Apr 17, 2023

Share this: | UPDATED: April 17, 2023 at 1:38 a.m. SALINAS – With the economic impact from the January and March flooding estimated at $1 billion, many growers are left feeling frustrated because they say much of the damage to their croplands could have been prevented. For most of the past century, growers could go into the Salinas River channel and clear out sandbars and vegetation in order to increase flow capacity and stabilize levees. During heavy rains like what was seen in January and March, the water charges down the river and then hits shallow depths because of built-up sediment, as well as large amounts of brush that impede the river’s capacity. The sediment and brush impediments have a damming effect. Water will flow along the path of least resistance, and when the channel is clogged, that path becomes cropland. The one saving grace this year, if there was one, is much of the cropland was fallow, waiting for the spring planting. Still, the Monterey County Farm Bureau estimates the amount of damage is somewhere north of 15,000 acres. An estimated price tag of $1 billion in damage has been cited by local officials. That figure includes lost wages and impacts on support businesses. Public agencies have noted damage caused in areas of the river that are overgrown with Arundo. (Photo courtesy of Monterey County Farm Bureau) Any damage to the ag economy is critical since it represents the largest economic driver in the county. The pre-pandemic value of agriculture in 2019 was $4.41 billion, according to that year’s Monterey County Agricultural Report. By comparison, the tourism industry generated an estimated $3.2 billion for the same year, according to the Monterey County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. The county’s top 10 crops alone surpassed $3.4 billion. But crop value is only part of the picture. Agriculture’s total estimated impact on the local economy is over $11.7 billion when taking into account wages and all the support businesses like fertilizer and equipment supply, according to data from the Monterey County Farm Bureau. Growers understand the dynamics of flow capacity so they historically have gone into the channel in the summer and cut back brush – including an invasive species called Arundo – and cleared the built-up sand and other sediments. In doing so the flow capacity is increased and the river is more likely to stay between its banks. George Fontes, president of the Salinas Basin Water Alliance and a fourth-generation farmer who is now retired and leases out his ag land, said last week that while none of his land was impacted, a number of growers within the alliance did suffer losses. There are ways for growers to clear the river channel to some degree, but Fontes describes it as an “expensive, cumbersome and restrictive” permitting process from state and federal regulators. Up until about 2008-2010, growers were regularly going into the main channel to clear vegetation and debris. Environmentalists began objecting to the practice of clearing because of the impact it was having on steelhead trout, an endangered species. Threats of lawsuits emerged from groups like the Monterey-based Otter Project which claimed the Monterey County Water Resources Agency, the National Marine Fisheries Services and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were violating the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act by allowing channel clearing. Two kinds of channels The Salinas River has not always been confined to a single-channel location. The river is “braided,” explained Brandt Bates, the Watershed Program Manager for the Resource Conservation District of Monterey County. Historically the river would move laterally along the valley floor and flow into a number of secondary channels that would meander for a while, and then connect back to the main channel at some point downstream. The Stream Maintenance Program, or SMP, allows far greater work in the secondary channel than state and federal regulators allow in the main channel. The stream maintenance program that Bates oversees allows growers to get into these secondary channels and remove brush and sediment. The idea is that when the main channel reaches certain flood stages the water conveys into the secondary channels that have been cleared for greater flow capacity. This diversion of river flow allows the main channel to stay within its banks and off cropland. One of the regulatory agencies, the National Marine Fisheries Service, has issued what’s called a “biological opinion” indicating that the type of work the stream maintenance program is conducting does not negatively impact steelhead. The Resource Conservation District is a nonregulatory agency and the SMP is a volunteer-based program. Since permits are already established through the SMP, only submitting a work plan is required, which is far less expensive for landowners than going through state or federal regulators for individual permits. Still, landowners want to get into the main channel to perform maintenance work and don’t necessarily like working with permitting agencies. Out of 125 of these secondary channels along the 92 miles of the river the program serves, only 46 have had maintenance work through the program. (Tess Kenny/Monterey Herald) The problem with doing nothing became evident this January and March. Fontes noted that during the devastating flooding in 1995 the river was flowing at about 95,000 cubic feet per second. The January and March flows were far less. How much less depends on which river gauge is used. For example, in Bradley the flow was 45,600 cubic feet a second, but at the Spreckels Bridge it was 