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Central Coast farm groups say a proposed rewrite of the region’s agricultural water quality rules could leave growers paying more to remain in compliance while still chasing nitrogen standards most vegetable and berry operations cannot meet.
The warning came during two water board hearings that showed how quickly the recommendations of California’s Second Statewide Agricultural Expert Panel are colliding with an already contentious rewrite of the Central Coast’s Ag Order 4.0.
At the State Water Resources Control Board, farm representatives largely embraced the panel’s call for regional flexibility, attainable initial limits and alternative reporting for operations that do not fit conventional nitrogen accounting.
Two days later in Goleta, those same interests argued the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board had produced a proposal that runs in the opposite direction.
“You can already tell we’re pretty disappointed,” attorney Tess Dunham told the regional board as she began to lay out the many agriculture concerns.
Dunham, an attorney for Kahn, Soares & Conway representing Central Coast Ag Partners, said the revised order largely ignores the intent of the state water board’s 2023 remand. The partners include the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California, the Grower-Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties, the Monterey County Farm Bureau and Western Plant Health Association.
She accused regional staff of preserving the substance of the nitrogen discharge standard the state water board rejected.
“By merely removing the term ‘limit’ and replacing it with the term ‘target,’ we don’t believe the revised [requirements] have met the state water board’s intent,” Dunham said.
The fight centers in part on a final groundwater standard that agricultural groups believe effectively requires growers to bring nitrogen applied minus nitrogen removed, or A-R, down to roughly 50 pounds per acre annually.
Growers could alternatively use groundwater monitoring to show their farms are not causing or contributing to nitrate exceedances. But Dunham said that could require upgradient and downgradient wells extending beyond a grower’s property, making the alternative impractical for many operations.
Tess Dunham (Kahn, Soares & Conway photo)With that route largely unavailable, she argued, the 50-pound figure becomes an enforceable limit in all but name.
Regional staff has maintained that the rewritten order eliminates the enforceable A-R limits the state water board remanded. The remaining targets would trigger additional education or certified nitrogen planning rather than immediate penalties.
But Sarah Lopez, executive director of Central Coast Water Quality Preservation Inc., said the practical consequences for farmers could still be severe.
The third-party coalition represents more than 90% of actively enrolled agricultural acreage in the region and, according to Lopez, all acreage currently complying with the order. About two-thirds of its membership is in vegetable and berry production.
Lopez told the state water board that only about 15% of those growers appear capable of complying with the proposed final groundwater standard.
The expert panel recommended that regulators consider setting initial limits at levels already achieved by 80% or 90% of growers while treating more difficult reductions as longer-term targets. Lopez said the Central Coast proposal turns that approach upside down.
“The Central Coast Ag Order talks about a limit at the 15th percentile,” she said. “This was true before the remand, and it’s true now after the remand.”
The implications extend beyond the growers unable to hit the number.
Lopez warned that the coalition could lose a substantial share of its members as requirements tighten, leaving fewer acres to support the third-party program’s monitoring, reporting and technical assistance.
The combination of rising costs and shrinking participation could hit the growers who remain in compliance hardest.
“If you combine mushrooming costs and shrinking acreage to spread it over, we’re effectively punishing the remaining compliant growers for staying in,” said Lopez.
Drinking water deal draws skepticism
The proposed order would ask farmers to choose between two pathways for addressing nitrate-contaminated drinking water.
Growers joining an alternative water supply program would help finance well testing, interim drinking water, and planning for long-term solutions through a third-party administrator. In return, they could receive a longer nitrogen compliance schedule and protection from individual replacement water enforcement while the program meets its milestones.
Central Coast staff estimated the program could initially cost participating growers about $4 to $6 per acre, rising to $17 to $32 by Year 10 in current dollars. The estimate does not include the construction of permanent drinking water projects.
Dunham said farm groups want a successful program but see too little incentive for producers to voluntarily take on the new expense.
The proposed extended deadline is 2051, but Dunham noted that 2051 was already the final date in the original Ag Order 4.0. Under the new proposal, growers would have to fund drinking water work to preserve a date they previously received without that obligation.
Dunham argued the state water board told the regional board to reach an agreement with dischargers on a water supply program or rely on other legal authorities. Allowing growers to elect a pathway after the order is adopted, she said, is not the type of negotiated agreement agricultural groups envisioned.
The industry has submitted its own proposal and remains willing to fund an interim program, she added. But farm organizations need to be able to persuade members that participation makes business sense.
