Paso Robles agricultural stakeholders have been concerned for nearly two years about a revised set of county rules for the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin coming down the pike.
At first, concerns centered on a proposed five-fold increase in the amount of water each basin landowner could pump from their properties without restriction, and how that could impact the aquifer. But since May’s release of a draft environmental impact report (EIR) for the policy, farmers’ list of concerns has grown well beyond that.
In public comment letters submitted to the county in response to the EIR, ag groups panned the new ordinance and warned that the package of new rules and mitigation measures it creates for farmers would be “unprecedented.”
“This ordinance is indisputably bad for agriculture,” the SLO County Farm Bureau wrote in a July 6 letter to the county. “It might help a handful of property owners, but it does so at the expense of the vast majority of growers in the Paso basin, and the mitigation measures it introduces set a dangerous precedent for new regulations on all farmers and ranchers in SLO County.”
The ordinanceāwhich got the go-ahead for an EIR from a divided Board of Supervisors early last yearāwould revise the county’s basin land-use regulations for the first time in a decade by changing the definition of what’s considered exempted water use, increasing it from 5 to 25 acre-feet per year (AFY).
As the restrictions go today, any new irrigation above 5 AFY must be offset by an equal reduction in pumping. That, at least on paper, has capped the demand on the basin since 2013. But in 5th District Supervisor Debbie Arnold’s view, that setup was unfair from the start.
“All along, I was never happy,” Arnold told New Times. “When the urgency ordinance was originally passed, there were clearly winners and losers, and for losers, it was through no fault of their own. We experienced an influx of irrigated ag and that was really the reason there was so much groundwater pumping. We still have people who have unlimited use of waterāmajor quantitiesāand we have people who can’t use any.”
But what Arnold hoped would be a simple revision to the ordinance to help small property owners has instead triggered what ag interests like the Farm Bureau are calling “a Pandora’s box of new regulations.”
The draft EIR for the ordinance found that the key provisionāthe increase in exempted pumpingāwould have a major cumulative impact on the basin. Over the next 22 years, the EIR estimates it would spawn 250 new, 20-acre vineyards, which would add close to 10,000 AFY of demand on the basināalmost double what the basin’s overdraft is already estimated at now.
To attempt to mitigate those impacts, the EIR proposes a variety of new requirements for plantings. The mitigation measures range from requiring air quality control on farms (“for the life of the project, maintain the unpaved roads, driveways, and/or parking area with a dust suppressant”); setbacks from riparian and wetland habitat (“planting plans … shall be required to include a setback of at least 50 feet … to the edge of riparian vegetation and wetland areas”); metering on wells; and water and hydrology reports.
According to SLO County Farm Bureau Executive Director Brent Burchett, it’s that “pile of mitigation measures” that has the agricultural community most alarmed. He said he understands what Arnold and her colleagues 1st District Supervisor John Peschong and 4th District Supervisor Lynn Compton are trying to do with “the fairness argument,” but “this is not the way to do it,” he said.
“Any characterization that these are little small things, I believe is very wrong,” Burchett said. “When I speak to the Cattlemen’s Association, wine growers, people in South County, when they see mitigation measures being implemented on routine ag practices, that’s a big red flag.”
If adopted, Burchett believes that almost every farmer over the basin would eventually find themselves in the crosshairs of the county Planning and Building Department. That’s because many of the mitigation measures proposed apply to both exempted plantings and larger farms that rotate crops, a practice that would now require a county permit.
“This is not a tweak,” Burchett said of the policy. “It’s a new land-use ordinance that’s going to be on the books until 2045.”
Other local ag groups agreed, and their comment letters warn that the proposed mitigation measures could drive hundreds of acres of farmland out of production, whether due to their proximity to a stream or the general burdens of the permitting process. The SLO County Agricultural Liaison Advisory Board wrote in its letter that it prefers extending the existing basin ordinance, adding that it’s generally concerned about “the fundamental change in direction in the relationship between the county and agriculture.”
SLO County’s discussion about revamping the local basin ordinance is unfolding while emergency drought restrictions come down from the state and local stakeholders start to try to implement the Paso Basin Sustainability Planāthe document crafted to comply with the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).
Most of the EIR commenters noted that they preferred to use the SGMA process to develop new local groundwater rules. Burchett also pointed to a recent Gov. Gavin Newsom executive order on well drilling as the type of challenge that agriculture is grappling with from higher levels of government.
Newsom’s order requires that all new wells drilled over threatened groundwater basins first receive approvals from the presiding Groundwater Sustainability Agency. For most of the Paso groundwater basin, that agency is SLO County, and the county confirmed that it’s since stopped issuing any new permits for irrigation wells that are not replacement wells of identical size and depth.
“So the EIR says, ‘Oh if [the new ordinance] impacts the basin, [farmers] can just go drill a deeper well, no big deal.’ That’s not accurate,” Burchett said.
On Aug. 18, Arnold, Burchett, and county officials met in person to discuss the ordinance, its EIR, and the Farm Bureau’s concerns. Arnold told New Times afterward that she was surprised, too, to see the mitigation measures in the draft EIR and hopes staff can find alternatives to replace them with in the final EIR. She declined to say whether she’d support the ordinance if it came back before the Board of Supervisors without changes.
“I don’t know how it’s going to end,” Arnold said. “The planners and the lawyers are going to go back and take a look. All I’m trying to do is help my conscience that what our county did to our farmers back then was wrong.” Ī
Assistant Editor Peter Johnson can be reached at pjohnson@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Aug 25 – Sep 4, 2022.