By Christina Souza, Ag Alert
As the State Water Resources Control Board moves forward with new regulations on wastewater discharge from California wineries, its Fee Branch has begun to develop a fee structure to support the program.
Fee Branch staff met with winery representatives last week to discuss fee-schedule options.
The water board estimates total cost 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 from wineries that will continue to be governed by individual regulatory orders.
California Farm Bureau Director of Water Resources Danny Merkley, who attended the meeting, said costs to operate the program represent an initial estimate and could be adjusted in subsequent 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 region to region, he said, “but that’s hard to do, because it’s different in Napa than it is in Lodi.”
More than 2,000 California wineries that apply winery process water to land for irrigation and soil amendment uses will be affected by the new regulation, which the state board adopted in January. The board said the order would safeguard groundwater and surface water through a permitting process for water discharge.
The regulation will be implemented by regional water boards soon after the fee schedule is adopted, which could happen in June or July.
Merkley said the California Farm Bureau has been working since 2015 with the Wine Institute, county Farm Bureaus, the California Association of Winegrape Growers, Family Winemakers of California and others to advocate for a regulation that works for winery operators and water quality.
The order classifies wineries into regulatory tiers based on the total volume of processed water discharged annually prior to treatment, with different application 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 high winery density.
Noelle Cremers, director of environmental and regulatory affairs for the Wine Institute, which represents California wineries, said there may be some added adjustments to proposed fees.
“We were pleased to see fees split within tiers. That split will better target fees to the economic reality facing wineries,” Cremers said.
However, she warned, fees for the largest, Tier 4, wineries would be “a significant increase” for those currently operating under regional general orders.
“Under the proposal, one of our members will see a winery go from paying approximately $1,500 annually to $19,000 under the new winery order,” Cremers said, noting that the water board would continue to meet with winery representatives before finalizing the fees.
Winery owners who commented about the program in January suggested a more workable program that would involve identifying any problem at individual sites and addressing that specific problem, 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 to participate in regional groundwater monitoring rather than individual monitoring. In addition, wineries subject 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 approved limit, wineries have one year to prepare a nitrogen control plan and meet the effluent limits.
