A Legacy of Leadership

For decades, the Farm Bureau has played an important role in the effort to ensure an adequate, reliable and affordable supply of water for Ventura County. We’ve worked with local water agencies to reverse seawater contamination of  critical groundwater basins; to manage rivers, reservoirs and aquifers equitably and efficiently; and to defend local water supplies against pollution.

In recent years, the Farm Bureau also has taken a leadership role in helping farmers and ranchers comply with a growing list of  water-quality regulations aimed at agriculture. The most prominent of these efforts has been the creation and administration of the Ventura County Agricultural Irrigated Lands Group, or VCAILG.
 



The VCAILG Program

In 2005, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board adopted a Conditional Waiver of Waste Discharge Requirements for Discharges from Irrigated Lands Within the Los Angeles Region. Known informally as the “Conditional Waiver” or “Ag Waiver” program, it requires the owners of irrigated farmland to measure and control discharges from their property, including irrigation return flows, flows from tile drains, and stormwater runoff. These discharges can affect water quality by transporting nutrients, pesticides, sediment, salts, and other pollutants from cultivated fields into surface waters.

The Conditional Waiver allows individual landowners and growers to comply with its provisions as individuals or by working collectively as a “discharger group.” Given the high cost and complexity of obtaining individual discharge permits, the Farm Bureau enlisted the cooperation of other agricultural organizations, water districts and individuals to form VCAILG, which is intended to act as one unified discharger group for those agricultural landowners and growers who agreed to join. The Regional Board approved the plan in 2006, and VCAILG was soon up and running, saving its members thousands of dollars a year in compliance costs.
 
Read more about VCAILG
Educational opportunities
Download VCAILG documents
Links
Additional resources and contacts

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The TMDL Process

The Conditional Waiver is not the only regulatory water-quality program being applied to Ventura County agriculture. Under a court order issued in 1999, the Regional Water Quality Control Board is being required to develop a set of pollution standards known as Total Maximum Daily Loads, or TMDLs, for Ventura County’s three major watersheds — Calleguas Creek, the Santa Clara River and the Ventura River — as well as its coastal waters.
 
The TMDL regulations apply to all potential sources of  contamination in the watershed, including wastewater treatment plants, highways, parks, golf courses, farms and ranches. The requirements are similar in some ways to those imposed by the Conditional Waiver, requiring that steps be taken to measure and control polluting discharges.

Read more about TMDLs
Download TMDL documents
Links
Additional resources and contacts

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Salt in the Santa Clara River

As it winds through Ventura County, the Santa Clara River serves many purposes. It provides recreational opportunities and supports important wildlife habitat. Its water is diverted to irrigate thousands of acres of cropland. It recharges critical underground water basins tapped by farms and cities.
 
Much of the year, the majority of the water flowing in the Santa Clara River consists of highly treated discharges from wastewater treatment plants upstream in Los Angeles County. In recent years, thanks to rapid growth in the population of the Santa Clarita Valley, the water released by those treatment plants has become laden with chlorides and other salts. The chloride levels have risen so high that they have begun poisoning some of Ventura County’s most important crops, including strawberries, avocados and nursery stock, all of which are particularly salt-sensitive.
 
For the past several years, a coalition of Ventura County growers, water agencies and agricultural organizations has been working to halt this contamination.
 
Read more about the Santa Clara River and salt
Download SCR chloride documents
Links
Additional resources and contacts

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VCAILG – Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How does VCAILG work?
A. Members pay annual assessments, which are used to cover program expenses. These expenses include hiring consultants to establish water-monitoring sites, collect samples, submit the samples to labs for analysis and report the results to state regulators.
 
Q. Who handles the money?
A. The Farm Bureau of Ventura County collects and manages the money on behalf of VCAILG. Those funds are kept separate from Farm Bureau funds, and may be spent only on Conditional Waiver program activities and administration. At the end of each fiscal year, 75% of the total cash on hand in VCAILG accounts is carried over to be applied to subsequent program expenses. Cash not needed to pay additional anticipated expenses is rebated to program participants in the form of reduced assessments.

