat, poultry, and eggs. The USDA has onsite inspectors at the nation's slaughterhouses with the authority to shut them down if they fail inspections. The FDA's food safety oversight has been the target of intense criticism from congressional critics, including John Dingell (D-MI), chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and from advocacy groups who complain about its coziness with the produce industry. The FDA's inspection capacity has been decimated by budget cuts in recent years. Between 2003 and 2006, the number of safety tests for U.S.-produced food decreased nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 to 2,455, according to FDA statistics. Last April, Robert E. Brackett, director of the FDA's food safety division, told the Washington Post that he believes manufacturers are better equipped to "build safety into their products rather than us chasing after them."
Industry Shapes a Safety Plan
Immediately following the outbreak, prompted by the FDA and
The Secretary for Food and Agriculture, A.G. Kawamura, is a past president of Western Growers. Last February, he appointed an advisory board for the marketing agreement composed almost exclusively of representatives from the bigger "handlers"—those who process, package, ship, and distribute leafy green products. Conservation groups and resource agencies that had been working for years with Central Coast farmers had complained from the outset that the Western Growers' initiative was a closed-door process designed to serve the interests of handlers and big buyers. California Certified Organic Farmers, one of the nation's oldest and largest certifiers of organic produce, criticized the "lack of transparency in the process."
When word got out about some of the measures proposed in discussions, such as plowing up riparian buffers, eliminating wildlife, and erecting high fences around fields, alarm spread through the farming, regulatory, and conservation communities.
On October 25, 2006, Roger W. Briggs, executive officer of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB), aired his agency's concerns in a letter to Brackett at the FDA, with copies sent to Giclas at Western Growers and other industry groups. The emerging guidelines (known variously as metrics and GAPs—good agricultural practices), "may conflict with the [RWQCB's] mission to protect water quality and may increase water quality violations in farming areas," Briggs wrote. "We are aware of concerns that riparian or on-farm vegetation may attract wildlife that may spread the 0157:H7 E. coli, but are not aware of any research to support those concerns." He requested a meeting with the FDA and the opportunity "to review any future proposed food safety guidelines or suggested farm practices that may affect water quality."
Almost three months later, on January 10, 2007, with Briggs still awaiting a response to his letter, the water board's chairman, Jeffrey Young, wrote to CDFA and Western Growers, noting that 92 percent of the region's total irrigated acreage—including all the acreage farmed by the large growers of leafy greens—was enrolled in collaborative programs designed to improve water quality. "We know that vegetated conservation practices are among the most effective tools for protecting and improving water quality," Young wrote. "Millions of federal and state taxpayer dollars have been invested in researching and promoting conservation practices, and in assisting farmers in implementing such practices." He warned that a "major accomplishment on the part of the agricultural industry" was now at risk.
Not until after Young's letter, as well as letters from the EPA, the Department of Commerce, and other agencies were fired off, did Western Growers respond to these concerns. It amended an early draft of the marketing agreement to incorporate the conservation concerns and comments of resource agencies, including this language:
Fencing, vegetation removal, and destruction of habitat may result in adverse impacts to the environment. Potential adverse impacts include loss of habitat to beneficial insects and pollinators; wildlife loss; increased discharges of sediment and other pollutants resulting from the loss of vegetative filtering; and increased air quality impacts if bare soil is exposed to wind. It is recommended that producers check for local, state, and federal laws and regulations that protect riparian habitat, restrict removal of vegetation or habitat, or restrict construction of wildlife deterrent fences in riparian areas or wildlife corridors.
The Marketing Agreement addresses a wide range of food safety issues, including sanitizing farm equipment; preventing transfer of pathogens from field workers; wildlife encroachments from deer, goats, pigs, cattle, and sheep; soil amendments; and water usage. (See Western Growers' website, www.wga.com, for the June 2007 draft.)
Among those who thought that the agreement fell short of what was necessary was Dr. Charles Benbrook of the Organic Institute, who sent comments to Western Growers, some of which, he acknowledges, were adopted in various drafts of the agreement. But Benbrook found the document remains most seriously flawed with respect to water testing requirements. The required test is based on the wrong organism, and the standard applied to testing for E. coli in irrigation water is "unscientific and indefensible," because it relies on "an outmoded recreational water quality risk assessment" from the mid-1980s used by the EPA to test swimming water, he states in a June, 2007 report, "Unfinished Business: Preventing E. Coli 0157 Outbreaks in Leafy Greens" (available at www.organic-center.org).
