Surveying the flood damage at his family’s farm outside of Castroville, Mike Scattini is relieved things weren’t any worse. The Scattinis have farmed their land near the Salinas River Lagoon for more than 100 years and have seen their share of severe weather – but when it comes to the recent storms that coupled rising river levels with king tides from the Pacific, even Scattini’s dad and uncle “haven’t seen it this bad before,” he says.
Debris coats the fields closest to where the lagoon meets Monterey Bay, including pieces of a concrete levee perched on the seawall that was dismantled by massive storm swells. It will likely take months to clear the fields of detritus and ensure the soil is decontaminated enough to safely plant row crops like lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower. In fact, Scattini won’t be surprised if they don’t plant the damaged fields for the rest of this year. “It’s too expensive to farm nowadays and not know that you’re going to have a successful crop,” he notes. “We’re not doing anything until we get the all-clear.”
Still, Scattini credits local authorities for mitigating the damage – particularly the Monterey County Water Resources Agency, which took measures to breach the lagoon in early January, cutting a path for Salinas River waters to flow out to the bay. Otherwise, “we’d be looking at a different situation here,” he says, with flooding extending deeper into the fields and even nearby residential areas.
In the weeks since the skies finally cleared and the floodwaters receded, Monterey County’s agriculture industry has been taking stock of the damage and pivoting to recovery. Preliminary estimates last month indicated that approximately 20,000 acres of farmland in the county had been affected, with damages falling anywhere from $40 million to $50 million, according to the Monterey County Farm Bureau – though it’s likely those figures all climb further once the toll is fully assessed.
To that end, the Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office partnered with the Farm Bureau, the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California and the Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association to launch an online survey on Jan. 23 that allows farmers to report the damage on their properties.
But even the survey may take a while to fully register – Farm Bureau Executive Director Norm Groot notes that “many fields are still experiencing standing water or are too muddy to access.”
One saving grace is that many of the county’s agricultural fields remained idle during the flooding – a key difference from the floods of spring 1995, cited by many as the closest comparison in recent memory. However, it appears clear that the spring planting season will be impacted for many farmers.
“Most of the crop that will be mature in the spring was not planted at the time that floods occurred,” says Grower-Shipper Association President Christopher Valadez. “However, for crop intended to be planted on those lands, there could be an impact.” Valadez adds that, at this point, indications are that only “a relatively small percentage of the overall crop that will be planted for harvest in the spring” in the Salinas Valley will be affected.