September-October 2008

Cultivating Coalitions

Addressing irrigation and agricultural runoff in California’s central valley

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“We grow everything—from table grapes to canning tomatoes,” says Mike Wade, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition (CFWC)—a not-for-profit farm advocacy group representing irrigated agriculture in California. “During some seasons, 100% of the iceberg lettuce sold in the nation’s supermarkets comes from Fresno County.”

According to Wade, the Central Valley is home to over 300 commercially grown crops.

Thanks to irrigation, “The growing season runs almost the entire year,” says Chris White, general manager for the Central California Irrigation District (CCID). “Farming has a long history here, using probably every irrigation system known to man.”

With the Central Valley’s sunny Mediterranean climate and paltry nine inches of annual rainfall, its farmers must rely upon three sources for water: groundwater, the snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and water stored in state and federal reservoirs. In spite of cyclical droughts however, Wade says, “The area has historically had access to plenty of water.”

According to the CFWC in 2006, with nearly 9 million acres under cultivation, Central Valley growers produced 59 million tons of food and fiber, with an estimated FOB value of $13 billion.

But there are pressures on California’s irrigated agriculture sector, among them are measures to protect endangered species such as the Delta Smelt. This 3-inch fish has been found in the intake chutes of a major pumping facility that supplies water for communities in the state, including some agricultural areas. Additionally, arable acreage is increasingly being squeezed by encroaching urbanization with growing population centers destined to place their own demands on the available water supply. And if that were not enough, alongside periodic drought, farmers must now also prepare for new uncertainties raised by climate change predictions.

Efficient by Definition
Wade adds that through a century of experience, Central Valley farmers have become relatively efficient users of water. “There is little waste in the system—between 1967 and 2000 our production volume increased 89% using the same volume of water—double the production,” he says. “That’s a huge increase in efficiency.”

Water has never been something taken for granted by Central Valley farmers. Towards the end of the 19th century, early farmers and landowners in California’s Central Valley joined together to address their mutual interests in securing water for irrigation. They had seen great swaths of land along with waterways that had been spoiled by runoff from the gold mining industry. After successfully petitioning the courts to put an end to the most rapacious hydraulic mining practices that were despoiling potential farmlands, many of the landowners organized themselves into geographically based irrigation districts to manage the infrastructure and administration for equitable distribution of the water needed for their crops. One, senior among these districts, with its charter dating back to 1887, is the CCID, which represents the water rights for 600 customers and 4,400 separate farm fields.

White says many of CCID’s agricultural customers “have very senior water rights,” which helps assure stable allocations and pricing through a variety of contingencies; however, water supplies are not the only irrigation-related issue facing farmers. The issue of drainage is one that cuts across districts and affect farmers regardless of their water allocation status, he adds.

“Water usage is one thing, but drainage is just as important to our farmers, and drainage is highly regulated by the state,” says White.

The Drainage Gap
The first hints of a drainage crisis in the Central Valley came in the 1980’s when plans to build the San Luis Drain to direct farm runoff to the Pacific Ocean failed to materialize. In the meantime, agricultural runoff from the West Side San Joaquin Valley had been channeled to Kesterson Reservoir and stored there in anticipation of the completion of the drain project. But when hatchlings of migratory birds nesting near the reservoir began to appear with grotesque deformities, and naturalists observed that even viable chicks suffered from stunted growth and failure to thrive, public outcry arose and pollutants in the runoff were suspected.

Studies showed, however, that the cause was selenium, a naturally occurring element present in the sedimentary rock that makes up California’s Western Coastal Ranges. According to Dr. Baryohay Davidoff, of the office of Water Use Efficiency for the Department of Water Resources (DWR), over geologic time, rainfall leached the selenium from the mountainsides and carried it, in shallow groundwater, to the valley floor. He says with the advent of farming, “irrigation brought the selenium back to the surface.” From there it was washed from the fields into the reservoir where Davidoff says studies showed selenium salts had begun to concentrate through evaporation and “were bio-accumulating in the avian food chain. That was a major problem.”

The state responded by “shutting down the drain,” he adds.

The reservoir was covered, and measures were taken to deter waterfowl from nesting nearby. The state considered a number of solutions to the selenium problem, including a proposal to reintroduce the selenium into the ocean, “but environmental groups opposed that,” says Davidoff. “So we decided to keep the selenium and salt in the valley.”

Photo: California Farm Water Coalition

An example of furrow irrigation being used for lettuce

Regulations were adopted, requiring farmers in the 500,000-acre area affected by selenium to eliminate all runoff from their fields. Many took land out of production to build evaporation ponds, to retain the selenium and salts on their fields enabling farming to continue. But according to Davidoff, “It’s a temporary management scheme. You can’t keep putting salts in the soil indefinitely, because they will accumulate.”

And, he says, “Eventually the salt content will be too high even for salt-tolerant crops to be grown economically.”