The metrics do not require testing irrigation water specifically for E. coli 0157, only for generic E. coli, Benbrook states. He concludes: "Water with detectable levels of E. coli 0157 should not be used to irrigate leafy greens. Period."
Numerous phone calls to Hank Giclas of Western Growers asking for comment went unaswered.
The Marketing Agreement went into effect last April, and as of June, 111 produce handlers, who process nearly all the leafy greens produced in California, have signed on to it. However, the conflict over ways to ensure safety is far from over, and farmers are hard-pressed in its midst. Some major handlers and contractors who have signed the agreement, including packaged salad giant Fresh Express, are individually demanding that farmers take additional safety measures, including some that have little science or common sense behind them.
No Dogs No Frogs
Fresh Express, purchased in 2005 for $855 million by Chiquita Brands International, is the nation's top producer of packaged salads, producing 40 percent of those sold in supermarkets. Last year the company processed 1.2 billion pounds of raw lettuce and spinach. Although it signed the Western Growers agreement in April, Fresh Express has its own far more demanding requirements for greens it buys.
Jim Lugg, senior food safety scientist with Fresh Express, has worked with the Salinas-based company since 1963. He said the company supplies growers with its own set of field management guidelines and good agricultural practices, but would not provide me with these, saying they are a "proprietary document protected by copyright." Instead, he referred me to an October 23, 2006 article in USA Today ("Fresh Express leads the pack in produce safety") that outlines some general requirements.
According to this article, Fresh Express will not accept produce from fields grown within a mile of a cattle feed lot or dairy operation, or if they are within 150 yards of rivers or habitats that attract wildlife. Fields that show evidence of wild pig visitation cannot be harvested for two years. The company also demands fences and rodent traps every 50 feet around field perimeters.
"If we find animal tracks in a field," Lugg told me, "then we don't believe that the product is safe to harvest." That means, he said, any animals—from frogs to dogs. "We don't like to see animals in a field of lettuce. We don't think people like the idea." Asked if this were more about cosmetic issues than food safety, he replied: "What you need to realize is that many more bovine intestines have been studied than mice to see if they are carriers of E. coli. Maybe mice and kangaroo rats are just as risky as large animals." He added that among studies the company has funded is one to examine whether insects are disseminating 0157.
Asked whether he had talked with environmental agencies about the impact of Fresh Express food safety guidelines on riparian habitats in the
Steve Church is a co-owner of the Salinas-based Church Brothers, a large grower, shipper, and processing company known for its True Leaf Farms brand. Shortly after the outbreak, Church Brothers announced that it would install six miles of additional fencing around its lots "to prevent any wildlife intrusion into our fields." In late May, the company announced a price increase of 20 cents per package on all True Leaf and Church Brothers produce. It justified the increase as a cost of its new food safety measures, including fencing. Steve Church is a member of the California Leafy Green Handler Marketing Board, which makes recommendations to the secretary of agriculture and the CDFA on the operation of Western Growers' Marketing Agreement and the inspection program intended to give it teeth.
I asked Church about the apparent contradiction between the Marketing Agreement and Fresh Express's more aggressive stance toward fencing and wildlife.
"We [Church Brothers] adhere to Fresh Express guidelines," he said. "You gotta do that if you want to be a vendor, or not sell to them. If you grow for Fresh Express, you're more limited in the land you can use. Their recommendations go beyond the agreement."
Farmers in the Crossfire
Bob Martin, a past president of the Monterey County Farm Bureau, is general manager of Rio Farms, one of the largest growers and employers in
"I grow for several different companies, and each one is requiring a different level of compliance," he said. "They're fighting for customer bases in the big box stores, Costco and Wal-Mart. They're battling for those accounts by saying 'My product is safer than yours.'"
"I understand we have to get consumers' confidence back," he continued. "Spinach sales haven't recovered. We're only selling 75–80 percent of our produce, and bagged salads have taken a big hit. But a lot of this is all smoke and mirrors. We need good solid research that will tighten up some of these metrics. How long does the bacterium survive in soil? In water? Are deer really an issue? How far will E. coli 0157:H7 travel in the wind? People are looking for answers."
Last April, speaking at a conference on water quality and food safety in
Safeguards or Marketing Ploys?
