[00:00:08] Speaker A: Good planets are hard to find out. Temperate stones and tropic climbs and thriving seas, winds blowing through breathing trees, and strongholds on unsafe sunshine, good planets are hard to find.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Hello, K squid listeners. It's every other Sunday again, and you're listening to sustainability now, a bi weekly K squid radio show focused on environment, sustainability and social justice in the Monterey Bay region, California and the world. And I'm your host, Ronnie Lipschitz. The Monterey Bay region is one of the premier agricultural sites in California, if not the world, and it is home to a considerable amount of nonorganic production. To maintain essential nitrogen levels in the soil, nonorganic farmers apply substantial quantities of synthetic fertilizer, which feeds the plants but is also transformed into nitrates, which contaminate drinking water wells and can cause a blood disease known as blue baby syndrome, cancer and birth defects. Today, sustainability now welcomes back Chelsea, too, executive director of Monterey Waterkeeper, who's going to tell us about the organization's recent efforts to reduce nitrate pollution in the region's groundwater and a lawsuit filed in October trying to overturn a rule by the state water board about the problem of nitrate contamination. Chelsea has worked as an attorney at the center on race, poverty and the environment, public advocates, and the center for Biological Diversity, and has received her law degree from the American University Washington College of Law. Chelsea, too, welcome back to sustainability now.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: It's an honor to be back. Thank you for having me back on the show.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Some of our listeners might recall your earlier appearance on sustainability now, but for those who don't, let's begin by having you tell us about Monterey waterkeeper and its missions, issues and goals.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Sure. So Monterey Waterkeeper is a 501 nonprofit, and our goal is to protect and restore drinkable, fishable and swimmable waters for all in the Monterey area and in the northern central coast. So our work on clean water covers essentially Monterey County, Santa Cruz county, as well as San Benino county. And we use a combination of outdoor education, policy, advocacy, and, when necessary, litigation to protect clean water for everyone from drinking water to clean rivers to a thriving ocean that sustains all of the marine life that we depend on and we love.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: And what's your role as executive director?
[00:02:58] Speaker C: Well, as an executive director, I do a little bit of everything. I started my role as executive director back in July 2022, little before I first joined the show.
And my role really was to restart the organization. And I say restart because prior to that, the organization was actually called Monterey Coastkeeper. And Monterey Coastkeeper used to be part of another nonprofit called the Otter Project. And I feel really fortunate to be spearheading this renewed organization that's now waterkeeper. And as I mentioned, it does outdoor education and advocacy. And both of these ways to protect the environment really is so personal to me.
And if I could share a little bit about my background.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Sure, go ahead.
[00:03:59] Speaker C: I grew up low income. My family and I moved here to the United States from Taiwan when I was ten years old. And although we're an outdoor family, I grew up camping, hiking and fishing with my parents. It really wasn't until I was in the 6th grade here in the United States, where I went on my first outdoor education trip with my class, that I realized that you can actually make a living sharing about the wonders of nature with know. I think it's really through these outdoor experiences that whether we're adults or children, that we grow and grow to know nature and learn to love nature because we don't protect something just because we protect something because we love it. And so because of my love for nature, I decided then to pursue a degree in environmental science for undergrad, and then also went into law wanting to be an environmental attorney. And since graduating, I've had the privilege of working to protect the environmental health of low income communities and communities of color, just like my family for the past ten years. And it's been a privilege.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: How's your first year and a half at Monterey water keeper gone?
[00:05:35] Speaker C: How's it been?
It's been a whirlwind.
On a professional and personal level, I feel like I've grown a thousand times.
I was the first staff member of the newly formed organization, and so it's been a great learning experience, from structuring the organization to creating a bank account, to really talking to a lot of people in Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey county about what kinds of water issues they're facing. And it's been really an honor, really, especially listening to the more underserved communities out there, predominantly lower income communities, Latinx communities, really talk about their inability to access clean drinking water. We are so fortunate here in the central coast to have clean air, and for the most part, if we live in a city, we have clean water. But that's not the case for everyone. And a lot of rural communities, especially the underserved communities that I was talking about, don't actually have access to safe drinking water.