To prevent irrevocable desertification, “at some point, a decision will have to be made, either to send the salt back into the ocean, or to take the selenium-impacted lands out of production, and allow them to revert to a naturalistic state,” adds Davidoff.

Beyond Selenium
Beyond the selenium issue, Davidoff acknowledges that regulators became concerned about the impact of agricultural discharges on the environment generally. He says scientists learned of the detrimental effects of agricultural runoff, including the impact of pesticides toxicity on aquatic life, nutrient loadings leading to algae blooms and unwanted vegetation, and erosion sediment choking spawning grounds and watercourses.

The Porter Cologne Act, first adopted in 1969 to regulate point source discharges, was broadened when it came up for renewal in 1983 to bring non-point sources under regulation. However, farms, ranches, construction, and a few other industries were given blanket waivers. This situation persisted by and large until 2002, when the act was modified to specifically cover agricultural dischargers. The DWR’s Agricultural Drainage Reduction and Reuse program became the first effort in the country to monitor pesticides, fertilizer, and sediment that washes from farms and ranches into nearby waterways, and, eventually, into the ocean.

The Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act designated nine regional authorities to regulate dischargers. These Regional Water Quality Control Boards were given the right to issue discharge permits, as well as the discretion to offer conditional waivers to potential dischargers. In 2002, The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) created a waste-discharge permit for irrigated agriculture.

Joe Karkoski, chief of irrigated lands regulation for the Central Valley RWQCB, says the agency also created a conditional waiver of Waste Discharge Requirements. The waiver allows agricultural dischargers to form coalitions to address water quality problems as a group. And, it has become an important tool in addressing water quality concerns.

In addition to easing the compliance burden for small farmers by allowing them to pool their resources for reporting and compliance, the waiver provides opportunities for the RWQCB to be more effective in its pollution control mandate by addressing water quality concerns on a watershed basis. With more than 28,000 individual growers under the Authority’s jurisdiction, Karkoski says the coalition is a practical approach to addressing widespread practices.

“If you see a particular violation on one farm it’s not usually something limited to that particular grower, but is usually the result of a practice utilized by many farmers in the region,” he says.

The Coalitions Go to Work
According to Karkoski, some growers expressed reservations about the coalition approach, but there was also encouraging signs of cooperation from others.

“Some of the growers who had worked with us before, on issues related to discharges, understood we could work together on solving a problem, and that we were not looking to impose expensive technology, but looking at management solutions, and new ways for them to work with the people they manage,” he says.

He goes on to say that, initially the RWQCB will work with the coalitions to identify existing water quality problems. “When problems are discovered, the coalitions will work with growers to develop plans to address the problems they find. In the third stage, coalitions will work with the growers to implement their water quality plans, and we’ll monitor to see if we’re getting progress,” says Karkoski.

He adds that these monitoring efforts have already uncovered a number of water quality concerns. “We’re seeing diazinon and other organophosphate pesticides above acceptable criteria.” Not a surprising finding, he says; “they’re soluble in water and used in high amounts on crops.”

Other findings, such as elevated E. Coli levels in the receiving waters, Karkoski says must be further scrutinized, explaining, “Since we don’t monitor the fields directly, we have to do further investigation to see if irrigated land is a contributing factor, or if the E. Coli originates from some other source.”

Other data points, such as test organism toxicity, have been traced to pyrethroid-based pesticides, more clearly linked to agricultural drainage. The data, Karkoski says, is being compiled by the coalitions into assessment reports for the various Central Valley watersheds. Once complete, the assessments will be used for planning interventions.

Meanwhile, Karkoski says the monitoring program helps the RWQCB target problem areas. “Every time a water quality limit is exceeded, the Coalition is required to write a special report, and if the exceedance occurs two or more times in a three-year span they will be required to submit an action plan to deal with the problem.”

Karkoski says the coalitions have gotten off to a vigorous start, with over 100,000 data points compiled during the first four years of monitoring.

Learning Together
According to Karkoski, the Drainage Reduction Program includes a significant educational outreach. “We meet with the primary leads from the coalitions and occasionally sponsor technical issues committees,” he says. “Working closely with the county farm commissioners and pesticide manufacturers, we developed new pesticide labeling with instructions recommending new management practices.”

Other initiatives encourage that growers stagger pesticide application and irrigation schedules to minimize the risk of pesticide residue entering runoff.

Furthermore, Karkoski says both growers and the general public are showing an interest in the project. To illustrate, he says an informal workshop on irrigation, held in September in the town of Clovis, CA, attracted a standing room crowd of 120 people to a meeting hall designed to seat 80. He says from meetings such as these, he has gained valuable insight into water quality practices and needs among growers in the area. For instance, he says, the environmental justice community “brought up the fact that many people living and working in the farming areas speak languages other than English. That gave us the clear direction that we needed, to start developing our groundwater protection program outreach and educational material in Spanish.”

Karkoski shares that the state provides a broad array of resources for drainage reduction programs, including grant funding for small demonstration projects, and some of the data from these pilot projects will soon be available providing “California-specific data on what works and what doesn’t.”

