In parts of the Central Valley, nitrate levels in groundwater have risen so high that the drinking water in rural homes and small water systems no longer meets safety standards. Many small, rural communities in the Central Valley aren’t connected to public water systems and depend on shallow domestic wells for their water. Unfortunately, years of fertilizer use and animal farming have allowed nitrates to seep into groundwater aquifers, making drinking water unsafe in some locations. Additionally, increasing salt levels throughout the Valley threaten to transform this productive region into a place where the water is undrinkable and the land unsuitable for farming.
In 2006, the Central Valley Water Board initiated the Central Valley – Salinity Alternatives for Long-term Sustainability (CV-SALTS) program to seek and implement solutions to the widespread nitrate and salt contamination in shallow groundwater and wells. In 2019, the CV-SALTS program was approved by the State Water Board. The program requires dischargers, such as irrigated agriculture, dairies, and others, to organize into coalitions to address nitrate discharges in their regions and to provide interim replacement drinking water while long-term measures are developed.
Since the program was approved, significant progress has been made-coalitions have been formed, plans have been submitted, and well testing and deliveries of replacement water in the most severely impacted areas have begun. But is enough progress being made? Environmental justice advocates said no and expressed frustration during the annual CV-SALTS update at the August 6 State Water Resources Control Board meeting.
CV-SALTS PROGRAM UPDATE
The update began with a presentation by Central Valley Water Board staff and members of the CV-SALTS coalition.
The CV-SALTS program has two main components: A salt control program to address salinity impacts on both surface water and groundwater and a nitrate control program, which is a prioritized program for nitrate-contaminated groundwater.
Each program offers a conservative or alternative permitting approach for compliance with the regulations. The conservative approach involves strict adherence to the regulations, while the alternative approach allows for more flexibility in meeting the requirements, often through innovative solutions or technologies.
The Salt Control Program
The Salt Control Program is a structured, three-phase initiative aimed at effective salt management. The ongoing first phase involves developing the Prioritization and Optimization Study, a comprehensive analysis that will identify salt-sensitive areas, evaluate salt management options, and formulate a long-term strategy for salt control. Once completed, this study will guide the subsequent two phases: identifying potential regulatory actions and aligning with SGMA GSAs’ goals, followed by constructing and implementing the chosen strategies. The Central Valley Salinity Coalition is managing the P&O study effort, which is paid for by the growers who have chosen the alternative pathway.
The final Baseline Characteristic Report was completed in March of 2024. About 600 pages long, the report describes the general physical and hydrologic characteristics of the three hydrologic regions in the Central Valley, characterizes baseline salt conditions in surface water and groundwater within each hydrologic region, and describes the factors that have led to or affected existing conditions.
The Baseline Characteristic Report documents existing regulatory requirements for irrigated lands, dairies, and EPA requirements for key sectors. It provides preliminary estimates of current salt loading from those industrial sectors within each hydrologic region, such as irrigated lands, dairies, poultry operations, wastewater treatment plants, and food processors. The report identifies salt sources in surface waters.
The report will be used to compare potential solutions and opportunities for salt management in regions and areas and will provide the foundation for the development of a long-range plan for the implementation of cost-effective salinity management strategies for the Central Valley.
The next steps are to work on the selection and analysis of salt management regions and salt management areas, selection and analysis of archetype areas, numeric target development in archetype areas, and development of a numeric salt management tool. This phase is expected to be completed in 2025.
The Nitrate Control Program
The Nitrate Control Program is prioritized in order of health risk. Priority 1 areas have the most nitrate contamination; notice to comply orders were sent in May of 2020. Early Action Plan implementation began in May of 2021.
So far, 2456 wells have been tested in the Priority 1 management zone since 2021; 1308 were above nitrate standards; 1621 households are receiving replacement water. So far, over 2.7 million gallons of water have been distributed since 2021, 1.8 million gallons via bottles and the remainder via fill stations. When combined with testing from the Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program, a total of 9429 wells have been tested, with 3824 testing above the nitrate standard.
Dischargers in Priority 2 areas were sent Notice to Comply letters in December of 2023. Early action plans and delivery of replacement water implementation are set to begin in late February 2025. The remaining areas of the state with nitrate issues will be addressed on a case-by-case basis after nitrate issues are addressed in priority areas.
There are five management zones that submitted plans submitted in September 2023.
