State water regulators are pushing a proposal to strictly limit and monitor the diversion of water from the Russian River during spring, a move with key ramifications for grape growers.
It comes two months after Sonoma County set up its own less-stringent program to oversee frost operations in the Russian River watershed. Like the state's proposal, it was driven by a concern that diversions threaten or kill endangered fish.
Environmental advocates hailed the move.
"We're very happy that the state is going ahead with this," said David Keller, Bay Area Director for Friends of the Eel River. "The draft regulations are definitely much more along the lines of what we're hoping to see."
One key difference involves accountability for water use. The state proposal would require close monitoring of each grower, including the amounts and timing of all diversions from the river or nearby wells. The county plan has no such requirement, in part because of initial objections from some landowners.
Still, county officials and grapegrowers on Monday maintained that the state plan is in line with the county's, in part because they say amendments are being considered to the county plan.
"On first blush it looks like it's fairly compatible with our county plan," said Nick Frey, president of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission.
Fourth District county Supervisor Mike McGuire offered a similar view. "Our local ordinance will be complementary to a statewide policy," he said.
Efren Carrillo, chairman of the board of supervisors, said that talks involving state and federal officials will steer county policy. "Those discussions are going to set the stage for what we are able to do here locally," he said.
In Spring, vast amounts of water are sprayed on crops to prevent frost damage.
The frost-protection issue, to be discussed at a workshop Wednesday in Sacramento, involves the degree to which growers' diversions create sudden changes in river and tributary flows that can threaten or kill salmon and steelhead. In 2008 and 2009, diversions were known to have killed a combined 36 fish, federal officials say.
Federal authorities have asked state officials to implement procedures to protect the threatened and endangered species.
In response, the state rules would ban diversions for frost protection from March 15 through May 15 unless they are conducted in accordance with a detailed river management plan that probably would be administered locally.
According to the state proposal, the plan must include requirements for individual monitoring and reporting of the volume of diversions.
"We're pretty damn close on those," said Pete Opatz, a viticulturist who has led the talks for the Russian River Water Conservation Council, which represents growers in the talks with the county.
In other aspects, though, Opatz said the state's proposals are alarming. Those, he said, have to do with the proposed requirements of the "water demand management plan" that would govern diversions and the policy reasons underlying the proposal.
The state proposal, he said, would disregard longtime water-rights law that he defined essentially as first come, first serve. "What the state is saying is that if you don't have a state water management plan that we approve annually, we turn your water off," he said,
"That clearly disregards the difference between the fifth generation family and the guy that's just moved up here to have his dream winery; it puts them together," Opatz said.
Also troubling, he said, was the state's assertion that diversion rules would extend to percolating groundwater - collected sources of rainwater - that are unconnected to the Russian River watershed.
This is the state's latest effort on issue that has been debated since at least the late 1990's.
The ordinance the county adopted in February mandates some steps that the state is proposing, including that growers detail their types of water diversion, from streams or wells, and the crop acreage they protect from frost.
But critics say the ordinance is ineffective without requirements for growers to disclose real-time details about the timing and volume of diversions.
McGuire said that those stumbling blocks are the focus of the current discussions with growers and that "I am very satisfied with the progress that has been made."
A State Water Resources Control Board spokesman said the timing of the proposal was "coincidental," not related to the county's approach.
Ultimately, water board spokesman George Kostyrko said, it is "anticipated" that the agency that would oversee the regulatory system "would be established at the local level."
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