[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATER QUALITY -11/7/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

November 7, 2007

 

4. Water Quality

 

REGULATION:

Cargill to pay fine for toxic brine spill - San Jose Mercury News

 

AG POLLUTION ISSUES:

Guest Column: Ag industry gets bad rap over water pollution issues - Western Farm Press

 

 

REGULATION:

Cargill to pay fine for toxic brine spill

San Jose Mercury News – 11/7/07

By Paul Rogers, staff writer

 

Cargill Salt has agreed to pay $228,000 to settle charges that it violated state water pollution laws last year after spilling 218,000 gallons of toxic brine into the marshes along San Francisco Bay near Fremont.

 

The toxic spill, Cargill's sixth in or around the bay since 1999, killed fish and plants in the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

 

The spill occurred on Aug. 3, 2006. That morning, a Cargill employee began pumping bittern, a byproduct of salt making that is up to 10 times as salty as the ocean and potentially lethal to fish, shrimp and other aquatic life, eastward from Redwood City through a pipe across the bay to a Cargill site in Newark.

 

The employee hadn't realized that a valve in the pipe was closed, said Alyce Sandbach, a deputy Alameda County district attorney who filed six civil charges against the company.

 

Pressure in the pipe built up, but the employee had gone on to other tasks and hadn't noticed, she said. A section of the 16-inch pipe blew out, allowing bittern to pour for nearly two hours into the Newark marsh.

 

"The reason our office got involved is because there have been a number of incidents like this," Sandbach said. "These really seem like employee training issues that we needed to get Cargill's attention on."

 

After noticing the spill, Cargill called the Newark Fire Department and state and federal environmental agencies. The company sprayed 259,000 gallons of fresh water into the marsh to dilute the salty pollution, and then pumped 342,000 gallons off using vacuum trucks and portable pumps, records in the case show.

 

"It's a horrible thing to happen, but I was impressed by Cargill's response," said Clyde Morris, manager of the wildlife refuge.

 

"Bittern is very toxic."

 

Officials from the state Department of Fish and Game arrived that day, finding 191 dead fish and dead vegetation on 1.4 acres of the wildlife refuge near the east end of the Dumbarton Bridge.

 

"The company has put in place new protocols to prevent something like this from ever happening again," said John Barg, a San Francisco attorney who represented Cargill.

 

As part of the settlement, Cargill, an agribusiness giant based in Minneapolis, agreed to beef up training for its workers, hold annual spill drills with the Newark Fire Department and install alarms, sensors and automatic shutoff valves to its pipes.

 

"Cargill accepts responsibility even for unfortunate accidents like this," Barg added. "The settlement was fair."

 

The settlement was approved Oct. 23 between Cargill and the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.

 

Environmentalists said they were pleased with the outcome but troubled by Cargill's pattern of spills.

 

Since 1999, roughly 565,000 gallons of bittern - enough to fill 22 backyard swimming pools - and other toxic brines have spilled from Cargill pipes and rail cars into marshes, sloughs and the bay.

 

"Any bay polluter should be aggressively pursued to the full extent of the law," said David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay, based in Oakland. "Cargill is continuing to make salt around the bay. They have to protect the bay if they are going to be allowed to do that."

 

Using giant evaporation ponds, Cargill harvests salt around the bay for food, medicine and roads. In the past, the company has sold bittern as a road de-icer.

 

Included in the charges was another case, from June 2005, in which a Cargill worker, thinking a rail car was empty, opened a valve and spilled 17,650 gallons of bittern, nearly half of which poured into Barge Canal, which flows into Newark Slough and eventually San Francisco Bay.

 

In that incident, the company paid $71,000 last year to settle a case brought by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.

 

The other spills were:

 

• Sept. 17, 2002: A pipe failure spilled 37,000 gallons into the Newark Barge Canal.

• Feb. 25, 2000: Up to 3,000 gallons of bittern spilled into Newark Barge Canal from a rail car in a mishap Cargill blamed on vandalism.

• Feb. 3, 2000: High winds sent 3,000 gallons of brine from storage ponds into Mowry Slough.

