State's top court declines to hear challenge to frost rules

A three-year legal battle between farmers in the Russian River watershed and state water regulators over frost protection rules has come to an apparent end. The California Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a request to consider a lower court’s ruling that upheld the state Water Resources Control Board’s authority to implement the controversial regulations.

The decision means hundreds of grape growers in Sonoma and Mendocino counties will be required to study stream flows and develop plans to manage diversions throughout the watershed, which contains more than 60,000 acres of vineyards.

The rules are aimed at avoiding sudden drops in river and stream flows that can occur when farmers throughout the river system pump water at the same time, potentially stranding threatened or endangered salmon and steelhead trout.

Spraying grape crops with water - which forms a protective barrier of ice around the fruit - is the preferred method of frost protection. Farmers say it is more effective than using wind machines.

Environmentalists lauded the ?Supreme Court’s denial of a hearing on the rules, while farm representatives worry about its potential ill effects on crops.

“This is good. This leaves as law the important decision affirming the state’s authority to regulate frost irrigation water for beneficial use and assures the public trust doctrine protecting fish and recreational uses of our rivers and streams is more strongly protected than ever,” said David Keller, Bay Area director of Friends of the Eel River.

Mendocino County Farm Bureau Manager Devon Jones said she’s disappointed in the decision and worried about what will happen during the next severe frost.

“All of us are just hoping for lots of water and a very mild frost season,” she said.

Sonoma County Farm Bureau President Tito Sasaki called the court decision surprising. He said affected farmers began work on the state-mandated plans when they were adopted in 2011, but the work largely was suspended following a 2012 Mendocino County Superior Court ruling that overturned the rules. Sasaki is not among those affected.

The Mendocino County ruling by Judge Ann Moorman was strongly in favor of the farmers. She said the state’s rules infringed on growers’ water rights and wrongly required them to gather information and create regulations themselves at great expense.

The Mendocino County ruling was overturned in June by a state appellate court, which strongly disagreed with nearly every point in the prior ruling.

State officials could not be reached Wednesday, but they had expressed gratitude following the appellate court ruling that upheld their authority to regulate water use for frost protection.

Officials at that time said many farmers along the Russian River already have taken measures to use less water. They include constructing water reservoirs, or larger water reservoirs, so they won’t have to depend on water from the Russian River when temperatures dip below freezing.

Jones said farmers will now fast-track their management plans, either individually or regionally.

The question is whether the plans will be workable for farmers once implemented on the ground, she said.

If not, there could be additional lawsuits over the rules’ individual aspects, Jones said.

You can reach Staff Writer Glenda Anderson at 462-6473 ?or glenda.anderson@press?democrat.com. On Twitter ?@MendoReporter.