Tess Dunham, partner at Kahn, Soares, & Conway, LLP, then discussed the Management Zone Implementation Plans (or MZIPs). She noted that the management zones worked collectively on the plans, so the plans are structured the same, use the same methodologies, and have common appendices. Plan components include an emergency and interim drinking water program, a long-term drinking water solutions program, a nitrate reduction program, and a managed aquifer restoration plan.
Ms. Dunham pointed out the significant amount of work that has occurred in a short amount of time: “In less than 4 years, we have created five new organizations covering six management zones that came into existence. We’ve developed funding mechanisms, hired technical consultants and others, and managed to do this while still doing outreach, free well testing, and delivering bottled water to over 1600 households. We are six functioning management zones with over 1.4 million irrigated acres and more than 1000 permitted dischargers under the nitrate program from multiple sectors. We did this, and we delivered every document on time. There were no extensions asked for because we worked very hard to keep this program moving forward.”
The Management Zone Implementation Plans (or MZIPs) continue implementing drinking water replacement programs that were started under the early action plans. This includes community outreach, domestic well testing, bottled water delivery when nitrate exceeds the limit, and water fill stations. They are coordinating with the State Water Board and the SAFER program.
To address nitrate contamination in the long term, the MZIPs include workplans to identify and implement drinking water solutions in ‘Initial Focus Areas,’ which are chosen based on ambient nitrate concentrations, SAFER needs assessment, domestic well and population density, and other factors. The management zones will coordinate with stakeholders, state/local agencies, public water systems, and local organizations to identify solutions and facilitate efforts to secure funding for long-term projects.
The MZIPs include a Nitrate Reduction Program with the goal to reduce nitrate loading so that ongoing discharges do not cause or contribute to exceedances of water quality objectives. The Management Zones are working collectively to develop sector-based programs for dischargers such as irrigated ag, dairy operations, animal operations, etc. The development process begins with estimating the amount of nitrogen loading by sector or discharger using existing data, establishing sector-based nitrogen reduction milestones, and developing a schedule of implementation activities. The exceptions policy allows up to 35 years to comply but is subject to periodic review.
The Managed Aquifer Restoration Program includes plans for outreach and engagement, identification of potential risks associated with program implementation, and identification of strategies to mitigate risks. The Management Zones are coordinating with the GSAs on SGMA-related activities such as groundwater recharge projects.
MZIPs require the development of a long-term compliance assessment approach based on the existing township-based compliance framework under the irrigated lands program. Key elements include additional monitoring where needed to refine preliminary nitrogen loading estimates, nitrate reduction workshops, and establishment of township-based targets that consider the different dischargers. Established GSPTs will be used to inform sector-based load reduction requirements applicable to individual dischargers.
The MZIPs are not self-implementing; the regional board will use the plans to inform permit requirements and revisions.
A major permitting effort
Regional board staff noted that it’s a significant permitting effort. 11 general permits, both regional and statewide, will have to be modified; those changes apply to 900 confined animal facilities, several oil and gas operations, NPDES permittees, small domestic wastewater treatment systems, and biosolids facilities. There are 7100 farms enrolled in four coalitions in the irrigated lands program and 168 individual permits for facilities.
“Central Valley board staff are coordinating internally with the various programs, such as ILRP, on a strategy to make the necessary revisions to permits to include requirements for evaluating nitrate loading, reporting requirements, and drinking water program requirements,” said Angela Cleaver, Senior Environmental Scientist at the Central Valley Water Board.
Before the permits are updated, there will be a CEQA process to assess environmental impacts and tradeoffs for infrastructure, so there will be several public processes. The Board must make AB 2108 findings regarding culturally relevant outreach and engagement, and permits must satisfy applicable state policies, such as the antidegradation policy, sources of drinking water policy, Human right to water, and Nonpoint source policy.
Drinking water infrastructure build-out and financing must be assessed in cooperation with affected communities and the State Water Board, and communities with noncompliance wastewater treatment plants need to assess infrastructure needs and opportunities for upgrades and get buy-in from local municipal leadership.
Compliance and Enforcement
For the Salt Control Program, 23% (or 739 out of 3154 dischargers) have yet to select a compliance pathway as of June 2024 or are not current on their payments for the P&O study. 64% of those are dischargers under the Board’s Non-15 program, which are individual dischargers to land, such as wastewater facilities, food processors, or biosolids facilities, followed by Confined Animal Facilities at 23%.