• Oct. 17, 1999: A contractor with a backhoe broke a pipe, spilling 293,000 gallons of bittern into Newark slough.

 

Cargill gained national attention in 2003 when it sold 16,500 acres of land for $100 million in the South Bay to state and federal agencies to expand wildlife refuges. But it continues to make salt on other properties around the bay. #

http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_7392984

 

 

AG POLLUTION ISSUES:

Guest Column: Ag industry gets bad rap over water pollution issues

Western Farm Press – 11/7/07

By Richard Cornett, communications director for the Western Plant Health Association

 

There comes a time when outright untruths and misconceptions have to be dealt with head-on and in a very direct way.

 

Recent media statements that the agriculture industry is contributing to the pollution of California waterways — especially in the San Joaquin Delta — and that this alleged contamination is being ignored, or worse, consciously being propagated and covered up by state water officials, is a prime case in point.

 

A good example of this misinformation was evidenced in September when a Stockton publication ran a column titled “Pollution Law Soft on Ag Industry.”

 

The columnist accused farmers and large farming corporations of using political clout to bypass standard state regulations through the use of “waivers” that, in effect, allow nine farming coalitions to police themselves in monitoring and preventing water pollution. The article claimed that farmers continue to pollute freely and that state water authorities are not enforcing key aspects of water quality regulations.

 

The newspaper article missed the mark on several points and was outright wrong in others, perhaps because the reporter was simply uninformed about the details.

 

As recent as September, an important meeting was held in Clovis that consisted of officials from the State Water Resources Control Board, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, industry organizations, and California growers. The Western Plant Health Association, a trade group that represents crop protection interests in California, has been closely following the Irrigated Lands Program (ILP) that directly deals with water quality concerns. Furthermore, WPHA has been working very closely with production agriculture on the very issues the newspaper article mentioned.

 

Matters discussed at the Clovis meeting included coalition compliance with waiver conditions, water quality management plans, the Monitoring and Reporting Plan, and long-term planning goals in enhancing the water quality aspects in the Delta and other Central Valley waterways. This was a productive meeting and a good example that “things are being done” to deal with water pollution problems.

 

The Stockton article was wrong in several areas. First off, California agriculture under the ILP regulates the discharging of water and agriculture doesn’t have “a waiver from laws” that allows growers to freely pollute the landscape and river systems. With a “waiver” there are specific regulations and conditions that agriculture and water quality coalitions must follow. To imply as the writer did that this waiver somehow means growers are exempt from following regulations completely, is outright wrong. These regulations are enforced by the Central Valley Regional Water Board.

 

In another misstep, it is mentioned that the waiver is not protecting groundwater. It is true that coalition efforts are still focused on dealing with surface water, with plans to tackle groundwater in the very near future, but it must be noted that the California Department of Pesticide Regulation has had an active groundwater monitoring program in place for the past 20 years.

 

It is important to note that during the last three years the nine farming water coalitions charged with monitoring water quality have spent roughly $9.5 million on water monitoring, lab analyses, and grower outreach programs in best management practices to reduce the amount of discharged pollutants in California’s waterways.

 

In fact, this coalition water ombudsman group in California is the first such coalition in the nation to work together to monitor, enhance and improve water quality and reduce water pollution. But it doesn’t happen overnight. In just three years, the coalitions have developed a monitoring program that identifies water concerns and highlights successes of farmers who are keeping the waterways clean and pollution free.

 

The remark that the San Joaquin Delta has been damaged and compromised by agriculture pollution in our water systems is simplistic and the real issues are much more complex. Various factors are unfavorably influencing aquatic life and water clarity in the Delta, not the least of which is the loss of habitat, water diversions, the harm caused by invasive species and the natural act of competing for food.

 

Things are being done and the overall situation is improving, albeit at a pace that doesn’t satisfy everyone. But the industry is complying with laws and regulations as laid down by the Regional Water Quality Control Board and everyone involved will continue to work toward improving the state’s water quality. After all, it is in everyone’s best interest, and remember that farmers and their families also drink the water the rest of us do. #

http://westernfarmpress.com/news/110707-water-pollution/

####