And the rivers like the Pahar river and the Salinas river that run in their backyards are not clean. And they may not even have the resources to be able to just hop onto the coast because they live more inland, and they don't live next to the ocean.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Right. So why don't you tell us about this problem of nitrate contamination in groundwater, what it is, who causes it, why it happens?
[00:07:18] Speaker C: Yeah. So, as you mentioned earlier, Ronie, nitrate is a broken down product of fertilizer. And there are natural fertilizers, and then there are different kinds of synthetic fertilizers. Nitrogen fertilizer, which is heavy on nitrogen being one of them.
And natural fertilizers have organic matter, like compost.
I guess the story kind of goes back to the 1950s, post World War II, when synthetic fertilizer was being manufactured and commercialized for agriculture.
And since 1950s, our use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer has blown up four to five fold in the United States. Five times.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Surprised it's not more, but.
[00:08:15] Speaker C: Right. And in the central coast, just kind of to provide some context for the central coast, where we are growers today, on average, discharge 340 pounds per acre per year of nitrate into our waters. And 340 pounds is actually ten times the amount that is necessary to protect our waters.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: I'm curious, do you know how much fertilizer they apply per acre? I'm just wondering, what's the loss? Because as we know, the nitrogen is applied for plants which require it and can't just pull it out of the atmosphere. So do you know what the loss rate is compared to how much there is? Is it like 90%? Is it 50%?
[00:09:08] Speaker C: Yes.
Depending on the crop grown, you could be applying a lot of nitrogen, like, for broccoli. Broccoli needs a lot of nitrogen. Or for wine grapes, they need less nitrogen. So growers can apply anywhere from tens of pounds, like 50 pounds per acre per year of nitrogen on their fields to 500 pounds of nitrogen per year. And then in terms of loss, studies show that about half of what you apply is lost into the water, and then a little bit is lost into the air.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: Wow, that's extraordinary.
[00:09:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
Crops need fertilizers to grow, and we need food. But the problem around the world and in the central coast is that a lot of farmers do overuse fertilizer for various reasons. And that really, over time, has resulted in what I call a nitric crisis. Too much nitrogen, not only in the soil, but also in our rivers and as well as in our drinking water. And our drinking water, as many people might know, comes from groundwater. And so nitrate leaches into groundwater and ends up in our drinking water when we draw it back up.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: Now, this is mostly for people who rely on wells for their drinking water. I suppose. Right. And communities in the Salinas valley and the area that also use groundwater draw their water from groundwater. So in these intensive agricultural areas. Right.
[00:10:57] Speaker C: So the nitrate crisis shows up most in communities that are predominantly agricultural places like Gilroy and Hollister areas, Pajaro Valley, the Salinas Valley, as we talked about, and then further down the central coast, and like the Santa Maria Santa Inez basins, where there are also lots of farms. But we all use groundwater for our drinking water in the central coast. And fortunately, a lot of us don't live right next to agriculturally intensive areas. And if we live in a city or in urban area, and we pay into treatment systems that take nitrate out to safe levels, even if there are nitrate sources nearby. But in rural areas and in small towns, because nitrate treatment is pretty expensive, they might not have the technology or the resources to be able to treat that water in a cost effective way. So it's cost prohibitive. And then people aren't able to take nitrate out if they're drinking water, and so they're exposed to that risk of drinking water that has too much nitrate.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Well, who tracks the contamination levels? I mean, who is responsible for being sure that they remain within allowable limits? And, by the way, are allowable limits safe? Well, get to the health question.
[00:12:36] Speaker C: Yeah, so there's a lot of different entities, but the state water resources control Board is our main water quality regulatory agency in the state.
And then there are nine regional water boards that work with the state water board, as well as our local water agencies and counties. And all of these local, regional, and state agencies are in charge of protecting the safety of our drinking water, as well as our water quality in general.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Do they go around measuring levels in the groundwater? I mean, is this like a regular thing that they do, or only when someone calls up and says, hey, come test my water?