19,400 cubic feet a second. Fontes’ point is that the recent flooding was caused by a far smaller flow rate than in 1995, yet the channel was choked with vegetation and sediment forcing the river to top its banks. Farmer frustration Mike Scattini, a partner in Scattini Family Farms in Salinas, said the frustration growers have is continuing to grow. A distinctive feature of the river is that the landowners on either side own the land under the river, while the state owns the water that flows through it. “It’s a big frustration not being able to get into your own property,” Scattini said. “It’s like if you lived in Carmel and a massive pine tree was about to fall on your house but they wouldn’t allow you to cut it down.” Norm Groot, the executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau, said the diminished capacity flow is key to flooding, and to open up any of that flow capacity is a lengthy and expensive process. Mechanical equipment other than large mowers is forbidden in the main channel, Groot noted. Many growers choose not to be saddled with the expense and time it takes to get a permit. It’s a crap shoot, with growers hoping that the winters won’t bring torrential rain and flooding. This winter growers threw snake eyes. “Many of these fields won’t have a spring planting and that’s a substantial portion of a farmer’s income,” Groot said. Loud and clear The Farm Bureau is working with several groups to try and bring a unified voice to elected officials. Growers want the process streamlined and the permitting period extended to allow for effective work on the channel, as well as ratcheting back fees charged to growers for the permits, Groot said. “The state is not shy about charging money,” he said. “We’re bringing a unified voice to tell elected officials we can’t go through this again.” Public agencies have also noted the damage caused in areas of the river that are overgrown with Arundo. Arundo can grow tall and thick and have impacts on the entire river ecosystem. Worse, it’s not a native plant. Arundo donax in California came mostly from Europe, though Europe likely received its own Arundo from India. Beginning in the mid-1800s, Arundo was widely planted in California for erosion control. Like many invasive species, it grew out of control. The Resource Conservation District of Monterey County, or RCD, wrote a proposal for 2022 grant funding from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for the fifth phase of a set of projects to remove the Arundo. The projects are performed in different segments of the river. The RCD has an Arundo Removal Program that pays for and implements Arundo removal on private property. The projects are a partnership with the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency, the Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office, the California Wildlife Conservation Board and private landowners along the river. It, too, recognizes the problem with river clogging. “The project addresses the impacts of a 1,500-acre infestation of Arundo within the Salinas River floodplain, which include degradation of habitat for fish and wildlife, alteration of hydrologic processes, decreased water availability in the riparian zone, increased fire risk and increased flood risk to neighboring lands,” the proposal states. Chris Lopez, the Monterey County supervisor whose district covers a majority of the Salinas River, has heard from residents in his district as well as growers that the flood damage could have been thwarted by channel maintenance. He, like others, is encouraging maintenance methods that everyone can live with, if not fully embraced. Roadside shrine markers are covered by water along River Road as the Salinas River floods in rural Salinas. (David Royal — Herald Correspondent) “My constituents have told me that the impacts could be avoided or mitigated by a regular program of river maintenance that is good for farmers, for the environment and for wildlife,” he said. Consumers look out The flooding will not only hit growers’ checkbooks but consumers as well. Scott Fausti, a professor of agribusiness at CSU Monterey Bay, said prices could go up, particularly for strawberries, which he said is the hardest-hit crop at this point. “I would venture that consumers may not see berry prices decline as much as they usually do as we get toward summer,” Fausti said. And like any market commodity, less supply translates to higher prices. “If there are fewer crops to be harvested and less supply, there will probably be a significant impact on the consumer,” said lecturer Meagan Hynes, a soil scientist and adjunct researcher at CSU Monterey Bay. As far as other crops, Hynes said vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts will likely see delayed planting or, if the delay is long enough, no planting at all this year. She said the long-term effects of the flooding could be both positive – in terms of relieving California’s drought – and negative. But the full impact won’t be known for some time. What occurred in January and March was foretold a decade ago. An August 2013 letter from attorneys Pam Silkwood and Tim Morgan to the county Water Resources Agency on behalf of the Salinas Valley Water Coalition, Monterey County Farm Bureau and the Salinas River Channel Coalition, warned of damaging floods because of the lack of main channel clearing. They said the proposal would merely continue its decade-long practice of restricted river maintenance that is certain would result in “significant flooding of prime and important farmland along the river and in the Salinas Valley.” In January and March of this year, that significant flooding was realized.