California Farm Bureau: Groundwater bill could hit farmers with more costs

Groundwater bill could hit farmers with more costs

August 24, 2005

By Christine Souza
Assistant Editor

California Farm Bureau

A farmer's right to pump groundwater is being challenged with state legislation that would impose new regulations and fees on farm water users and would require individual farmers and ranchers to report their groundwater use to the state.

"Farmers are at risk for losing their water rights. Some in state government would like to see the state take an active role in limiting the use of groundwater around the state, and this bill is a significant first step," said Tony Francois, California Farm Bureau Federation director of water resources. "Proponents claim this is important for state-level resources planning. But in the four heavily populated Southern California counties where water users already report groundwater use, the data is not used by the state for planning or any other purpose that we are aware of."

Senate Bill 820, by Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee Chair Shiela Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, imposes new regulations and fees on farmers by instituting new groundwater reporting rules and new penalties for groundwater violations, including the loss of water rights. The bill is in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, but may be forwarded to the Assembly Floor for action as early as this week. The bill is supported by a coalition of environmental activists such as the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council, and urban water suppliers like the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Under the bill, individuals that use more than 25 acre-feet of groundwater must report their use to the State Water Resources Control Board. Currently the heavily populated counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura already report groundwater use because of a state statute passed in 1955.

Sen. Kuehl contends that state and local agencies that regulate water currently do not have enough data about water supply and water use to enable them to effectively determine current status and protect long-term water supply and water use needs.

The California Department of Water Resources reports information on the state's groundwater resources in Bulletin 118. The most recent update to Bulletin 118 was published in 2003 and contains various recommendations for improving the available data for groundwater management.

"While Bulletin 118 does identify a need for better basin wide information from local groundwater agencies, it does not recommend statewide individual groundwater reporting, and makes no significant reference to the reports that are already filed from Southern California," said Francois. "So I cannot agree that the agencies lack data and that all groundwater users should report. It appears that the state does not use data from the reports that are filed already, and that making everyone file will simply create a larger pile of useless paper."

Estimates of what it will cost to generate the information necessary to file the reports range as high as $250 million dollars in initial equipment costs. The DWR's Web site reports more than 670,000 well-completion reports in their files, excluding the Southern District.

"If just 15 percent of those reports reflect wells that would be metered in order to file the necessary report, with metering costs in the range of $2,500 per well, it could cost California businesses and landowners a quarter of a billion dollars to provide the state with useless information," Francois said.

"A further concern is that the penalty for not filing the report is limitation or loss of your water rights. Especially since no notice is going to be provided to those who will be subject to these penalties, this raises serious constitutional and civil rights questions. All landowners and businesses using groundwater in California should be concerned about this."

Rather than requiring people to file individual reports from throughout the state, the suggestion by those in agriculture is to work with local districts to get more representative basin-wide data from monitoring wells and invest some state money in monitoring groundwater basins.

"Unfortunately, the approach selected appears simply to be a first step toward regulating how much of your own groundwater you can use," Francois said. "It is like saying that California has a fuel shortage that is driving prices up, and instead of doing anything to ease the supply, the Legislature decides to require everybody to report how many miles they drive annually, for 'planning purposes.' And if you fail to file, we'll take your car."

Ventura County Farm Bureau Executive Director Rex Laird, who years ago worked with local government to develop details regarding groundwater monitoring, believes Kuehl's bill is the wrong way to go about groundwater monitoring and that the added costs to individuals would outweigh the benefits.

"We have a 20-year track record proving that we can do it better than the state," said Laird. "Growers sat down with the cities and special districts and hammered out all of these ordinances so the point is, if in fact it is really necessary, we have demonstrated that it can be done at the a local level."

Laird said that Ventura County "did not need a huge state bureaucracy doing this and we have the track record to show that it has worked."

Glenn County farmer John Garner, CFBF Water Committee chair, says this legislation imposes unnecessary new fees and regulations on family farmers' water rights.

"This will not accomplish anything, plus most of the rural community is not taking something that they didn't buy anyway which means the surface supply. Without the surface supply rights to the water, a lot of these areas wouldn't have the groundwater that they have today (since the water we use is recycled back into the ground)," he said. "I have a 50-horse (well) in an orchard that I use to pump water onto my orchard, which is my right. I only use what I need to because there is no use pumping more. It costs money."

Ron Nydam, owner of Waterford Irrigation Systems, has some experience with installation of water metering systems and confirms that this legislation would result in added costs for growers.

"One of the big things that concerns us about this bill is the cost to the growers. You are probably looking at anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 just for the water meter itself," Nydam said.

Although some growers already install water meters on their water systems, Nydam believes such installations should remain voluntary.

"To make the meter work properly, the manufacturer requires that you have a straight run of pipe before the meter equal to 10 times the diameter of the pipe. So if you have a 10-inch meter you need 100 inches of straight pipe to reduce the turbulence so that the meter reads accurately. They also require two diameters of pipe downstream," Nydam said.

"This just pushed your discharge from your pump site out 100 inches so now this pipe that goes into the ground is going to come into the ground at a different spot from your mainline. So you have to dig up and reconnect the mainline to that new position. Theoretically a grower could be looking at at least a $5,000 bill."

Even though he stands to gain from such a regulation, Nydam says, farmers should not be burdened with these added costs.

"I come from a farming family so it is wrong for me to make people do something that doesn't do them any good and is going to cost people a lot of money," he said. "We are out to make sure that our farmers do well, because when the farmers do well, our business thrives."

(Christine Souza is a reporter for Ag Alert. She may be contacted at csouza@cfbf.com.)

Permission for use is granted, however, credit must be made to the California Farm Bureau Federation when reprinting this item. (Top)