Critical water decisions loom

<p>NORTH COAST – Agriculture has until April 24 to present the Sonoma County Water Agency with its answer to a state-mandated 25 percent to 50 percent cut in all diversions this year from the Russian River for frost protection and irrigation to leave a supply for cities and protected fish in what is expected to be a third dry year.</p><p>Part of that plan has been in the works for two years in conjunction with trade groups developing a list of business practices acceptable to federal and state wildlife regulators. </p><p>By June, a list of best-management practices that includes guidelines for ensuring water quality and quantity, among other things, should be complete enough for the Sonoma County farming groups involved in the effort. From that list they can decide whether to pursue an agreement for incidental take permits, allowed under Section 4d of the federal Endangered Species Act, according to Marc Kelley, a Santa Rosa-based consultant working with the Sonoma County Salmonid Coalition.</p><p>“It’s very good timing because this was already in process for some time,” Mr. Kelley said.</p><p>At the same time, a Russian River Frost Protection Task Force made up of more than 40 regulatory, farming, and conservation groups has been looking into ways to engineer ponds next to the Russian River that would collect winter stormflow for use in frost protection and irrigation.</p><p>Seven sites in Mendocino County have been suggested, but State Water Resources Control Board members were skeptical the floated ponds at less than 10 acre-feet in size would hold enough water for extended sprinkling.</p><p>Some vineyard owners are concerned that changing their approach to frost protection away from high-volume sprinklers will crimp their supply of capital or existing lending relationships. Growers are put in a precarious position if a lender calls for the best frost-protection system for a given vineyard, which may be sprinklers, but the grower doesn’t want to use them because of concerns over water use, according to Pete Opatz, vice president of viticulture for large North Coast vineyard investor Silverado Premium Properties of Napa.</p><p>“You can’t change your business plan in mid-stream or deviate from the level of risk you agreed to on a loan and expect your banker to say, ‘That’s nice,’” Mr. Opatz said.</p><p>Top loan officers from the largest wine industry lenders the Business Journal contacted for comment – American AgCredit, Silicon Valley Bank and Wells Fargo Bank – all said frost protection is a business decision best left to the borrower, with the key question being financial wherewithal to recover from crop damage.</p><p>Unforeseeable risks are part of agricultural lending, according to Rob McMillan, founder of Silicon Valley Bank’s wine division. Borrowers have options for narrowing the exposure to risk, but the bank leaves the selection to the grower, he said.</p><p>“We’re certainly not mandating our clients take on any of that,” he said.</p><p>Last year’s stint of frosty nights, which amounted to as much as a month in some areas of the North Coast, emptied reservoirs and had growers and viticulture consultants looking for alternatives. </p><p>Some employ or have looked into microemitters, which use tubing to create strategically placed small sprays of water to create a protective ice coating on vines. Such emitters use a fraction of the 55 to 60 gallons per minute per acre used with impact sprinklers to cover wide areas. However, a microemitter frost-protection system has to be turned on before the temperature drops below freezing and left on until the temperature rises above that point. A patent dispute among emitter manufacturers also has limited their use, according to Mark Greenspan of Advanced Viticulture in Santa Rosa.</p><p>And many who employed the method last spring found it unreliable, according to Glenn Proctor, a grape broker for San Rafael-based Ciatti Co. </p><p>Silverado first installed microemitters 12 years ago and found they provide about the same level of frost protection as wind machines, which often are pole-mounted powered turbines that push frigid air out of a vineyard with warmer air above. However, naturally occurring wind and other conditions can reduce the effectiveness of such machines. Silverado has decided to use such machines instead of adding microemitters for frost. The company installed 21 such wind machines in Sonoma County in 2008.</p><p>“Last year we installed wind machines where we have direct diversions because we knew the potential for takes in a dry season,” Mr. Opatz said.</p><p>Yet during the worst frost event in three decades, when the temperature dropped into the 20s Fahrenheit for several hours on some nights, wind machines weren’t enough to save 400 tons of winegrapes on the home ranch for Regusci Winery, according to Napa Valley-based vintner, vineyard manager and labor contractor Jim Regusci. Some of the 3,000 acres he farms in Napa and Solano counties didn’t have adequate water supply or pressure for sprinkler protection.</p><p>Another frost fighting technology that has been getting interest in recent years is an upward-facing wind machine that pulls cold air that settles in low spots in a vineyard and pushes it into warmer air above.</p><p>Agricultural researchers have been advocating vineyard design to avoid low spots and allowing cold air to “drain” off rather than settle on a property during a winter temperature inversion.</p>