[00:13:26] Speaker C: If you live in the city and you rely on water that's treated by your local water agency, the water agency will test their water regularly and know what's in the water. And most of the time, you can look up water reports to see how much of different constituents and if your water is safe or not. And as I mentioned, for most urban users, nitrate is not a problem.
And for rural areas, that's where counties come.
So Monterey county or Santa Cruz county might have environmental health staff that go around testing drinking water wells, but they're not able to get to every single well. And if you're a rural user and you have your own private well, the central Coast Regional Water Board does have resources for you to be able to call and to be able to get a free water testing kit, and you can test your own well.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Right. But otherwise, there's no reason. I mean, no one would actually know whether to test their water or not, right, unless they're keeping track of this or someone has alerted them to it.
[00:14:39] Speaker C: Yeah.
The state water board and regional waterboards do their best, but there are so many thousands of wells out there. A lot of the wells are private domestic wells or just ones that even not monitored.
I think as a state, we don't really have a good, comprehensive, one stop shop system of knowing what exactly is in each and every single well.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: You're listening to sustainability now. I'm Ronnie Lipschis. My guest today is Chelsea two, executive director of Monterey waterkeeper. And we are talking about nitrate pollution in the region's groundwater, and particularly in private wells, and how people find out, or can find out about whether their wells are contaminated.
Give us an idea of what the permissible levels of nitrate contamination are and what levels are being measured. And, I mean, how are permissible levels determined, by the way?
[00:15:47] Speaker C: So the safe drinking level for nitrate is ten milligrams per liter.
And so that's the safe drinking levels for different constituents, like nitrate. Other contaminants are determined through regulatory process. And the state gathers a lot of evidence, different studies, and also invites public comment to see what is a safe drinking level, what are the impacts of that level, and who's at risk. And so that's how the ten milligrams per liter standard was set.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: I presume that number comes from laboratory tests and experiments. Right? It's not just pulled out of the air?
[00:16:32] Speaker C: No. Yeah. It's based on different data from the state and also different parts of the country and different studies.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Okay, and so what levels are we talking about in the groundwater?
[00:16:47] Speaker C: So, in the central coast, especially in the rural, more agriculturally productive areas, we actually see levels of nitrate in drinking water that are way beyond or at least approaching the ten milliliter grams per liter limit. And so there are thousands of rural community members, residents of the central coast, that are facing that threat where their drinking water is not safe because their wells test more than the ten milligrams per liter.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: So ten milligrams is the maximum allowed level.
Right.
I'm not sure how to put this right, but if these wells are at ten milligrams or above, they're barely higher than the permissible levels. Right. So I'm not completely clear on why then. That's a particular problem? I mean, is ten milligrams much higher than the actual safety level? Safe level?
[00:18:02] Speaker C: Yes, I should clarify that ten milligrams per liter is the threshold for if your water is safe to drink or not. So if your water tests below ten milligrams per liter in terms of nitrate levels, then it is probably safe to drink. And if it tests above ten milligrams per liter, then that means that your tap water is not safe to drink. You should not use it, and you should not even use it after boiling it.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: But does that mean that the levels in some wells is far in excess of ten milligrams? Yes, that's what I was trying to get at. What are you measuring as a sort of level in contaminated wells?
[00:18:51] Speaker C: Yeah. So I'll just give you a couple of examples of local communities where there are water tests above that limit.
There are many communities, especially in the powder area and also in the Salinas valley, that have wells that test beyond the ten milligrams per liter threshold. So community that comes to mind is called San Gerado, and it's a small 350 people, farm worker community that's just outside of Salinas. So it's surrounded by agricultural fields. And the water that the San Gerado cooperative was relying on was so contaminated that residents had to rely on bottled water because they couldn't drink their tap water for ten years. And during this time, the community actually fought and got state and federal grants somewhere along the lines of like, $6 million in order to drill a deeper well. And that was their fourth well. But they were only able to drink their tap water after they got the fourth well. That's deeper and cleaner. But in recent years, they've actually seen that their well keeps their fourth well, their current well keeps testing higher and higher for nitrate levels, because as we continue farming and putting more nitrate in, the nitrate levels are going to go up. Well, the stuff percolate, the groundwater well.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: Percolates down that far, right? I mean, that's what.
