Local Stories by Local People
updated: Dec 06, 2012, 4:15 PM

After years of fighting to get farmers to monitor and report what substances they're discharging into the groundwater and ocean a coalition of clean water advocates is once again turning to the courts.

Comments in order of when they were received | (reverse order)

COMMENT 351058P	2012-12-06 04:42 PM
Good. It is about time- the mega-agri- interests in this County have hijacked the Water Board process for far too long- they intimidate and bully elected officials and planners into allowing them carte blanche to poison our water, destroy natural resources and somehow skirt basic oversight. Time for that to end.
COMMENT 351116	2012-12-06 06:14 PM
They did 58p....Its called a Delta Smelt!
COMMENT 351160P	2012-12-06 08:04 PM
They are hardly big argi interests. And how is the run off poisoning the water? The plants in the creeks benefit from fertilizer and are natural filters.
FRESHPAVEMENT	2012-12-07 07:27 AM
160P asks ".. .how is the run off poisoning the water." Are you serious? Runoff poisons the water by transporting the fertilizers & pesticides that were applied to the field (and not used by the plants) into the creeks & streams, and ultimately the ocean. The agricultural land does not need to be owned or operated by a huge conglomerate to contribute to this problem - small farmers are frequent contributors as well. Stormwater pollution is a huge problem and Ag operations are exempt from the Clean Water Act that covers this problem, thanks to their effective lobbying. They should be held to the same standards as the rest of us and not be allowed to contaminate ANY water. There are thousands of examples of the damage caused by Ag runoff - one is the massive hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
COMMENT 351245	2012-12-07 07:31 AM
160- Do not forget the heavy pesticide and herbicide load that accompanies that fertilizer. And too much fertilizer leads to algae bloom, low oxygen content and dead sea life.
COMMENT 351265P	2012-12-07 08:06 AM
um, 160P, it is only the biggest source of water pollution- http://wingolog.org/writings/water/html/node24.html
COMMENT 351273	2012-12-07 08:12 AM
I think we should improve the environment. But the enviros would go a lot further if they stopped trying to pass laws that required people to spend a bunch of their own hard-earned money to monitor and remediate their activities. Said activities such as the application of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are legal, right? So if you want someone to start monitoring the results of their legal activities, raise taxes and provide funding for them to do the monitoring at no cost to the farmers. If you can get the people to support the increased taxes, then you know you have a winning issue. We should pass a amendment to the state constitution that the legislature does not pass any more unfunded mandates that cost business owners to implement. Why is this not done already?
COMMENT 351324	2012-12-07 09:53 AM
So when a business poisons the water and air we all should pay for it? Pull yor head out of ........
COMMENT 351379	2012-12-07 12:03 PM
Well, that's okay to force farmers to pay for monitoring without helping them pay for it. They will either pass the costs on to you in the form of higher food costs or go out of business, in which case the supply will go down and food costs will go up too. Either way you will pay, and some help at least you might have a chance of getting support for what you want. Otherwise you have a bunch of landowners that contribute to political campaigns fighting you tooth and nail. Good luck with that.
COMMENT 351391	2012-12-07 12:41 PM
Organically grown crops are currently not much more expensive than conventional......so ya I'll gladly pay not to pollute the ground water and ocean.

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