Dear NVLSA members and others:
This is my report of the Jan 16, 2003 Town Hall Meeting sponsored by the NVVA, NCFB, NVGG, Winegrowers of Napa County, and the Save Our Rivers and Farms Coalition. It was a very informative meeting, and I am glad I was able to attend, despite my invitation being rescinded at the last minute. It turned out there were plenty of seats after all, and I would say that maybe 15% of the attendees were NVLSA members. - George Bachich
Jim Lincoln, Watershed Task Force member, gave a little historical background of the Stream Setback Ordinance, and the events indicating a need for it. He said the Napa River being declared "impaired" in 1987 and several tons of sediment being washed into Bell Canyon Reservoir in 1989 (apparently a reference to the Delia Viader incident) led to the 1991 Hillside Ordinance, which, once implemented, reduced the soil loss due to erosion from 8 to 10 tons per acre down to 2-3 tons per acre. He said the '91 Ordinance was very successful at reducing erosion, but did not address bio-habitat diversity.
Then in 1999 a farmer (apparently a reference to Jason Pahlmeier) ignored the Hillside Ordinance and developed some vineyard where he should not have. Even though that farmer subsequently made things right, "the damage was done" and there was a call for more regulation, leading to the formation of the Watershed Task Force.
The Watershed Task Force met 30 times over a two year period, and eventually produced a report which was used as a basis for writing the SSO. The resulting ordinance did not match the WTF report recommendations, but has since been revised to more accurately reflect the WTF's intentions. He said the Ordinance adopted the F&G stream definitions, but some important words were left out of the definition. (He did not make this clear, but I assume this refers to the claim also made by several other WTF members that the stream definitions were changed after the WTF report was published. He did not indicate whether this had been resolved to his satisfaction, but I got the impression that even though he was endorsing the SSO, he really didn't have his heart in it.). He then described the setbacks and reduced setback incentives presently included in the proposed SSO.
Dennis Groth (WTF member) said the Watershed Task Force was composed of 15 members and 5 alternate members. One third of them were from the vineyard/winery business, 1/3 were from the environmentalist community, and 1/3 were citizens with no strong connection to either of those groups. He said the WTF first asked "is the river really impaired?" and tried to investigate why it was deemed impaired. They found that all rivers in North America were declared impaired, probably in order to justify funding to study them further, and the WTF concluded that the "impaired" designation was just a political decision, not a scientific decision. (He did not explain why the WTF members did not simply resign at that point.)
He said the WTF asked if the river is getting better, but found that there was no data upon which to base such a determination. So they asked if they should wait for the TMDL Study to be completed in order to have some data to work with, but no, a political decision was made to proceed. It was deemed really desirable to get off the impaired list, so they decided to start writing a setback ordinance without waiting for the science. He said this process really came down to "political horse trading". They found that the 1991 Ordinance already required setbacks, and there seemed to be no way to reduce those setbacks. (Apparently, they therefore felt they had to increase them?)
The WTF discussion soon turned to the question of replants. He and others did personal calculations of how much land they would lose if replants were not exempted, and concluded that a lot of land would come out of production if the new setbacks were applied to existing vineyards. He equated not exempting replants to requiring that every building be removed from the setbacks within the cities, and concluded that since removing all those buildings would be unreasonable, not exempting replants would also be unreasonable. (Although it would be more accurate to equate forced removal of vines to forced removal of buildings, and to equate not exempting replants to not issuing new building permits to replace old buildings once they were voluntarily demolished, no one seemed to notice his weak logic.)
He then went on to say that the WTF report also recommended a tree ordinance to protect oak trees, and said this seemed reasonable to the WTF because you can't get grapes to grow where oak trees have been removed, anyway, (an apparent reference to oak root fungus). (He did not say whether the impact of a tree ordinance on anyone other than grape growers was considered.)