[00:20:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the way it works.
And people may have read in recent news, too, that there's another town called San Lucas, and it's further down into the Salinas Valley in oil country. I think it's near San Ardo, where there's a lot of oil drilling. The town of San Lucas has more than 400 people, and they have not had safe drinking water for more than twelve years. So right now, the town of San Lucas still cannot drink their water from tap. They have to rely on bottled water. And residents tell me that they still have to pay $90 at least a month for undrinkable water.
So there are lots of communities in the central coast, right in our backyard, our neighbors, if not us, that don't have safe drinking water because of high nitrate levels and just kind of zooming back out.
The regional board does require in the 2021 central coast agricultural order for growers to test on farm domestic or drinking wells and notify people if the drinking wells have too much nitrate because of this requirement. This only started in 2021.
We found out since that 38% of wells that are on farm domestic wells, 30% of them in the Baharo Valley, are not safe to drink. And 42% of on farm drinking wells in Monterey county are undrinkable because of nitrate as well. So, as you can see, the nitrate cris is really pervasive, and it's widespread and worsening. And so what's happening, as we were talking, is that the nitrate concentrations, as we continue to farm intensively and unsustainably overuse, including using too much nitrogen fertilizer, nitrate levels in our drinking water, especially in more rural areas. But I think expanding beyond that becomes more costly.
Community members end up having to spend a lot of money on bottled water or treatment or drilling deeper wells that hopefully don't get contaminated.
And then in the meantime, they're suffering health consequences from all this contamination that's growing in our region.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: So tell us about the health impacts of this contamination.
[00:23:38] Speaker C: Yeah, there's quite a lot.
So nitrate.
Nitrate is, unfortunately, a silent killer, as I would say.
You can't smell it, you cannot see it, you can't taste it. And so most of us would not know that we have too much nitrate in our water unless we test it for it specifically. And so what ends up happening is a lot of communities that rely on high nitrate contaminated waters, they don't know, and after a while, they might experience different health problems. So especially in younger children. As you mentioned earlier, Ronie, too much nitrate in an infant system actually deprives them of oxygen. And so because of the lack of oxygen, babies might have nausea, they might go in shock, and they develop what's called blue baby syndrome. And babies can actually, where the babies actually turn blue because they lack oxygen, and they might die from that.
And so in adults, nitrate contamination can result in stomach issues, they can result in thyroid disease. They can actually cause colon cancer. So all of these diseases are correlated with the consumption of too much nitrate in your water.
So nitrate is a pervasive problem, like I was saying. And it's really harmful to both children and adults.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: So for these kinds of cases to show up, the implication is that the contamination has been going on for quite a long time. I mean, you mentioned twelve years in San Lucas. Right. And so there must have been cases turning up before that. How long has this been going on.
[00:25:57] Speaker C: In the central coast?
Nitrate contamination is a legacy problem, and it's been happening probably for almost as long as we have been intensively farming the central coast.
And it's a problem today still. And I think it's important to recognize that even though it's a big problem, it's a growing problem because we continue to overuse nitrogen fertilizer, and there are ways to reduce that problem and hopefully be able to restore clean drinking water for everyone.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Well, okay, you mentioned earlier the state water control board. Quality control board. Is that what it is? And then there is a regional water quality control board.
And what does the regional quality water control Board actually do? How does it operate?
[00:26:59] Speaker C: So at both the state and the regional level, the waterboards, as we kind of call them all together, because I know it's mouthful to say all of the agencies by their full name. So we just typically say the water boards, they work together, and they are in charge of implementing and enforcing California's as well as federal clean water laws. They're also in charge of coming up with policies to protect and restore water quality in our state for both surface and for groundwater.
And sometimes those are interconnected.
The water boards also oversee water rights for all kinds of water users, from industrial to agricultural drinking water users, and also water for the environment.
