Growers and environmental groups clash over how to regulate groundwater.

Some facts about groundwater in the Central Coast are not in dispute. For example: It’s groundwater – stored in subterranean aquifers, rather than surface water in streams and reservoirs – that supplies most of the region’s drinking water, about 90 percent.

That fact tells us simply that groundwater is important. How to protect it, however, is another matter. Unlike point-source pollution – think of an outfall pipe, easy to observe and measure – the quality of groundwater is impacted by nonpoint source pollution, seeping underground from various places over various time frames. And when it comes to regulating nonpoint source pollution and quality of groundwater, economics, politics and science all converge.

The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board is responsible for overseeing water quality in a region with some 3,000 agricultural operators on 540,000 acres of irrigated lands, where pesticides and fertilizers are regularly applied.

The Regional Water Board adopted its first set of regulations for agricultural runoff in 2004. It’s spent the 20 years since then revising and refining them and assigning technical committees to evaluate them, resulting most recently in version 4.0 (officially titled “General Waste Discharge Requirements for Discharges from Irrigated Lands Order No. R3-2021-0040”), adopted in 2021 after years of public hearings.

Nobody was happy with 4.0. Two groups petitioned the State Water Resources Control Board to revisit the Central Coast regional board’s regulation. One petition came from the ag industry, filed on behalf of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California, Monterey County Farm Bureau, California Strawberry Commission and others, claiming the order was far too onerous for growers. Another petition came from environmental and safe drinking water groups like Monterey Waterkeeper, San Jerardo Cooperative and others, claiming the order did not go far enough to protect groundwater.

The State Board agreed to hear the petitions, and on June 16, released a draft order.

The proposal keeps some of the Central Coast regional board’s regulations in place despite opposition from growers. For example, the state proposes keeping requirements to monitor for 1,2,3-trichloropropane and stormwater discharge from impermeable surfaces, like plastic-covered fields. But on the biggest things, the state proposes backtracking.

As the regional board developed versions 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, the idea was that successive orders would get stricter. A key provision of version 4.0 is to limit the amount of nitrogen fertilizer applied – the state proposes striking that. “There is not a clear connection between the amount of fertilizer nitrogen applied and impacts on water quality,” according to the state’s draft.

And yet, the same document acknowledges the clear connection – and the fact that some communities’ groundwater is so contaminated with nitrates that it is not safe to drink. The state proposes a deal for growers (“dischargers”) whose practices pollute to provide bottled water in exchange for a longer timeline to meet water quality standards. Try telling that to people who cannot drink their water.

The ag industry’s petition argues: “Ag Order 4.0 fails to reach a balance between water quality protection and maintaining our state and nation’s food supply. The order seriously threatens the local economy.”

The environmental groups argue this economic pressure is exactly why regulators have shied away from tougher rules: “What makes agricultural discharges challenging for regulators is not the complexity of controlling them, but the fierce resistance of a previously unregulated industry to the imposition of even modest, incremental steps to bring these pollution sources into compliance with the law.”

A State Water Board spokesperson assures me that you don’t have to be a technical expert or understand what AFER + (C x ACOMP) + (O x AORG)=R means in order to comment. “The State Water Board is interested in receiving comments from anybody, including the general public,” Edward Ortiz writes.

The comment deadline is noon on Aug. 11; you can write to commentletters@waterboards.ca.gov. The state board is scheduled to decide on a final order on Sept. 19.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com.