Bradley Works to Ease Water Rules for County Dairy Farmers

SACRAMENTO — Seeking to ease water quality standards for San Diego County dairy farms, Assemblyman Bill Bradley has introduced legislation that would eliminate the state’s power to regulate the waste that runs from dairy barnyards and pastures into the water supply.

Bradley, a San Marcos Republican, says he is using the bill as a way to prompt the state Water Resources Control Board to deal fairly with San Diego County dairy farmers, who Bradley says are facing stricter regulation from the state’s San Diego counterpart, the Regional Water Quality Control Board, on their waste water runoff than are farmers in other parts of the state.

San Diego farmers say the obstacles put in their way by water quality regulators, if allowed to stand, will make it impossible to open new dairies or expand existing dairies in the county.

Water quality board staff members, meanwhile, insist that they are doing no more than carrying out their mandate under state law to protect the county’s water supply from possible contaminants.

Spurred by Complaint

Bradley’s involvement in the issue stems from a complaint to his office by the owners of Van Tol Dairy, a Ramona operation that has been stymied for nearly a year in its effort to open a new dairy for the sons of the man who founded the original family farm 35 years ago.

John Van Tol Jr., whose father, a native of Holland, founded the dairy in 1952 with 60 cows and has since expanded to a herd of 700, said he and four of his brothers hope to open a second farm on about 135 acres of his father’s land.

Van Tol said he applied to the Regional Water Quality Control Board last May for a permit to operate the second farm but was told he would have to perform comprehensive studies of the underground water table before his application would be considered. Van Tol said he is not contesting other requirements that he build a system capable of holding his waste water on his property during a storm of a magnitude expected only once every 25 years.

The studies--required of new dairies and dairies proposing to expand their herds by 10% or more--involve testing the water supply to determine its purity and then evaluating what effect the nitrates and salts in cow manure and urine will have as they filter down into the water table.

Van Tol said he would be required to perform such tests as far as a mile upstream and a mile downstream from his dairy. He said the studies would cost a minimum of $50,000 and maybe much more, expenses that would make it impossible for him to open the farm.

“All we’re trying to do is start another dairy to put a couple of us boys in business . . . , “ Van Tol said. “That (the cost) is really outrageous.”

Van Tol’s grief is shared by other county farmers, who contend that their dairies are being unfairly pressured by the staff of the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

“There are dairies being built around the state and they’re not having to go through all these gyrations and costly studies,” said Charles Woods, executive secretary of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. “They’re not finding themselves with these problems.”

Tom Escher, the county’s deputy agriculture commissioner, said the water board’s requirements will effectively block San Diego dairies from expanding. With industry trends indicating that dairies are growing larger in order to survive economically, such a restriction could mean an end to the dairy business in the county, he said. Some farms that have expanded recently fear that the requirements could be imposed on them retroactively, he said.

“If they have to meet these requirements, they will go out of business if they are existing and they will not build if they’re new,” Escher said.

Entered the Fray

Frustrated by the stalemate with the water board staff, the farmers called on Bradley, who represents the area and considers himself an advocate for farmers and businessmen in their battles with environmentalists and state agencies.

Bradley entered the fray by introducing a bill that would exempt dairies and animal feed lots statewide from drainage requirements contained in regulations adopted by the state Water Resources Control Board.

That proposal got the water board’s attention, Bradley said, and now he is pressuring the board’s staff to ease its standards. The assemblyman met Friday with Van Tol, Woods, and staff members from the state Water Resources Control Board and its Regional Water Quality Control Board.

“What’s happening in San Diego, and only in San Diego, is that they’re treating effluent like waste out of a sewage plant,” Bradley said, arguing that it is unfair to require farmers to show that their dairies will not pollute the water supply. The burden, he said, should be on state regulators to prove that the farms will cause a problem.

But Ed Anton, an official with the state Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento, said the local board seems to be acting within its power to protect the region’s water supply.

“San Diego has rather limited ground water,” Anton said. “The basins don’t yield very much, and it’s not the best quality to start with. But it’s the only water there. The regional board has adopted water quality objectives to keep it from getting any worse than it is.”

Anton said regulators suspect that the Van Tol dairy will pollute the water supply, and, rather than simply deny the permit, have suggested the study as a way to determine just what the effects will be.

“They’re fairly suspicious, but they can’t just say ‘No, you can’t go in,’ ” Anton said.

Bradley said he will move forward with his bill if the water board does not devise a solution that satisfies the farmers. State water board officials left little doubt that they would fight the proposal.

“We haven’t taken a position yet, but I doubt it’s a bill we would fail to oppose,” said Randy Kanouse, the board’s legislative coordinator.