Water Board Sets Deadline for Joining Watershed Coalitions

In a 5-2 vote, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board earlier this summer agreed to extend the Irrigated Lands Program for five years and added a deadline for landowners to join regional watershed coalitions or face requirements to get individual waste discharge permits.

The Water Board has also ordered names of individual coalition members to be turned in to the Water Board annually beginning in October 2006. Coalitions must provide the lists and maps indicating properties covered by coalitions, according to Parry Klassen, executive Director of the Coalition for Urban/Rural Stewardship (CURES). 

Farmers have until the end of December 2006 to join an existing watershed coalition or form their own coalition to comply with conditional waiver requirements. Farmers who fail to join and later try to join, or are contacted by the Water Board, will have to complete a report of waste discharge for their operation and perform water sampling of discharges from irrigation and storm runoff.

The extended waiver also requires coalitions to write sub watershed management plans when water sampling indicates there are problems caused by irrigated agriculture. The Water Board also plans to add groundwater to the program as early as 2008 based on the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) due out then.

For more information, log on to the Ag Waiver website at http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralvalley/programs/irrigated_lands/index.html.