Program helps ensure cleaner water runoff from fields S fields
ept. 1 is around the corner! What’s that mean? It means it’s time for growers to register their into the Imperial County Farm Bureau’s Total Maximum Daily Load Program.
While the program has been around for a while now, I thought this upcoming deadline would be a great reason to write about the program, both to remind growers to update their TMDL plans and to educate the public on some of the things local agriculturalists are doing to improve the quality of water coming off their fields.
The Imperial Valley has more than 450,000 acres of farmable land. This land is irrigated by water from the Colorado River, which is delivered through the Imperial Irrigation District’s 1,668 miles of canals. Farmers apply this irrigation water to their fields in order to cultivate the many crops our land is able to grow.
Even when water conservation practices are implemented, there will always be some amount of water that flows out of a field through tile lines and tailwater boxes when land is irrigated. This water flows into the 1,456 miles of IID drains, the New River and the Alamo River. All of the drains flow into the Alamo and New Rivers, which both drain to the Salton Sea.
As mandated by the Regional Water Quality Control Board, water that flows from a field must include as little silt and sediment as possible. Many substances, like phosphate for example, are not water soluble. This means they can only travel in water when attached electrically to a soil particle. Therefore, by reducing the amount of silt and sediment running off in the water, we improve the quality of the water going into the IID drains and ultimately, the Salton Sea. Growers are playing a huge role in improving this quality.
In 2001, the Imperial County Farm Bureau’s Voluntary Total Maximum Daily Load Program was developed to help irrigated agriculture meet the requirements of the Regional Water Quality Control Board’s Irrigated Land Regulatory Program. This program was extremely successful in both grower participation and the resulting water quality improvements. Then, in 2015, the program was switched by the RWQCB to a conditional waiver. While much of the program remained the same, a couple of changes did take place. First, a per-acre fee for landowners started being charged by the State of California. Second, there were no longer exemptions for lands that were not being farmed. In short, now any parcel that has the ability to drain water into an IID drain is included.
The ICFB Voluntary TMDL Program provides the option for farmers and landowners to join a coalition as opposed to applying for an individual discharge permit from the RWQCB directly. A big benefit here is that the fee for landowners who are a part of the coalition is significantly less than those who register directly with the RWQCB. Additionally, those who choose to register on their own are required to do their own monitoring and reporting, which is another large cost. By being a part of the coalition, one benefits from the partnership between ICFB and IID to administer and monitor the program.
Another important benefit of the program is the anonymity it provides to individual growers and operations. We are able to maintain this by doing region-wide monitoring and reporting. As long as the targeted total suspended solids level goals, as determined by the RWQCB, are met, monitoring at the field level is not required.
Additionally, the ICFB Voluntary TMDL Program works to educate farmers and landowners and provide resources to help them meet water quality goals. Additionally, in the coalition, participants have been able to learn from one another’s farming experiences to develop feasible methods of controlling pollutant runoff.
The key to the reduction of silt leaving the field is to keep the water moving slow enough that soil particles are not picked up and suspended in the water.
By controlling the speed that water flows, the level of the ground, and a variety of other best management practices, farmers ensure the water leaving their fields is as clean as possible before traveling through the drains, down the rivers and depositing into the Salton Sea.
Farmers have the freedom to choose and implement best management practices that work for their field, soil type, and crop. This flexibility is key because every field is different. A variety of best management practices can be implemented to help with reducing the speed of water, including utilizing wide-pan ditches, maintaining the proper grade at the end of a field, and installing drain water ditch checks, just to name a few. Additionally, water conservation measures like sprinkler and drip irrigation have significant impacts by resulting in little to no water being drained through the tailwater box.
Farmers have done an outstanding job and have successfully met or exceeded RWQCB goals and expectations. As a result, our program has been a model for many across the state, and Farm Bureau was even awarded the 2004 Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award and in 2006 the EPA Environmental Award for Outstanding Achievement.
Even with the addition of a state-mandated fee, grower and landowner participation is extremely high.
This long-term success shows how committed our local agriculturalists are to the environment. Farmers are the original environmentalists, doing everything they can to be good stewards of the land, use water efficiently and improve the quality of water entering the Salton Sea.