Water Continued from Page 1
Farm Bureau’s Chris Scheuring, left, discusses groundwater with Marcus Trotta and Ann DuBay of Sonoma County Water Agency.
future, we’ll keep pushing the issue.” Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, dis- cussed several programs at her agency de- signed to help farmers adapt to a changing climate. Among them is the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program. So far, it has invested $120 million to encour- age more efficient water use on the farm. “My biggest worry is that too many peo- ple will say agriculture is a legacy industry, and it’s not,” Ross said. “To help be a part of feeding the world—and right now we’re thinking about food security more than ever—how do we do it better?” Johansson cited issues facing farmers and ranchers in addition to the drought, including supply-chain issues and rising costs of fuel, fertilizer and other inputs. “It’s going to be a unique time to farm,” Johansson said. “It’s going to be a painful time to farm, but we have an opportunity to tell a story, to get something done, because it was a wake-up call for California.” As farmers tell their stories, he said, they’ll be accused of using too much wa- ter—even though that water has a purpose. Johansson noted many grape growers in the room had pulled all-nighters running sprinklers to protect their vines from frost. “These are all stories to tell,” Johansson said, “about how we get the food and how we create the economies that our counties depend on.” (Kevin Hecteman is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. He may be contacted at khecteman@cfbf.com.)
Jackson Family Wines launched a pilot project a couple of years ago at its Saralee property, west-northwest of Santa Rosa. “We allowed water to infiltrate our vineyard,” said Susanne Zeichel, the farm’s director of environmental com- pliance. It “allowed the water to mound up, and there was base flow back to the river in the late season.” She said that in- creased soil moisture, “so we were able to avoid late-season irrigation.” With that “proof of concept” in hand, the farm launched a larger-scale project in the Alexander Valley that has been underway for about 18 months. Philip Bachand, who gave a presentation of both projects, engi- neered the Alexander Valley recharge ef- fort with the help of a Department of Water Resources grant. “We plan to divert about 3,600 acre- feet average per year of flood flows off the Russian River through pumping from un- derflow, from under the river, in the sub- terranean channel,” Bachand said. “We’re going to apply it at about 1 inch per day on about 10% to 15% of the farmland. We’ll be running recharge for about 90 days every season that we can, (on) average.” Last year, Russian River diversions were curtailed (see related story, Page 10). While the Alexander Valley is not rated as a medium- or high-pri- ority groundwater basin under the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, that could change, Zeichel said. “If we can mound up the groundwater to provide base flow back in the late summer and early fall, then there won’t be as much of a need for curtailment in the future,” she said. “We’ll be able to support fisheries and downstream communities with a little ad- ditional cooler water, because the base- flow water is going to just be cooler and better for the fish.” At a breakout session on groundwater, moderated by California Farm Bureau Senior Counsel Chris Scheuring, panel- ists Marcus Trotta and Ann DuBay of the Sonoma County Water Agency and audi- ence members discussed ramifications of sustainability plans being developed for three county basins—Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma Valley—and the fees that will go along with them. A big challenge, DuBay said, is that “peo- ple aren’t used to paying for groundwater protection and management, because people pay for their wells and they pay for the maintenance of their wells and the pumping of their wells. They’re not used to
paying a government agency for ground- water protection.” Smaller basins, she add- ed, “bear disproportionate cost burden, and local fees vary widely between basins.” Sebastopol winegrape grower Riggs Lokka wanted to know that he wouldn’t be overcharged for pumping he doesn’t use. Lokka’s vineyard is dry-farmed, with irrigation only as needed. “I already have a meter on my well,” Lokka said afterward. “I know exactly how much water I’m using. I don’t want to get an extra fee for something that I’m not uti- lizing that water for. I want to make sure that I’m getting everything that I need to out of the money that I put out.” In response to Lokka’s query, Trotta said groundwater-sustainability agencies will have an appeals process for each basin, but informational standards still need to be developed. “It would be really helpful for the GSAs to hear … what type of infor- mation would make sense for the GSAs to consider,” Trotta said. Lokka said he was satisfied but intended to stay on top of the issue. “Law is always changing, and it’s never a complete science,” he said. “I think in the
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16 Ag Alert May 18, 2022
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