Board discusses potential winery wastewater fees ByChristine Souza
to fund 16 positions associated with the statewide wastewater program will be $3.2 million, with $2.5 million of that to be funded through winery fees and the rest fromwineries that will continue to be governedby individual regulatory orders. California Farm Bureau Director of Water Resources DannyMerkley, who at- tended themeeting, said costs to operate the program represent an initial estimate andcouldbeadjustedinsubsequent years.
“At the stakeholder meetings, staff tries to come up with various options to fund the program but also get a read on whether it will work or if it won’t, based on feedback that they have received,” Merkley said. The state water board developed the statewide order to be consistent from re- gion to region, he said, “but that’s hard to do, because it’s different in Napa than it is in Lodi.”
More than2,000Californiawineries that apply winery process water to land for ir- rigation and soil amendment uses will be affected by the new regulation, which the stateboardadopted in January. Theboard saidtheorderwouldsafeguardgroundwa- ter andsurfacewater throughapermitting process for water discharge. The regulationwill be implemented by regional water boards soon after the fee schedule is adopted, whichcouldhappen in June or July. Merkley said the California Farm Bureau has beenworking since 2015with theWine Institute, county FarmBureaus, the California Association of Winegrape Growers, FamilyWinemakersofCalifornia and others to advocate for a regulation that works for winery operators and wa- ter quality. The order classifies wineries into reg- ulatory tiers based on the total volume of processed water discharged annually prior to treatment, with different applica- tion requirements, fees, and monitoring and reporting requirements. Wineries discharging less than 10,000 gallons of wastewater per year would be exempted, unless they are determined to be in an area of highwinery density. Noelle Cremers, director of environ- mental and regulatory affairs for theWine Institute,whichrepresentsCaliforniawin- eries, said there may be some added ad- justments to proposed fees. “Wewere pleased to see fees split with- in tiers. That split will better target fees to the economic reality facing wineries,” Cremers said. However, she warned, fees for the larg- est, Tier 4,winerieswouldbe “a significant increase” for thosecurrentlyoperatingun- der regional general orders. “Under the proposal, one of our mem- bers will see a winery go frompaying ap- proximately $1,500 annually to $19,000 under the new winery order,” Cremers said, noting that the water board would continue to meet with winery represen- tatives before finalizing the fees. Winery ownerswho commentedabout the program in January suggested amore workable program that would involve identifying any problem at individual sitesandaddressing that specificproblem, rather than a blanket regulation. Merkley said the Fee Branch staff has offered an option for fees driven by the perceived threat to water quality and the complexity of the problem. The statewide order allows the largest wineries toparticipate inregional ground- water monitoring rather than individual monitoring. In addition, wineries sub- ject to the effluent limits for subsurface systems may instead install groundwater monitoring wells that must be approved by a regional board. If the monitoring shows the groundwater is above the ap- proved limit, wineries have one year to prepare a nitrogen control plan andmeet the effluent limits. (Chr i s t ine Souza i s an ass i s tant editor of Ag Alert. She may be contacted at csouza@cfbf.com.)
As the State Water Resources Control Board moves forward with new regu- lations on wastewater discharge from California wineries, its Fee Branch has begun to develop a fee structure to sup- port the program. FeeBranch staffmetwithwinery repre- sentatives last week to discuss fee-sched- ule options. The water board estimates total cost
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6 Ag Alert March 24, 2021
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