Coalition Co-Chairs Rob Roy and Rex Laird's Opinion Editorial as printed by the Ventura County Star Opinion: Chloride in river threatens crops Printed in the Ventura County Star – 9/29/05 By Robert Roy and Rex Laird, co-chairmen of Ventura County Agricultural Water Quality Coalition One of the founding principles of environmental protection is that polluters should bear the cost of cleaning up the mess they make. This "polluter pays" principle is based on common sense and is intended to avoid situations where the costs of pollution are pushed onto others who did not create the problem but must live with the consequences. This scenario is playing out in a real-world example in Ventura County. Across the county line in Santa Clarita, two sewage treatment plants are discharging hundreds of millions of gallons of treated sewage each year into the Santa Clara River. At this scale of discharge, even small amounts of a pollutant add up to big numbers. As much as 7 million to 8 million pounds of chloride -- a regulated pollutant -- are discharged annually into the river from these treatment plants. Adding this much chloride to a river's watershed is bound to have consequences. Chloride levels in groundwater wells are increasing. Growers must rely on water drawn from the Santa Clara River's watershed and groundwater replenished by the river. As chloride levels increase, sensitive crops such as avocado, strawberries and nursery stock are threatened. These crops are damaged by low levels of chloride in irrigation supply water and, if that supply is tainted by chloride, the productivity of those crops is rapidly impacted. These crops form the backbone of Ventura County's agricultural production and their value in 2004 represented $703 million to our local economy. All of it is threatened by the upstream discharge of wastewater containing high levels of chloride. The Regional Water Board is charged with protecting the Santa Clara River and ensuring that it meets tough standards. Yet, the upstream discharger that operates the plants, the Los Angeles County Sanitation District, challenged the tougher requirements the regional board was planning to adopt and was able to extract a sweetheart deal. They were able to gain as much as 17 years of additional time to continue polluting the river at levels far above what the regional board originally proposed. It's a classic case of pass the costs onto those downstream. By avoiding the cost of upgrading their treatment plants, those downstream water users have to bear the burden of degraded water. Higher chloride in the water translates to reduced crop productivity unless growers resort to installing treatment systems to improve water quality -- water that should have been clean to begin with. This is a simple process of passing the costs to growers who now must bear the burden of a degraded water supply. It is simply wrong. The Regional Water Board will soon conduct a workshop to consider the results of a study intended to determine what we already know -- that crops are sensitive to chloride and that there is no basis for making the water quality standards any less stringent than they already are. The Santa Clara River watershed should not have to absorb any more chloride and those upstream should be forced to clean up sooner, rather than later.