Proposition 84 recently targeted $15 million statewide, for water quality initiatives, he adds. “We’re holding discussions with the Resource Conservation Districts about the best way to get the money out to where it is needed.”

Changing the System
After 20 years in the DWR and 40 years in agriculture, generally, Davidoff is convinced of one simple axiom: “All irrigation systems function well if they are managed properly.” Nevertheless, he says, growers do make relevant distinctions between the various systems based on their business needs. According to Davidoff, furrow irrigation currently accounts for 60% of the systems in use in the valley, while the more technically sophisticated pressurized systems, such as drip and micro-spray, account for only 10% of the total.

However, Davidoff says farmers are beginning to appreciate the control that pressurized systems give them over their water usage. He’s observed a trend towards wider use of these more sophisticated techniques. “Every new field that goes into production either has drip or sprinkler installed,” he says.

Mobile Labs
Though the DWR does not provide funding to growers directly, they’ve made resources available through the water and irrigation districts to help irrigators evaluate their technical needs. Davidoff says state educational institutions including Cal Poly, University of California Cooperative Extension, in cooperation with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the local Resource Conservation Districts also assist in this critical element of technical support.

Photo: California Farm Water Coalition

End of row controls for underground drip irrigation for an asparagus field

DWR has initiated an innovative program called The Mobile Irrigation Laboratory (Mobile Labs) to dispatch irrigation specialists to individual farms, to perform onsite evaluations of water management practices.

“We know management is important, and this program gives farmers direct performance information,” says Davidoff. Though equipped to take precise measurements and offer specialized recommendations, Mobile Labs technicians also provide guidance to farmers on a wide range of water efficiency measures; from land leveling to the installation of a tailwater return system, to the proper maintenance of a micro-spray irrigation system.

Using data provided by a network of 150 state-operated automatic weather stations, Mobile Labs technicians can help farmers evaluate how much moisture the field has lost and advise farmers when to schedule irrigation. But, Davidoff says, they also spend time helping farmers sort out any problems they’re having with their existing irrigation systems. “Maybe the sprinkler heads have been mixed up between two different kinds of systems, perhaps the pressure isn’t right-they check all these things, and make recommendations to the grower, to achieve optimal performance from the system,” he notes.

Whereas large farms often contract with private firms for similar services (according to Davidoff, the costs for irrigation scheduling alone can range up to $1,000 per field), assistance through the Mobile Lab program by contrast, is available to farms of all sizes free of charge.

Each of the DWR’s 14 Mobile Labs units, however, costs $100,000 per year to staff and operate, which Davidoff says is financed through a cost-share arrangement between the state and the irrigation districts. Referrals from the local water districts keep each of the Mobile Labs units busy traveling to perform evaluations on 50 to 60 fields per year. “The program has a built-in advertising,” he adds. “When people see the Mobile Labs vehicle at a neighboring farm, they’re curious to know what’s going on. When they find out, they ask about having an evaluation performed on their farm as well.”

According to the DWR, by optimizing the performance of their irrigation systems, farmers can achieve water savings in the range of 5% to 25%. But Davidoff knows that farmers are not thinking only of conservation. “Farmers are business people, they want to optimize profits and minimize expenses,” he says.

To illustrate this, Davidoff explains, “I was talking with a farmer recently, and asked him why he switched to drip irrigation. He says, ‘my secret is—by having drip system, now I can control water at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the field. I can be sure all parts of the field get the same amount of water. So, I can harvest in one or two days rather than four or five, because all the fruit matures at the same time-that saves a lot of labor.’

“There may be all kinds of reasons the farmer may switch from furrow to a pressurized system,” he continues. “In half the cases, he may reduce water usage; in other cases water use increases.” Nevertheless, for farmers, pressurized systems “do tend to pay for themselves,” he adds.

Sharing Resources
For the last 20 years, the CCID has administered its own grant and loan program for its farmers. In 2005, the district loaned farmers over $1.7 million in 3% simple interest loans and offers up to 50% cost share grants for any infrastructure that will help conserve water, these benefits covered tailwater return systems, ditch-lining projects, or even converting from sprinkler to subsurface drip. CCID’s efforts have resulted in the conservation of thousands of acre-feet of water over the last decade.

“In the past, you would have found that irrigation districts managers focused 90% of their time on internal issues in their districts,” says White. Now, he says, staffs are beginning to “see the benefits in working with groups covering common interests.”

CCID belongs to several coalitions working on a variety of issues, including the West Side San Joaquin Watershed Coalition, where it performs a leadership role working with the RWQCB to resolve water quality issues. However, White adds, it’s important for everyone to understand the issues involved with irrigation.

After all, when it comes to agricultural irrigation, “the public is the end user, and it takes sound water policy to enable farmers to grow food abundance,” he says. “Our agriculture benefits people all over the world.”

Author's Bio: Writer David C. Richardson is a frequent contributor to Forester publications.