State water board approves hikes in water program fees

By Christine Souza

The State Water Resources Control Board has approved a rate increase for water-quality and water-rights programs to meet budgetary shortfalls for programs that require participation by farmers and ranchers.

The California Farm Bureau provided comments and monitored fee stakeholder meetings throughout the year, including the meeting during which the state water board adopted a new fee schedule.

“Farm Bureau continues advocating for general fund dollars to support the fees at a time when the state budget is flush, and farmers and ranchers struggle to acquire water to irrigate their crops and water livestock,” said Danny Merkley, California Farm Bureau’s director of water resources.

The state water board adopted emergency regulations revising the core regulatory fee schedules, including water quality fees for programs in the Waste Discharge Permit Fund and water rights fees in the Water Rights Fund.

Related to WDPF, the board adopted a 0.84% increase in the water quality programs. The board also approved a 7.2% increase in the Water Rights Fund, which carries an approximate 10% reserve.

The increases include a 5% percent reserve in the WDPF, which houses funds for: National Pollution Discharge Elimination System for stormwater, waste discharge requirements or general orders, land disposal, 401 certification, confined animal facilities, Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program and cannabis, which is a stand-alone program that the other programs do not subsidize.

Responding to the fee increases, Brent Burchett, executive director of the San Luis Obispo County Farm Bureau, said, “We recognize there’s a cost to administer these programs, but I feel they don’t consider the reality facing our farmers, so it’s another example of death by a thousand cuts.”

Farmers are experiencing record-high costs for inputs such as fuel and fertilizer on top of the added costs to comply with the programs.

“The list of expenses for farmers in California continues to grow faster than our ability to sell more and grow our farms,” Burchett said. “This is just one more example of how out of touch state leaders are with what’s happening in agriculture.”

Under the “ag order,” Burchett said farmers face testing and monitoring requirements and costs borne by the growers.

“They have to pay someone to go out and collect the samples or some of them try to do it themselves,” Burchett said. “We understand that water quality is important, but a lot of times these (regulations) are onerous and duplicative and don’t achieve the goals that the regional water board or the state water board think they do.”

The board adopted the following increases for the 2022-23 fiscal year for programs housed in the Water Discharge Permit Fund: waste discharge requirements, 3.8%; land disposal, 3.8%; water quality certification (Section 401 certificate), 13.1%; NPDES for wastewater, 4.1%; confined animal facilities, 4.1%; ILRP, 3.9%; and cannabis, 5%. There was no change to the rate for NPDES for stormwater.

Foundational programs are spread across all WDPF programs and account for about 30% overall. Foundational programs include basin planning, Total Maximum Daily Loads, Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program, Groundwater Ambient Monitoring, state water board fee staff costs, monitoring, enforcement and inspections.

“Farm Bureau continues to advocate that general fund dollars support foundational programs since they benefit all Californians,” Merkley said.

Adopted as an emergency fee-setting regulation, the increases are effective for the 2022-23 fiscal year that began July 1.

(Christine Souza is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. She may be contacted at csouza@cfbf.com.)