So it's quite a complex regulatory system. But the water boards have a very important job because they're essentially the main governmental entity that manages surface and groundwater water that sustain all of us.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: When were these boards established? Do you know how long they've been in existence?
[00:28:15] Speaker C: I don't know the exact date, but they've been around for a long.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: Well, you know, for you, a long time is a lot less time than it is for me. You're listening to sustainability now. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipschitz, and my guest today is Chelsea, too, executive director of Monterey water keeper. And we're talking about nitrate contamination in the region's groundwater. Chelsea's just been explaining to us what the regional and state water quality control boards. That's a mouthful. Actually do. Well, let's turn to the case of the lawsuit now. All right. Now, as I understand the story, in 2021, the regional Water Quality Control Board approved an order which set limits on fertilizer use by farmers in its jurisdictional region. Now, how did that regulation and decision come about?
[00:29:13] Speaker C: Well, I'll take you back to 2004, when the Central Coast Regional Water Board first, for the first time, adopted its first agricultural order.
I think, unlike what we typically think of regulation, this 2004 1st version of the central coast Ag order, and also the two waters after that, didn't impose limits on how much fertilizer farmers could use or how much they could pollute the waters with nitrate. So those kind of earlier waters primarily required farmers to just gather information about how much nitrogen fertilizer they're using or applying on their land.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Quick question. I assume that they were already aware that the board was already aware of nitrate contamination.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: They were not just asking for these data out of the blue. Right.
[00:30:18] Speaker C: I think they were aware of the issue. They wanted to gather more information.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
[00:30:24] Speaker C: So that's how the first four versions of the order came about.
So the 2021 central coast agricultural order, or what we call ag 4.0 for sure, is fourth version.
And for the first time in the region, and for the entire state, really set enforceable limits on not just how much fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer farmers can apply on their fields, but also how much can run off from their fields into the water system, whether it's surface or groundwater. So actually set limits on fertilizer use and fertilizer discharge.
So, basically, if a farmer consistently went over these limits on use and discharge, the enforceable limits means that the regional board can first provide education, but eventually do what we call progressive enforcement and can eventually fine the farmers that continue to violate the limits. And then I'll just say one more detail, which is that the limits that the 2021 order or act 4.0 established or actually are actually really generous in the beginning in a way that almost everyone can meet them when they first come into effect. And then over time, these limits are ratcheted down over the course of 30 years.
So from 2021, that would mean 2051, where everyone by 2051, needs to meet a limit of 50 pounds per acre per year and not discharge more than that into the waters.
[00:32:20] Speaker B: What are the size of the fines that would be imposed on violators?
[00:32:28] Speaker C: I have seen fines that the regional board has issued on different issues and on lack of reporting and Act 4.0 to be in the range of thousands of dollars. And I think that from what I've seen, paying attention to board meetings, the staff really do work with local farmers or farm representatives to notify individual farmers if they're not reporting or not in compliance of the water. After several attempts, they might issue the fines. So the fines are really used as a last resort after everything else fails.
[00:33:12] Speaker B: We're talking here basically about big farms, right?
Maybe a few statistics could be in order. And I actually happen to know something about this. There are something like 4000 farms in Monterey county, right? Half of those farms, I believe, are 50 acres or less small farmers.
And the median size of the large farms is around 1000 acres. But there are only a few hundred of those, right? Most of the farms are much smaller.
[00:33:45] Speaker C: That's right. Yeah.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: But I assume it's the larger farms that are the most egregious violators. Or is that wrong?
Do you know?
[00:33:55] Speaker C: You can say I don't know, I don't know. But I imagine that if larger farms are over applying nitrogen per acre, and then there's lots of acres for the larger farms, and that means that an amount of nitrogen or nitrate they're discharging would be significant.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm only asking about this because if the fines are in the range of thousands of dollars, and these are really big operations and we see this in other sectors, sometimes it's easier to pay the fines than to correct the problem, given the income levels. And agriculture is a big industry, especially in Monterey county, it's something like four or $5 billion a don't. I was just curious what the size of this was. Anyway, first of all, who was behind the AG 4.0 and who was opposing it? I mean, what kind of. There must have been opposition to it.