For the Nitrate Control program, 91% of 1180 Priority 1 Permittees are in Management Zones’; 1% chose the conservative option, and 8% have not selected an option. Since May 2022, compliance and enforcement staff have reduced the number of non-responsive Nitrate Control Program dischargers. Enforcement activities for non-compliant dischargers in the Salt and Nitrate Control programs will be prioritized for Fiscal Year 24/25.
Where’s the oversight?
Board member Laurel Firestone questioned Mr. Pulupa regarding the oversight of the Management Zone Implementation Plan, asking if there was any substantive analysis by the regional board as to the adequacy of the plans.
Mr. Pulupa responded that the data for the plans is being currently developed. The Management Zones need to survey households and develop the data for compliant and non-compliant wells and the options. “Those have not been fully developed at this stage yet,” he said. “That package will come into the regional board, we’ll see the financing options, and then that will be built into the compliance. Frankly, I don’t know if enough information has been developed yet to get those packages perfected and into the regional board now.”
After more back and forth, Board member Firestone said, “It doesn’t sound to me like the regional board is going to do a substantive adequacy determination on the drinking water plans.” She acknowledged it’s a challenging plan to implement, but more oversight is needed.
Mr. Pulupa agreed, noting that the engineers, scientists, and geologists within the Irrigated Lands Program, Dairy Program, and others are focusing on nitrate load reduction and getting those efforts underway because that’s the work the Regional Board does. For drinking water, the direction of the Regional Board is to get the wells sampled and replacement water supplied.
Once the data has been collected, the Regional Board will have to rely on the State Water Board’s expertise, primarily the Department of Financial Assistance and the Division of Drinking Water. “That is really outside of our area of expertise. We’re relying on State Board staff to help us with that.”
Environmental justice advocates have their turn to speak
Then it was the environmental justice advocates to have their say, led by Kjia Rivers, policy advocate with Community Water Center, and Jennifer Clary, Clean Water Action.
The panel began with community members from the San Joaquin Valley who spoke about the difficulty of living with nitrate-contaminated water, even with replacement water being provided. They want action to stop the contamination and can’t wait 30 years for a solution. “A lot of trying, not much doing,” said one.
Jennifer Clary said she has been involved in CV-SALTS for 15 years and is frustrated by the idea of waiting another year and a half to start a 35-year timeline. “When we started this, we were looking at the fact that nitrate contamination was getting away from us; it was increasing faster than we could find solutions for it,” said Ms. Clary. “So we needed to look at source water protection, we need to figure out how to stop the pollution and clean up the basin so safe drinking water is a huge piece of this, and people need to be made whole while we’re trying to figure this out.”
“Equally important is trying not to impact more people and give ourselves a chance to catch up,“ she continued. “My organization has worked on mercury for decades, so I understand the slow time it takes to maker things work, but we have to start taking action quickly because the longer we take to start moving the needle, the more problems we’ll have to solve.“ Ms. Clary later noted that as nitrate contamination continues to grow, the MZIPs are only looking at currently impacted communities.
Ms. Rivers said that the majority of residents affected by nitrates have yet to be contacted by management zones, so at this rate, it will take ten years for the majority of wells to be tested.
Management zones must ensure funding for long-term drinking water solutions, Ms. Rivers said, noting that per the Board’s resolution, the unavailability of public funding cannot cause delays.
They also expressed concern over the township level for compliance, noting that the Board’s resolution states to avoid the use of a volume-weighted average as an alternative compliance pathway to avoid problems with nitrate hot spots, and the township level is still a form of that.
Overall, the timeline is just too long, they emphasized. “Management zone proposals will take 20 years, and it’s neither aggressive nor justified, considering there are no new technologies needed to meet those milestones. So we would like to see those accelerated.”
They closed by asking that the Board implement a community capacity building effort for compliance and restoration as well as drinking water solutions, require management zones to prepare a plan for funding drinking water solutions that is not reliant on public funds, require management zones to provide additional justification from dischargers why a 35-year schedule for compliance, and require acceleration of interim milestones.
Timeline
Central Valley Water Board Executive Officer Patrick Pulupa noted that not all dischargers are on a 35-year timeline. Dischargers close to compliance are on a 10-year timeline; other industries are on a 20-year timeline.