“If the ag partners in these grower associations cannot tell their members that this is a good option for them, I don’t see how it succeeds,” Dunham said.
Regional board Chair Jane Gray pressed Dunham on why agricultural operations are not already providing water to all affected residents. Dunham responded that some growers already provide bottled water, filling stations, treatment systems or replacement wells without operating under a centralized regional program.
“I don’t think we should assume that just because it’s not part of a formal program that alternative drinking water isn’t being provided,” she said.
Gray countered that bottled water alone does not address the broader burden on households that remain unable to confidently use tap water for cooking, bathing and sanitation.
Community advocates made the urgency more explicit at the state water board hearing.
Rosa Carrillo, a resident of the San Jerardo Cooperative near Salinas, said families are living with fear, medical expenses, higher water bills and the cost of bottled water.
“How many lives need to be lost before limits are adopted?” Carrillo asked.
Kjia Rivers, a senior policy advocate with Community Water Center, urged the state water board to move quickly to clarify that regional boards can impose enforceable nitrogen controls. Community groups fear the panel’s support for regional discretion could become another source of delay, particularly as the Central Coast board advances its new order.
Panel report becomes ammunition for both sides
The hearings showed how stakeholders are already using different portions of the expert panel’s report to reinforce longstanding positions.
The panel recommended A-R as the preferred measure of potential nitrogen discharge; three-year rolling averages for enforcement; and an iterative process that begins with achievable requirements and tightens them over time.
It also concluded that limits should not be mandated statewide. Regional boards could choose to adopt them based on local conditions, data and policy considerations.
For farm groups, the report validates their argument that regulators should begin with the highest dischargers rather than standards that could immediately place most growers out of compliance.
For community groups, the panel’s conclusion that enforceable limits can provide “regulatory clout” confirms that targets and education alone are not enough.
David Cory, a farmer and attorney with the Central Valley Salinity Coalition, warned both sides against extracting isolated language from the report.
Stakeholders should not “pick specific words out of the report and say ‘This supports my preconceived notion of what I want to happen,’” Cory said.
He urged regulators and interested parties to replicate the panel’s collaborative process rather than return to hardened positions and litigation.
Some of the best progress in the Central Valley came after stakeholders spent years “sitting in a room beating our heads against each other,” Cory said.
“We need to continue that collaborative approach, work together and try and solve problems, and not just take extreme positions and throw it in your laps to say, ‘Try and figure it out,’” he said.
That appeal for collaboration followed a process that included more than 20 panel meetings, dozens of technical presentations and hundreds of pages of written comments.
Chair Jane Gray (Central Coast water board photo)Growers want workable alternatives
Farm representatives also pressed regulators to implement the panel’s recommendations for nurseries, diversified farms, vineyards and other operations that struggle with crop-specific A-R reporting.
Lopez said the conventional accounting system does not work well for container nurseries and highly diversified farms. She urged the board to simplify reporting by requiring growers to submit information only they can provide, while allowing the third-party coalition to calculate nitrogen removal and other values.
That could improve data quality while reducing the burden on producers, she said.
Lopez was more frustrated with the Central Coast order’s existing alternative compliance process. Preservation Inc. has invested heavily in technical panels, groundwater monitoring and nitrogen management work, yet has been unable to secure approval of its alternative compliance plan.
“I hesitate to continue to commit Preservation Inc. resources to tilting at windmills, trying to figure out what that might be,” she said.
Lopez said the coalition is already doing the work that most directly affects water quality — identifying high outliers, contacting growers and helping farms reduce nitrogen losses — but is required to first clear complex requirements for groundwater areas, formulas and targets.
“These are where the rubber meets the road on reducing N loading and protecting groundwater,” she said.
The coalition is asking the regional board to reorder those priorities and give third-party programs more room to handle domestic well sampling, data calculations and grower follow-up.
Regulators weigh action against delay
The state water board generally praised the expert panel and signaled it wants staff to move forward rather than allow another extended study process.
Chief Deputy Director Karen Mogus proposed first convening a workshop with the nine regional boards, then returning with options for regulatory changes. Those could include standardized reporting, nitrogen accounting discounts and broader alternative compliance pathways.
Board member Laurel Firestone, speaking at her final meeting before resigning, said regulators should place more weight on the consequences of waiting.
“My hope for the future in general, but I think particularly with this item, is that we start to weigh the risk of inaction much more than we have,” Firestone said.
Central Coast farmers, meanwhile, face a nearer deadline. Written comments on the regional order are due July 10, with adoption expected no earlier than December.
