Farmers who join a monitoring collective to guard against
groundwater pollution will pay lower discharge rates under a new
state program to prevent agriculture water runoff.
Later this month the State Water Resources Control Board is
expected to set fees at $100 plus 12 cents an acre for farmers who
participate in a collective monitoring program and $100 plus 30
cents an acre for those who don’t.
Hollister – Farmers who join a monitoring collective to guard against groundwater pollution will pay lower discharge rates under a new state program to prevent agriculture water runoff.
Later this month the State Water Resources Control Board is expected to set fees at $100 plus 12 cents an acre for farmers who participate in a collective monitoring program and $100 plus 30 cents an acre for those who don’t.
Mary Ellen Dick, a water quality coordinator with the Six County Agriculture Coalition, said the real savings will come later this year, when the state board announces monitoring fees, which could cost individual farmers as much $3,000 to $5,000 a year.
“It will ultimately be a lot less expensive,” Dick said of farmers who join a monitoring group. “Besides the fees, individuals will have to pay for water quality monitoring.”
Last July, the Central Coast Regional Water Resources Board adopted new rules – called a conditional waiver – governing discharge of fertilizers, pesticides, dirt and sediment, and other waste products from irrigated land. Farmers have until the end of 2007 to meet all of the new standards, but need to have already filed a notice of intent to participate.
Under the old waiver, which was instituted in 1983 and expired last year, farmers were required to meet certain water quality regulations, but there was no formal registration and there were no monitoring systems in place. It was essentially an honor system.
Alison Jones, an environmental scientist with the Regional Board, has said that her organization’s testing of the state’s watershed show high levels of nitrates, pesticides, fertilizers and sediment in surface water. Lower Salinas and the Pajaro River watershed are two particularly contaminated areas.
Jones said Wednesday that the board is still accepting enrollments and will notify farmers who are not in compliance in the next few months. Farmers not meeting standards are subject to fines dating back to January 1. Jones said that 60 to 70 percent of the land in the central coast region is in compliance.
“We have a ways to go, but it’s a good number,” she said.
The new waiver requires growers to complete 15 hours of water quality education, develop a water quality plan for their farms that addresses management of nutrients, pesticides, irrigation and erosion control. Plans need to have detailed maps showing slopes, ditches, rivers and creeks and other areas with runoff potential, and the practices used to control erosion.
Area farmers can attend classes on four Wednesday evenings, from 5:30 to 8:30pm, beginning June 1. Classes for ranch land will run four Wednesdays, from 5:30 to 8:30pm, beginning July 20. For more information contact the Santa Clara County Farm Bureau at
fa*****@sc***********.org
.
Matt King covers Santa Clara County for The Dispatch. Reach him at 847-7240 or
mk***@gi************.com
.
