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Damaging chlorides threaten area crops
Growers want reduction of salts in Santa Clara River
By Jim McLain, jmclain@VenturaCountyStar.com
March 5, 2005
Some of Ventura County's most powerful agribusinesses are organizing to pressure state and Los
Angeles-area officials into moving more aggressively to reduce rapidly increasing levels of
crop-damaging chlorides in the Santa Clara River.
Contending the salts in 20 million gallons of effluent released into the river daily by two waste-water
treatment plants in Santa Clarita pose a major threat to their $1.1 billion industry, the growers want state
officials to force the implementation of costly measures to quickly cut the pollution.
Lucrative crops including strawberries, citrus fruit and avocados grown in an area stretching from Piru to
the eastern edge of the Oxnard Plain are chloride-sensitive, they say, and there are already telltale
signs of damage.
Agencies responsible for water quality and sanitation in the area insist they are moving as quickly as
they can to resolve a very complex problem.
The Los Angeles County Sanitation District, operator of the sewage plants in Valencia and Saugus that
process Santa Clarita's waste water, has launched a detailed study of how chlorides affect crops because
high concentrations of the mineral frequently occur in Castaic Lake, source of nearly half the city's water.
Eliminating all chlorides, said one sanitation official, could take years and cost more than $300 million
for construction of a reverse-osmosis filtration plant and a pipeline to transport brine 50 miles to the
sea. The study's goal is to find a less drastic solution.
Formation of the Ventura County Agricultural Water Quality Coalition was announced this week. It
includes many of the industry's most prominent businesses and advocacy organizations.
The group's primary goal, said one member, is to push the state's Los Angeles Regional Water Quality
Control Board, which enforces water-quality regulations, into strictly limiting what is released into the river.
'Cumulative impact'
"We're worried about chlorides really getting out into the entire watershed down here and destroying the
quality of the water," said Robert P. Roy, the Ventura County Agricultural Association's president and
general counsel.
Water from the Santa Clara irrigates most Ventura County crops. Besides being pumped by growers
along its banks, huge quantities are diverted through the Freeman Diversion, a dam-like structure near
the river's mouth in Saticoy operated by the United Water Conservation District, into aquifers beneath
the Oxnard Plain.
Without that water, production of strawberries, the county's No. 1 crop grossing $300.7 million for growers
in 2003, would cease, growers contend. It is similarly vital to producers of nursery products, with a 2003
value of $173.3 million; lemons, $148 million; and avocados, $100 million. All four commodities are
chloride-sensitive.
Increased chloride concentrations began showing up in groundwater near Piru two years ago, said Dana
Wisehart, United Water's general manager. Then they appeared in surface water.
When leaf burn and stunted fruit -- typical reactions to high chloride concentrations -- began appearing a
few months ago on some avocado trees on the nearby Camulos Ranch, Wisehart decided quick action
was needed. The Water Quality Control Board has authorized a 10-year sanitation district study to
determine how much chloride exposure crops can tolerate.
"We are concerned that they have been so lenient with time for a study for the L.A. County Sanitation
District to determine whether or not they are actually increasing chlorides when to us it's obvious that
they are," Wisehart said.
Ventura County Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail confirmed the signs of trouble at the Camulos
Ranch. He described the problem as serious and said it is likely to worsen without action soon.
Farming companies have been paying to test ground and surface water at the river for more than a year,
said the Agricultural Association's Roy. They have found steadily increasing chloride levels.
"Nobody really knows, and what we're concerned about is while these guys are jawboning this thing to
death and they may or may not come to some conclusive determination, millions and millions of gallons
of water containing high chloride content are going down that river," said Roy.
Fast-growing city
Santa Clarita, incorporated in 1987, is one of Los Angeles County's fastest-growing cities. Its population
of about 165,000 is increasing by 3 percent to 5 percent annually, said Gail Ortiz, public information
officer.
Home water softeners were banned in the area until the mid-1990s when regulators under industry
pressure allowed them to be marketed there.
That law was repealed in 2003 after continued above-average chloride concentrations were found in the
city's water, said Heather Merenda, Santa Clarita's sustainability planner. The law bans new installations
but grandfathers in existing softeners.
The Agricultural Water Quality Coalition is demanding the state's Regional Water Quality Control Board
limit chloride concentrations in the area to 100 milligrams per liter of water, as required in the sanitation
district's treatment plant permits, said Roy.
But officials have won exemptions for years because chloride levels in Lake Castaic are often very high,
making compliance all but impossible, Merenda said.
The lake's water comes from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Northern California. It is always high
in chlorides, because in the Delta it meets saltwater on the eastern edge of San Francisco Bay.
To account for the area's booming population, the Water Quality Control Board has allowed the
sanitation district to use a "floating average" calculation in which the lake's chloride concentration is
added to what experts believe Santa Clarita can safely generate, said Vicki Conway, the sanitation
district's monitoring section head.
Farmers contend that is well beyond what their crops can tolerate and nearly double what the original
permits allow.
The sanitation district is spending $5 million to $7 million on its study to determine who is right.
Ridding water of chlorides requires expensive high-pressure filtering. If the study shows that is the only
answer, the Sanitation District will pay the price.
"We are committed to protecting any of the beneficial users downstream," Conway said. "If that's the
ultimate outcome, if that's the only way we can do it, we will have to ante up."
That is a long-range solution and not good enough for the coalition's Roy, who hinted that the matter
could go to court.
"We hope to become a very significant part of this process and ... demonstrate that the Sanitation
District is going to have to do something ... so they don't poison agricultural commodities here," he said.
"Otherwise, the state board is going to have to do its statutory duty and protect the downstream
beneficial users by strictly enforcing the permits."