The crisis has everyone involved in the leafy greens business, especially farmers, on high alert—and nervous. "Maybe some of these things we should have been doing years ago," said a
Kirk Schmidt, executive director of the nonprofit Central Coast Water Quality Preservation, Inc., which is involved in environmental monitoring and helping farmers preserve water quality, believes that the debate over safety measures for leafy greens is being driven by people who work in risk management and the legal departments of the big producers and supermarket chains—people "who don't understand that crops are grown outside in the dirt." That's bad news for water quality and sustainable agriculture in the
Liability, along with branding and creating a positive image for produce, is not a trivial concern for big handlers and packagers like Dole and Fresh Express, which together control 90 percent of the retail market for packaged salads, according to the Produce Marketing Association. The
Amidst all the distress and anger in the farming community, Martin relies on caution and vigilance. "I look to our work force," he said, "anyone in the field. The awareness of employees is so heightened that I think if it had been at that level before, this wouldn't have happened. They see a deer—they bring it to the managers' attention. They find lettuce with bird poop on it—where before they might have just taken off the leaf, now they drop it."
Fencing the River
In June, I drove with Martin along a stretch of the
Deer were not implicated in the FDA's March 21, 2007 investigative report on the matter, which focused on cows and feral pigs roaming the ranches close to the suspect spinach plots and on conditions at the processing plant. The fencing I saw going up along river corridors of south Monterey County, much of it visible only from secondary roads, runs about $5 per foot, Martin said, or $45,000 per mile. For the bigger growers that can add up to $150,000 in new costs, not a penny of which will be paid for by their buyers and contractors, who now require it.
A boom in orders for fencing and rodent traps is part of the new world of clean farming around King City, where, as Martin points out, none of the nine E. coli outbreaks associated with Salinas Valley agriculture in the last decade have occurred. It is hotter here, he explains, and one thing scientists do know about E. coli is that, airborne, it's very unstable: It can be irradiated and neutralized by sunlight and hot winds.
Terry Palmisano, a senior wildlife biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game, warns that food safety concerns have the potential to create a 100-mile stretch of fencing on both sides of the river. If that happens, "you lose that as a corridor, a way for wildlife to come down out of the hills and cross the river," she said. "And when it floods, the wildlife can't escape."
That view was supported in a U.C. Santa Cruz research brief published in fall 2006 by the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. Citing more than 80 studies, it noted that removing vegetation-based practices such as filter and contour buffer strips, grassed waterways, vegetative barriers, and constructed wetlands, "would not only reverse progress towards addressing water quality issues, but could also potentially increase the presence and transport of pathogens." Although food safety and environmental protection are interconnected, the research brief argued, they are now on a collision course in the
"Millions of dollars of taxpayer money have been invested in helping farmers develop sustainable agriculture and address non-point source pollution," said Jovita Pajarillo, associate director of EPA's Region 9 water division. "Now we're hearing horror stories about growers going out with bulldozers to remove hedgerows. You can't blame them; they've lost millions. But such practices may result in an enforcement action against them because of water quality concerns."
Pajarillo works with the California Roundtable, a coalition of environmental groups and agencies that, along with food safety and agricultural industry representatives, is trying to address the conflict. They hope to bring the major buyers to the table and begin a dialogue. So far that hasn't happened.
"I see both sides digging in their heels," said Michael Payne of the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at U.C. Davis. "What's needed here is common sense and individualized risk assessment for a particular farm. . . . Some practices are no-brainers, and others we don't have research on." Payne hopes the money that industry is now pouring into the Institute's research will help it become a meeting ground.
Dr. Benbrook was less enthusiastic about the priorities of the industry-funded research. "Are people being honest about what farmers need to do?" he asked. "I'm not super-impressed with the lack of focus on critical variables such as managing cow manure. There's been a systematic effort to leave the cattle industry out of the dialogue. 'Let's not look under that rock.' And that's ridiculous. . . . There's no feral pig lobby, and pigs are a convenient scapegoat for this. Let's learn something new about this bacterium [E. coli 0157:H7] and find some different ways to prevent and deal with it."
The science of how E. coli gets into produce is still in its infancy. According to Linda Harris, a U.C. Davis food safety researcher, "It's less than a decade old." She believes that "we will never eliminate food-borne illness entirely." Meanwhile, the conflict between food safety and environmental protection has left
If and when the next outbreak occurs, will the onus again be put on them?
Carl Nagin is a Berkeley-based reporter whose work has appeared in the New Yorker and on the PBS documentary series Frontline. #
http://www.coastandocean.org/coast_v23_no2_2007/articles/tainted_greens_01.htm
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