The Regional Board formed an advisory committee comprised
of local farm bureaus and environmental groups charged with
recommending a new conditional waiver program. This stakeholder
process lasted 18 months and culminated with the adoption
of what is known as the Agricultural Waiver Program (AWP). The
new program adopted on July 9, 2004 is a voluntary negotiated
agreement, which uses design standards (e.g., BMPs and rules
dictating how farmers should manage on-farm water resources) to
reach environmental goals. The threat of mandatory regulatory
action drives dischargers to join the program. Under the AWP,
farmers are required to attend educational classes, create a farm
plan, and implement BMPs, which they choose at their discretion.
Farmers must also complete either cooperative or individual
monitoring to demonstrate ambient water conditions. The AWP
does not specify what actions must be taken against dischargers
who are in compliance with the provisions of the AWP while still
discharging high levels of pollutants. Under such circumstances
the Regional Board may require that farmers implement additional
BMPs and additional monitoring in order to prove their effectiveness.
The waiver program is split into two different tiers depending
on the actions of the farmer. Farmers who complete both the
required 15 h of educational courses and create a farm plan with a
list of implemented BMPs are eligible for the tier 1 waiver. The tier
1 waiver program calls for an updated management-practice list
midway through the 5-year waiver. Farmers who have not
completed all of the required educational courses fall under the
tier 2 waiver program. Tier 2 farmers must submit annual reports
detailing their progress towards achieving the educational goals
that also contain a checklist of currently implemented management
practices. Farmers who do not meet the educational
requirements after 3 years can be issued Waste Discharge
Requirements (WDR), a much stiffer form of regulation that
essentially treats a farm the same as a point source discharger (like
a sewage treatment plant).
The AWP also recommends that each farmer adopt a monitoring
component to track ambient water quality and the effectiveness
of BMPs. As Regional Board staff began proposing monitoring
requirements, farmers voiced their concerns about costs, appearing
before Board hearings with alarming projections for sampling
and lab expenses. Before an impasse on monitoring emerged, the
Board and stakeholders agreed that farmers could elect to become
part of a cooperative monitoring program (CMP), or conduct their
own individual monitoring program. The CMP was designed as a
more cost-effective means for farms to comply with the monitoring
requirement. The CMP calls for monitoring ambient water
quality on the main stems and tributaries of the Central Coast.
Monthly grab samples are to be tested for nutrients, temperature,
orthophosphate, chlorophyll a, dissolved oxygen, total dissolved
solids, pH, turbidity, and discharge. Furthermore, water toxicity is
to be measured four times per year, the condition of benthic
invertebrates5 once a year and sediment toxicity once a year. Areas
with high levels of one or more contaminants must be tested
further in order to identify with more accuracy the source of the
discharge. The AWP states that 25% of the funds used for
monitoring should go towards ‘‘hot spot investigative monitoring’’
(CCRWQCB, 2004). In addition, some growers have insisted on
analytical work above and beyond what is required by the AWP in
order to provide insight on the causes of toxicity. In particular,
growers want confidence that causes and sources of toxicity relate
directly to current practices that can be addressed through
management practices in contrast to toxicity caused by ‘‘legacy
pesticides’’ no longer used, but still entering waterways (e.g., from
dredging, flooding).
As of September 2007, The Regional Board had enrolled 164,000
hectares in the AWP, or 93% of the total estimated irrigated
agricultural lands in the region. The 1070 tier 1 enrollees
represented 79% of total irrigated acreage in region and 85% of
enrolled acreage. The program had also enrolled 641 tier 2 growers,
who still needed to complete their 15 h of education and/or their
farm plan, representing about 15% of the enrolled acreage.
In 2004, growers formed the Central Coast Water Quality
Preservation Inc, a nonprofit organization to organize cooperative
monitoring efforts. Their monitoring efforts began in 2005 with 25
sampling locations in streams or rivers throughout the region. In
2006 this expanded to 50 sites. Initial results demonstrate that
pollutant trends identified by earlier, site-specific scientific studies
and CCAMP monitoring efforts are largely present regionwide.
Monitoring efforts in 2005 found that almost half of the 25 sites
had a mean yearly nitrate (NO3-N) level that exceeded drinking
water standards (10 mg/L) (CCRWQCB, 2006). Monitoring efforts
also found significant problems with pesticide toxicity in regional
waterways. In 2006 the Board began regulatory action on those
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