Farm Bureau Loses Another Clean Water Case

This week provided another important legal decision in the fight to regulate polluted runoff from agriculture. A California lower court on Tuesday ordered the State Water Quality Control Board to reconsider its ineffective regulations on agricultural operations in the Central Coast region. Judge Timothy Frawley of the Sacramento Superior Court ruled in favor of the Monterey Coastkeeper, the Otter Project, and other environmental and commercial and recreational groups, as well as a resident who could no longer drink her tap water because it was so polluted from runoff. This decision represents another farm bureau loss and another crack in the wall that has long protected agricultural interests from having to comply with clean water rules. Like most other states and regions, agricultural operators in central California have long been allowed to pollute surface and ground waters, enjoying special status granted to agricultural operations and other contributors of nonpoint source pollution. In 2004, the Central Coast Water Quality Control Board took baby steps toward solving the problem with the creation of a conditional waiver that agricultural operations could sign on to. Much like a general permit, the conditional waiver at least recognized the problem and established a framework for regulation. After the first conditional waiver expired in 2009, staff for the board found that nearly all beneficial uses of waters in the region were affected by agricultural pollution, that the problem was "well documented, severe, and widespread," and that there was "no direct evidence" of improvement in water quality under the conditional waiver. As the name suggests, the conditional waiver essentially allowed business as usual during its five-year term.