They’d rather turn wine into water
Residents blame shrinking salmon populations in Sonoma Valley on the $13.4-billion (U.S.) local wine industry.
These days, the redwood-shaded creek by Laura and Ray Waldbaum’s house is a bone-dry path of rocks and gravel, its occasional stagnant pools a sombre reminder of the salmon that once thrived there.
Fewer than 500 endangered coho now wend their way from a network of such creeks to the Russian River and out to sea, and the chinook population is barely two-thirds of what it ought to be, according to wildlife officials. The Waldbaums and many other rural Sonoma County residents blame wine: about 24,000 hectares of vineyards, 439 wineries and 221 event centres that have permission to host dinners, concerts, weddings and other events for as many as 32,176 people, largely under the guise of agricultural promotion.
Seven years ago, so many vineyards switched on their sprinklers to protect their vines from a spring cold snap that water levels in creeks feeding the Russian River dropped several feet in a matter of hours, suffocating 25,000 fish in two counties.
So when state water regulators this summer announced emergency drought restrictions to protect salmon in some of those same watersheds, residents were shocked to find that agricultural properties faced no water cutbacks.
Simmering resentment at the rapid growth of vineyards and wineries turned to fury against an industry that has a $13.4-billion (U.S.) impact on the Sonoma County economy. And it appears to have spoiled the party for wineries and growers who have embarked on a highly publicized effort to be the nation’s first wine region to be certified as completely “sustainable” by 2019.
That agricultural exemption is coming to an end, even if the war is not. The State Water Resources Control Board has begun sending “informational orders” requiring growers to provide details about where they get their water, how much they use and how they apply it.
Vine by vine, wine grapes seem an unlikely nemesis in California’s water wars. The best vineyard managers tend to be miserly irrigators, deliberately depriving grapes of water to improve wine quality. The industry has been at the forefront of precision irrigation practices that involve complex remote-sensing devices, satellites and drones. Many vineyards have also turned to dry farming, which relies only on rainfall.
But practices vary, and activists say the industry’s sustainability program is too reliant on self-reporting, even if an outside party vets the information.
And any reticence from the industry feeds the perception among some rural residents that the wine industry is an unstoppable force used to getting its way.
“You never know when there’s going to be another vineyard in your area until a bulldozer shows up and starts taking down your trees,” said Laura Waldbaum, who has been fighting the expansion of a nearby mountainside vineyard owned by a former partner in Goldman Sachs.
“Where before, the wine industry was the darling of the community, people are pissed off here now.
“It’s a bigger story than just the water.”