[00:35:00] Speaker C: Yeah, AG 4.0 evolved from the previous Ag waters that I mentioned that were mainly education and reporting based.
Interestingly, Monterey Waterkeeper, back when we were called Monterey Coastkeeper, had to sue the regional board in one of its earlier versions of the order in order to establish a requirement under the law for the regional board to set the limits in this current version of the order, the 4.0 version. So it's taken a lot of years of really watchdogging and working with the regional board staff and board members, and at times, as I mentioned, when necessary, to sue, to make progress and eventually set up limits. So while we appreciate the regional water board for setting these enforceable standards, we don't think ultimately that they went far enough, because, as I mentioned, growers have a really long time to continue to worsen the nitrate crisis that's facing our region today because they don't have to ratchet down the pollution that they discharge into our waters until for 30 years.
And that's important to know because water doesn't just clean itself up through rainfall or recharge instantly after people stop polluting the water. And hopefully 30 years from now, or fewer years than that, it would still take multiple decades for groundwater to recharge and for our water to be restored to safe drinking levels again.
And so we're really, ultimately looking at like a hundred years for groundwater in parts of Pajaro and Salinas Valley that are worse hit by the nitrate crisis to be cleaned up and so families can have safe drinking water again.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: I'm curious, I mean, I want to get to know, again, the reason for the lawsuit, but I'm curious, is it possible to pump up groundwater and treat it and then reinject it? I mean, I know this is a big thing, but is it possible to do that?
You mentioned in cities, there's treatment for. For nitrate contamination.
And does that actually remove the nitrates so chemically, you can actually get the stuff out of the water?
[00:38:04] Speaker C: Right? Yeah. So a lot of treatment systems use reverse osmosis to be able to effectively treat nitrate. Some systems blend water, or they might blend water that's cleaner from one well with water from another well that has more nitrate, or they might talk to other sister agencies and try to get water that's cleaner to blend with their own more nitrate contaminated water. So there's a number of ways that agencies do that.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: But if we go back to San Lucas, basically, they're up a creek on this, right?
Unless they can somehow, and people with individual wells, I mean, there's nothing they can do by themselves. Right?
[00:38:57] Speaker C: So for smaller towns like San Lucas, luckily, the state water board and the regional water boar have been working hard to see what a good solution could be. So they are thinking about connecting the town with San Lucas to King City. They're thinking about potentially reverse osmosis or other treatment system. Right. In San Lucas, and both are going to be very expensive. I don't think they've arrived at a solution yet, and studies are still being done.
But as we're talking about this, it's been twelve years since the residents have had safe tap water. And so there are solutions that people are trying to figure out. But every day that the solutions don't come is too late for the residents that need clean drinking water today.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: Okay. In September 2023, the state Water Quality Control Board overturned AG 4.0.
Right?
Why did they do that? What was the reason for that? Or did someone get to them?
[00:40:07] Speaker C: Well, right after the regional water board adopted their order at the regional board level in 2021, Monterey Water keeper San Gerardo, as I mentioned before, and other groups, we actually appealed the regional board Act 4.0. We asked the state water board in the appeal to strengthen the water.
And then on the other hand, representatives of various farmers also appealed the 2021 regional border to state board, asking the state board to take away the nitrate limits that the regional board created.
So ultimately, the state board unfortunately removed these nitrate limits, and what's left is vague and unenforceable nitrate reduction targets in place.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: What was the reasoning, their reasoning in terms of overturning?
[00:41:17] Speaker C: Unfortunately, the state water board ignored evidence from the regional water board the years of data that they gathered through the previous versions of the water and then the regional water board. The data showing that a lot of farmers overused fertilizer well beyond the recommended amounts while still allowing crops to be productive. And then the state board also ignored the central coast conclusion, basically saying that the previous orders that were based on education and reporting, they didn't work, they didn't improve water quality.