Tom Shelton (OSC member) said the Oversight Committee, largely in reaction to the Sierra Club lawsuit, was charged with actually writing the ordinance to implement all the WTF recommendations. However, it turned out to be a complicated ordinance that would take some time to write, and some environmentalist factions (apparently a reference to Chris Malan) were pushing for faster action. Then, when it was heard that the Watershed Protection Association (Malan, et. al.) were proposing a ballot initiative, the County hired a consultant to assist the OSC and directed it to go ahead and quickly develop an "interim" ordinance that would cover just the "easy" part of the WTF recommendations, that is, those elements of the report on which the WTF had reached some sort of consensus, i.e, stream setbacks. The idea was that if the County was seen to be actually making progress on the ordinance, the WPA would consider withdrawing its initiative. When the WPA did not withdraw it, much of the urgency to complete the ordinance was removed, and the OSC was put on hold, and will remain on hold until the interim ordinance is passed.
He said that one of the WTF recommendations, the Watershed Information Center, is alive and well, and met for the first time in December, an indication that the County has made progress on implementing the WTF recommendations.
Mike Napolitano of the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the person responsible for the Napa River TMDL said he wanted to cut to the punch line: "this is a chance to control your own destiny"."come up with a set of rules"."you need these regulations"."if this is not done at the local level, the state or federal government will do it for you", etc. (the same tired mantra we've been hearing for years).
He said our proposed setbacks are "middle of the road" and that valid scientific arguments could be made for larger setbacks, and in some places you could justify smaller setbacks.
He said that the goal of the ordinance is to get County rules consistent with existing State and Federal laws that have been on the books for 30 years. He said the U.S. E.P.A. is putting pressure on the RWQCB to complete the TMDL, primarily because the EPA has lost 42 out of 42 lawsuits by citizens groups (an apparent reference to the Sierra Club lawsuits) claiming it is not doing enough to protect the environment.
He said the Napa River is the most diverse in the state. It has 16 or 17 native species of fish- more than any other river in California, but the sizes of the salmon and steelhead runs "appear to have declined" (he did not say how this was determined). He said the primary focus of the TMDL is to protect fish and on sediment as a factor threatening those fish. He said the study two or three years ago found there are reasons to believe sediment is adversely affecting fish populations. (He did not explain how to reconcile this claim with the TMDL finding that out of 24 monitoring stations at 17 locations on Napa River tributaries and 7 locations on the main river stem continuously monitored over the entire 2 year period of the study, not one single incident of excessive sediment was found. This seems eerily reminiscent to me of the "impaired" designation, in which political will seems to trump scientific evidence.)
He indicated that the study also identified other limiting factors, including "fairly high water temperatures", "very little large wood in the water to create large pools and spawning sites" and many "human-made barriers".
He indicated that the importance of the SSO lies in its incentives to restore large trees along the banks, which is a key reason why the WQCB supports it. These trees will provide shade, will be a source of the needed large wood, will filter runoff, and will help hold the banks.
He pointed out that the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Game Code, and the Water Code already make it difficult to get permits to put vineyards close to streams (but did not say whether replants are exempt from these state and federal regulations).
Later, during the question period, he repeated that "yes, you will be regulated if you don't do it yourself, and that already, in some other counties, farmers are required by the state to get permits for irrigation and for the runoff from their fields. Most interesting of all, he said "THE REGIONAL BOARD WILL DECIDE WHEN TO DELIST THE NAPA RIVER AS IMPAIRED," (thereby answering the question of who is really in the driver's seat in Napa County).
Under questioning about the Putah Creek watershed, he said it is in the Central Valley Water Quality Control Board area, and is declared impaired due to mercury pollution. Another interesting revelation he made is that the Phase 2 TMDL will be completed in 9 months (not the two years our planning staff has been estimating).
Tom Gamble, president of the Napa County Farm Bureau, gave a summary of the setbacks required by the Malan initiative, described the broad definitions of "timber" and "timber land" used in that initiative, concluded that the industry cannot live with these unreasonable restrictions, and solicited assistance in defeating the initiative.
Planning staff members and a Jones and Stokes representative made short presentations, but said nothing noteworthy.
The hero of the day was Mike Grgich, who drew loud applause when he said the Stream Setback Ordinance is unconstitutional and illegal, that it violates our rights, and that it reminds him of Croatia, where the communists confiscated private property. He addressed Tom Gamble and said that President Roosevelt once said that all we have to fear is fear itself, and that the Farm Bureau should not be afraid of threats of state and federal regulations. Bravo, Mr. Grgich. - end of report.