Fiscal woes affecting water quality projects

IPM, erosion control and more halted due to lack of funding

Cecilia Parsons
Capital Press

December 31, 2008

Ag water-quality improvement projects have been halted due to the state budget crisis.

Project managers were notified Friday, Dec. 19, that all grant money funded by voter approved Propositions 50 has been frozen by the state until the budget issue is resolved.

"This will gut central coast agricultural water quality improvement efforts," said Kay Mercer, coordinator for the Agricultural Watershed Coalition. The coalition works with individual growers or organizations, such as the Central Coast Vineyard Team, to help them find ways to avoid contaminating surface or groundwater.

"We're still assessing, but we know there will be an impact on water quality," Mercer said.

The projects have been successful so far because they provide incentives for growers to participate, and their improvements can be measured. Sediment and pesticide residue runoff into streams that run into the Pacific have been decreased since growers began efforts to improve management practices.

Mercer said central coast counties are involved in multiple projects and had grants for a $1.9 million in improvement efforts. Without the proposition funding, only a fraction of the work would be done, she said.

The projects include integrated pest management strategies to help with run-off, erosion control, sediment basins and improving irrigation systems.

The projects were also providing information in Spanish on nitrates and use of filter strips and hedgerows to reduce sediment run-off from agriculture fields.

Mercer's projects were among several dozen water improvements projects statewide funded by propositions that used bond state bonds. She had the second largest grant in the state.

Tacy Currey, executive director of the California Resource Conservation District, said the state couldn't sell bonds to fund the projects because of their low credit rating.

The state controller's office, in a memo to the grant recipients, said the severe budget situation has caused the freeze on funding for all general obligation bond programs.

The action was taken to preserve cash resources to pay day-to-day operational needs of the state for the balance of the fiscal year.

The state Department of Conservation ordered suspension of all grant-funded projects and all payments on existing grants and halted all authorization of new grants.