He also disputed the assertion that no new technologies are needed for irrigated agriculture to come into compliance. “The ag community, as it grows crops right now, cannot comply with the nitrate standard on a variety of crops. The reason there’s a long time frame for coming into A/R ratios is that it would be detrimental to the Valley as a whole if you just said the nitrate that you’re applying right now to get a reliable, productive crop to feed the rest of the country is 40 pounds per acre. We need you to come to 20 pounds per acre next year. If you did that, you would see dramatic reductions in crop productivity across virtually all sectors of the agricultural industry in California.“
“That is really the challenge,“ he continued. “We don’t have an out-of-the-box right now technology that would say, here is how you comply while maintaining productivity, so that’s why there is an extended time frame for compliance built into the management zone implementation plans.”
He noted that the Irrigated Lands program is also looking at how to drive compliance timelines down while maintaining productivity as well. “It will require new technologies to get to there from here,“ he said.
Board member Firestone frustrated by the lack of progress, collaboration
Board member Laurel Firestone was clearly frustrated by the slow pace of the program. “I do think it’s troubling that MZIPs were developed without a collaborative process, and then, as a result, you have a lot more critiques when you get to the public process because they weren’t included collaboratively,“ she said.
Ms. Firestone acknowledged the significant amount of work that has gone into this program, but we’re not getting good outcomes even with the interim drinking water plans. “I think the insight that at this rate, it’s going to take ten years to get to everybody is a legitimate concern, and frankly, I don’t think we have a long-term plan for drinking water that I feel is adequate.”
Regarding the ten years to reach all the well owners, Pulupa said, “I think that is premised off only 19% of the wells have been tested .. and that’s not quite true. The Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program and CV-SALTS have tested a total of 9,129 domestic wells in the Priority 1 area when the estimate was there’s only 7000 people total estimated to be impacted in the Priority 1 area, so there are a lot of people who have had their wells tested.”
“There are domestic wells out there we know we have to find, but these outreach efforts, the literal millions of points of contact that have happened over and over again, are about as good as it gets.
Mr. Pulupa acknowledged there are tough issues to overcome. “These are the ones that Jennifer Clary is bringing front and center: the timelines, the aggressiveness, and the township-level compliance, which is one of the biggest issues I know this Board is wrestling with.”
Ms. Firestone referenced the Corona report that estimated 7000 wells were impacted. “My understanding of what you all provided is that only about 3000, so less than half, are getting any interim water. That’s about half the people that are impacted are getting nothing. We could argue about the numbers, but we’re not doing enough to ensure that people without safe drinking water now impacted by nitrates have safe drinking water, and we need to hold ourselves to that standard.”
“Just as we work to make sure the SAFER program is successful in getting to make sure that no community lacks safe drinking water, I think we need to make sure there aren’t half the people in the area with nitrate contamination aren’t left with nothing after three years,“ she said.
Mr. Pulupa disputed the number of folks not receiving water in impacted areas and noted dozens of other programs are also supplying replacement water. He acknowledged that it’s not the best way to accomplish this. “The numbers are indicative of the fact that there is not a unified regulatory program to address the individual drinking water needs of private well owners in a hugely impacted region of the state. And we’re doing our best to rectify that problem with the tools are our disposal.”
See you next year …
Vice Chair Dorene D’Adamo said she sees improvement in the program every year. She doesn’t think action by the State Water Board at this point is warranted and asks that they hone in on the points made and address them at next year’s update. Board member Sean Maguire agreed with the yearly check-in.
Chair Joaquin Esquivel, always the diplomat, closed the agenda item by expressing appreciation for everyone’s efforts. “There’s an incredible amount of urgency around this work, and to Board Member Maguire’s point, it’s balancing all the detail and technical work that must go into these very complex challenges that face the community and us collectively and the outcomes that we’re looking for. And I agree, Vice Chair, that each year is a bit of iteration, and I agree with Board member Firestone that it’s important we keep the tone and relationship central to all of us, knowing that these are incredibly complex issues that impact the community write large, with the state writ large, and require a thoughtful balance with the joint and combined urgency around the outcomes when it comes to communities and individuals that are being impacted.“
“I think what we can expect next year is continued acceleration of these discussions and additional specificity that gets us to those outcomes faster.”
