Napa County farmers poured cold water on proposed state plans to regulate the use of streams, speaking out at an Upvalley meeting Wednesday, July 30.

The rules would limit farmers’ ability to pump water from local streams in an effort to protect coho salmon, chinook salmon and steelhead trout in Napa, Sonoma, Marin, Mendocino and Humboldt counties.

While the state’s ears remain open to feedback from the public, the new rules could be in place by early next year, Steven Herrera, chief of the State Water Resources Control Board’s division of Water Rights, told more than 70 people gathered at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena.

The rules would implement AB 2121, a law passed in 2004.

Both Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, and Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, attended the meeting at the institute’s demonstration kitchen.

Evans chairs the Assembly Select Committee on Wine. Wiggins heads the Senate Select Committee on California’s Wine Industry.

“Growers are very concerned about their place in the overall scheme of things,” said Drew Aspegren, president, Napa Valley Vineyard Engineering Inc., a St. Helena-based consultant on water rights.

Laurel Marcus, executive director of the California Stewardship Institute and Bob Zlomke, a hydrologist with the Napa County Resource Conservation District, said the proposal ignored Napa County’s local conditions.

Marcus said the proposed rules would be costly and ineffective, in part because they ignore Napa County’s geological conditions and the effects of reservoirs such as Lake Hennessey on Napa River’s tributaries.

Zlomke, who has studied creeks in the Carneros district, said under the regulations farmers would have to leave three times as much water in the streams as they do now. Under the new rules, farmers would only be able to pump from Oct. 1 to March 31.

Farmers may be forced to pump more ground water, Zlomke said.

“The state needs to be very careful,” he said Thursday.

Peter Nissen, president of the Napa County Farm Bureau, said the rules are too restrictive and need to be modified.

Others, including Daniel Myers, a representative of the Redwood Chapter of the Sierra Club, questioned the state’s ability to enforce water regulations, though Evans pledged to work to get more money for natural resources agencies, like the Department of Fish and Game and the state Water Resources Control Board.

Napa County Board Chairman Brad Wagenknecht, who introduced Marcus and Zlomke Wednesday, on Thursday said the proposed policy’s one size-fits-all approach won’t work, referring to the different watersheds in the five counties that will be affected by the new policy.

Debra Dommen, executive director of the Winegrowers of Napa County, predicts the state will need more time.

“I think it’s going to take a lot more time to get it done right,” she said.

In the meantime, the state Water Resources Control Board is reviewing 600-plus public comments on the draft water policy the state issued Dec. 28.

Wednesday’s comments and those at two workshops held this week in Ukiah and Santa Rosa will be taken into consideration, state officials said.

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