What the state board did was that they relied on another agricultural order from 2018 that was meant for the Central Valley. They pointed to the other water, saying that they would need to convene an agricultural expert panel before moving forward with what they thought were new regulatory mechanisms to reduce nitrate. And what they're talking about is the nitrate limits that the Central coast set up for the first time.
And we don't agree with the state Water board's interpretation, of course, but that's what they relied on is a different order saying that they need to have an agricultural expert panel review existing data and then take their time in making a state water board decision on it.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: You're listening to sustainability now. I'm your host, Ronnie Lipschitz, and my guest today is Chelsea, too, executive director of Monterey Waterkeeper. We're talking about the problem of nitrate contamination in central coast groundwater and a couple of recent decisions that have basically overturned limits on use of application of nitrogen fertilizer in the central coast region.
A lawsuit has been filed against the state Water Quality control Board. Tell us about the lawsuit, who has filed it, what the arguments are.
[00:43:40] Speaker C: So a month after the September decision by the state Water Board to take away the nitrate limits from act 4.0, Monterey Waterkeeper filed a lawsuit along with other groups, environmental justice groups, San Jarado Cooperative, as well as groups representing different fishing and environmental protection interests across the state. And so our main goal in this lawsuit is to maintain or reinstate the nitrate limits that the central coast created, because, as I mentioned before, the Central Coast Water Board has already found that the water won't be effective unless there are limits.
And the limits are essentially the only way to restore safe drinking water and also clean up our rivers. And so this lawsuit is really important because it'll bring back nitrate limits not only for the central coast, but also could set up precedent for other regions to follow suit and create nitrate limits as well. So it's not only important for our region, but it's also significant for the entire state.
And if I could say, please.
Another goal of the lawsuit is that we want to make sure that the regional board also require farmers to maintain vegetative buffer zones between farms and nearby surface waters. Sometimes we call these riparian buffers, and these buffers are really important because it actually allows nature to do its job, to be able to filter nitrate, pesticides and other contaminants from farms before they reach important surface waters like rivers and wetlands so that these contaminants don't end up killing more aquatic life. That is so important to the central coast.
The lawsuit really set to hopefully be able to protect not only our groundwater, but our surface water as well.
And I'll just say that I have deep respect for farmers and I'm really grateful for the hard work and fresh produce they provide for everyone. But just given what we've been talking about, so many operations continuing to overuse fertilizer today, building on legacy nitrate contamination and the fact that the nitrate crisis is worsening and it could affect everyone if we don't curb it now.
So I think it's so essential that farmers reduce their pollution before this crisis really impacts every single person on the central coast.
And that's why ultimately, we decided to bring the lawsuit and hopefully, really, hopefully send a message to the state water boards and growers that it's important to protect our waters and protect the health of everyone here on the central coast.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: So how can our listeners learn more about the problem and volunteer to help you?
[00:47:28] Speaker C: Well, we post all of the information about the ag water, our work on it, including the lawsuit on our website, as well as information about our advocacy work, other advocacy work, and outdoor education work so listeners can visit ww dot montereywaterkeeper.org announcements to find out more information and check out what we've been up to. And so, as well, we're always looking for bright ideas, enthusiastic volunteers, donors, and just fellow water warriors or people who love the water. And so if you like, you can donate or sign up to volunteer with us on our website as well. And you can always reach out to me personally at
[email protected].
[00:48:29] Speaker B: Chelsea, thank you so much for being my guest on sustainability now.
[00:48:34] Speaker C: Thank you for having me.
[00:48:36] Speaker B: If you'd like to listen to previous shows, you can find
[email protected]. Slash sustainabilityNow, as well as Spotify, Google podcasts and Pocketcasts, among other podcast sites. So thanks for listening, and thanks to all the staff and volunteers who make K squid your community radio station and keep it going. And so, until next, every other Sunday, sustainability now.
[00:49:08] Speaker A: Good planets are hard to find.
Temperate stones and tropic climbs and thriving seas, winds blowing through breathing trees, strong ozone, safe sunshine.
Good planets are hard to find. Yeah, when.
