California Residents Demand Clean Drinking Water

California Residents Demand Clean Drinking Water

2007 September -   Residents from across 
California's farm belt gathered Thursday to protest the Central Valley 
Regional Water Quality Control Board's continued failure to regulate 
agricultural pollution that is contaminating area drinking water. 
They timed their protest to occur as the Regional Board held a workshop to 
examine the impacts of its controversial Irrigated Lands Program, which 
allows farms to discharge toxic irrigation wastewater into Central Valley 
streams, drinking water supplies, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in 
violation of Clean Water Act standards. 
The Regional Board has granted agriculture a "conditional waiver" from 
water quality regulations since 2003. Clean water advocates have been 
pressuring the Board to enact basic changes to protect groundwater, such 
as requiring best management practices for irrigation discharges and 
reports identifying individual discharges. 
The resident groups demanding an end to the contamination of their source 
of drinking water include the Californians for Pesticide Reform, Center 
for Clean Water Action, Community Water Center, Environmental Justice 
Coalition for Water, and the Latino Issues Forum. 
"I can't fill a glass of tap water for my kids to drink," said Maria Elena 
Orozco, a community activist in East Orosi, where the water often exceeds 
state health standards for nitrates. "I am paying for water I can't even 
drink, and then have to pay even more to buy bottled water." 
Bill Jennings of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, CSPA, 
made blistering comments at the board's workshop, challenging the validity 
of the workshop. He says the board and the state authorities already have 
in their possession all records needed to answer the questions on the 
table at the workshop.
The CSPA and Baykeeper filed a lawsuit in June against the Regional Board 
for renewing waivers that excuse polluted discharges from 25,000 farms 
from meeting statewide water quality objectives. 
The lawsuit alleges that the Regional Board's adoption of the waivers 
violates the California Environmental Quality Act, state and federal 
endangered species acts and California's water quality law. 
"The State Board also has draft technical reports prepared by its 
regulatory compliance, nonpoint source and groundwater units that 
evaluated the record and the merits of CSPA/Baykeeper's petition," said 
Jennings. 
"The denial of the CSPA/Baykeeper petition and the rejection of staff's 
assessment and recommendations clearly indicate that the State Board has 
predetermined its course of action," Jennings said. "The joint public 
workshop seems to be little more than a smokescreen to mask the massive, 
illegal procedural irregularities surrounding this debacle." 
"The bottom line is that the state and regional boards have exempted 
irrigated agriculture from routine regulations applicable to virtually 
every other segment of society - from municipalities, industry, 
construction to mom-and-pop businesses," Jennings declared. "In doing so, 
the Boards have condemned our waterways to increasing degradation. We can 
only wish that Board Members would somehow find as much sympathy for the 
victims of agricultural pollution as they do for the polluters." 
"We have come before the Board numerous times asking them to include 
groundwater protections in this program, and we get the same vague promise 
to address this crisis through a long-term program," said Laurel 
Firestone, an attorney with the Community Water Center based in Visalia. 
"The families who are here today deserve to see concrete commitments for 
how this Board will do its job - they are failing to fulfill their mandate 
to protect the public interest." 
"It is time for the Regional Board to take action. We want to see clear, 
enforceable water quality objectives and action plans to get there," said 
Stephanie Camoroda, of Latino Issues Forum, a statewide public policy and 
advocacy institute. 
"The Regional Board must revise and expand the current Irrigated Lands 
Conditional Waiver program to include groundwater dischargers so that 
communities are protected from the health-threatening pollution in 
agricultural runoff," said Camoroda. 
As agriculture is allowed to pollute Central Valley waters and 
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fish species in these waters are collapsing. 
The protesters point out that Delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile smelt 
and threadfin shad are all disappearing. 
Toxic pollution is one of the three factors that state and federal 
scientists have poinpointed as the chief causes of the California Delta 
ecoystem crash. The other two factors are the increase in Delta water 
exports in recent years and the spread of invasive species. 
A California court in August limited pumping of water from the Delta to 
save the last remaining Delta smelt - a decision that is already 
responsible for a severe water shortage in the downstream city of Long 
Beach, California. 

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