Water Board Extends Ag Waivers For Five Years

by Dan Bacher, The Fish Sniffer
Saturday Jun 24th, 2006. The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board voted on June 22 to extend waivers for discharges from irrigated farm land for five years, in spite of pleas from a coalition of anglers, farmworkers and environmental justice advocates to subject agribusiness to the same general discharge permit that others have to abide by.

That waiver adopted in July 2003 provided for the establishment of voluntary coalitions of farmers to tackle agricultural pollution. Unlike industry, businesses and municipalities, agricultural discharges have been unregulated and not subject to regulation by general waste discharge permits. This has allowed agribusiness to pollute Central Valley waterways with a toxic brew of pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and sediment.

Fishing, farmworker and environmental groups were encouraged somewhat that the board built more accountability into the waiver process by requiring the submission of an electronic list of the members of the coalitions. The room, with a capacity for 205, was completely filled, and people had to go into an adjoining room to watch the video of the meeting.

In addition, the Board Executive Officer, at her discretion, may ask for maps delineating the participants and non-participants in the coalitions. The time line for joining up with a coalition is now December 31 - and after that the individual dischargers would be subject to individual permits.

Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, felt the requiring of discharger lists was a good first step, but was very concerned about the lack of enforcement teeth and accountability in the waiver.

“I'm glad that the board finally required identification of people in the coalitions,” said Jennings. “However, the waiver doesn't require a management plan and go far enough. The big question is how are the water standards going to be addressed when pollution problems are found.”

Likewise, Carrie McNeill, the Deltakeeper, felt that requiring membership lists of the farmers involved in the coalitions was “great.” However, she emphasized that the waiver process isn't the same as a genuine regulatory process.

“They are saying they are going to take baby steps when we have a major ecosystem crisis, with a food chain collapse in the Delta while the groundwater is not fit to drink in many Central Valley communities,” said Carrie McNeill, the Delta keepers.

McNeill, Jennings, Susana de Anda of Asociacíon de Gente Unida por el Agua,
Laurel Firestone of the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment, Mindy McIntire of the Planning and Conservation League and many others described the waiver program as a big failure, emphasized that virtually no improvements had been made since the waiver program had gone into effect.

In fact, in the past three years, the situation in the Central Valley and Delta has become increasingly worse, including the documentation by federal and state scientists of a food chain crash on the Delta, the listing of the green sturgeon under the Endangered Species Act, and increasing reports of groundwater and wells polluted by pesticides and fertilizers.

On the other hand, some farmers at the hearing, though happy that the Board approved a waiver rather than a general waste discharge, were upset that the board had decided to introduced a limited amount of accountability into the waiver program by requiring the coalitions supposedly monitoring and dealing with agricultural pollution to maintain membership lists.

The Board's staff and Central Valley farmers tried to portray the waiver program to date as some sort of success, although state agencies have documented increases - rather than decreases - in the use of toxic chemicals and their presence in Valley waterways. For example. California Department of Pesticide Regulation found pesticides present in 96 percent of the water sites tested, while farm pollutants have been found in drinking supplies for 16.5 million Californians in 46 counties.

“The most appropriate, effective means for regulating irrigated land impacts on surface and groundwater is a general order of waste discharge requirements like all other industries,” was the recommendation of the Bay Keeper, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and California Coastkeeper Alliance.

The turnout by fishing, farm worker and environmental groups was very impressive. Before the meeting, a coalition of over 130 organizations submitted a strongly worded letter to the board calling on them to submit agriculture to general waste discharge permits. Also, around 80 people holding signs held a rally outside of the meeting room before they went in to testify about the impact of toxics on fish and other aquatic life, ground water and the health of rural communities.

Dozens of members of farmworkers and family members took the day off to testify to the dramatic impact that polluted runoff from pesticides and fertilizers has had on drinking water supplies and the health of thousands of rural Californians. Fertilizers have leached into groundwater, causing high levels of nitrate contamination in the drinking water supply over much of the Central Valley.

“Our communities are the ones who are paying the costs of this waiver,” said Ruth Martinez, a Ducor Water Board representative and member of Asociacíon de Gente Unida por el Agua (AGUA), a grassroots coalition of communities who traveled over 600 miles to protest the agricultural waiver.

“We pay while they poison us,” she said as she held up a bottle of brown, disgusting looking groundwater from the Ducor water supply. “We pay for drinking water that has been poisoned by these agricultural companies. Then, we pay even more money for bottled water because we can't drink our tap water. And then we have to live with the rashes, the hair loss and the threat to our health.”

Other farmworkers testified to the alarming rate of cancer in many rural communities. Many communities, such McFarland in the San Joaquin Valley, are considered “cancer clusters” because of the abnormal rate of cancer and birth defects caused by agricultural contamination of groundwater supplies.

Fishing groups testified to the impact that agricultural pollution was having on them. “Dirty, unclean water from agricultural waste water is killing people, fish and animals,” said Bob Strickland, president of United Anglers of California. “With the decimation of the food chain, fish species in the Delta are crashing and pollution has been shown to be one of the major causes. Please help us get this water cleaned up by not approving the waivers for another five years. Every farmer should take responsibility to help protect our resources.”

David Nesmith of the Environmental Water Caucus summed up his feelings about the meeting:

“The Board seems bent on ignoring California clean water requirements when agriculture is the major polluter of the Delta and pollution is one of the three main causes of the Delta food chain decline,” he said. “The way the board approaches this problem denies the reality of the people being hurt by the pollution. Being in the hearing room was an Orwellian and Kafkaesque experience; the Board says they are enforcing the law when breaking it and says they're improving water quality when they're making it worse.”

The California Highway Patrol was there in force with five officers, adding to the Orwellian, Kafkaesque atmosphere of the hearing. One officer claimed that the rally outside the board hearing office was illegal because the environmental justice advocates had no permit and the signs were of an “illegal size.” Nonetheless, clean water advocates weren't intimidated and held a brief rally, proudly displaying their signs in opposition to the waiver.

For more information, contact:
Carrie McNeil, Deltakeeper Ch. Of Baykeeper, 916-952-2185
Bill Jennings, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, 209-938-9053
Susana de Anda, Asociacíon de Gente Unida por el Agua, 661-586-2611
Laurel Firestone, Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment, 661-586-2622
David Nesmith, California Environmental Water Caucus, 510-693-4979
Mindy McIntire, Planning and Conservation League, 916-541-8825