Q. How much does the program cost?
A. It varies from year to year, depending on the scope of work being performed. The cost, which varies by watershed,  is divided among growers on the basis of acreage. Differences in cost between watersheds are due to variation in enrolled acreage and the necessary number of monitoring sites. Since the program began in 2006, VCAILG members collectively have spent $1.3 million to comply with the waiver — an average of $14.59 per acre.

Q. How is VCAILG managed?
A. The Farm Bureau of Ventura County administers the program, providing staff support, maintaining records, overseeing the work of the primary program consultant, and handling correspondence with group members and the Regional Board. A seven-member VCAILG Executive Committee develops the proposed program budget each year and recommends policy. Budget and policy recommendations are reviewed and approved by a 20-member Steering Committee consisting primarily of growers. Final approval of program expenditures and assessments rests with the Farm Bureau Board of Directors.
 
Q. Who are VCAILG’s members?
A. Owners of land used for production of agricultural crops to which irrigation water is applied are required to comply with the Conditional Waiver and may do so by joining VCAILG.
 
Q. Is membership mandatory?
A. No. Membership in VCAILG is voluntary. Landowners who do not wish to join must comply with the Conditional Waiver as individuals, which means they have to take the same steps that VCAILG members are taking as a group: developing their own monitoring, assessment and mitigation plans, and filing reports directly to the Regional Board.
 
Q. How many VCAILG members are there?
A. So far, 1,486 of Ventura County’s 1,646 agricultural landowners have enrolled in VCAILG. That figure represents 92 percent of the county’s irrigated agricultural acreage.
 
Q. Who are the Executive Committee members?
A. The VCAILG Executive Committee Members are Steve Bachman (representing the United Water Conservation District), Richard Hajas (Camrosa Water District), John Krist (Farm Bureau), John Matthews (Arnold, Bleuel, LaRochelle, et al), Dave Souza (Pleasant Valley County Water Agency), Kelle Pistone (Association of Water Agencies of Ventura County) and Rob Roy (Ventura County Agricultural Association).
 
Q. What gives the Regional Board the authority to regulate runoff from farms and ranches?
A. The federal Clean Water Act and the state’s version of that law, the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act, authorize regulators to control polluting discharges into surface water and groundwater. The laws also authorize regulators to charge fees to pay for program costs, and to levy fines on violators or refer them for criminal prosecution.
 
Q. But those laws have been in effect for decades. Why are farms and ranches being targeted now?
A. The Regional Water Quality Control Boards in charge of enforcing state and federal anti-pollution standards historically waived the waste-discharge requirements for irrigated farms, deeming it in the public interest to do so. A 1999 state law banned that practice, however, requiring that all such blanket waivers expire on Jan. 1, 2003, and directing the state’s nine regional boards to come up with an alternative. The boards governing the Central Valley, San Diego and the Central Coast went first; the Los Angeles Regional Board, which oversees Ventura County, adopted its Conditional Waiver program on Nov. 3, 2005.
 
Q. Has VCAILG’s monitoring detected pollution coming from agriculture?
A. Yes. Samples collected in 2007 showed levels of certain contaminants that exceed regulatory limits. Those contaminants include pesticides that are no longer in use, such as DDT, chlordane and dieldrin; organophosphorus pesticides, specifically chlorpyrifos and diazinon; salts; and nitrogen.
 
Q. If some of the detected pesticides are no longer in use, why are they showing up in runoff?
A. The chemicals persist for a long time in the environment and may still be found in the soil on farms and ranches where they were applied decades ago. When irrigation water or storm runoff carries the soil into nearby streams, the pesticides travel with it. This means controlling erosion is the most practicable way to protect waterways.
 
Q. How can we be certain that agriculture is the source?
A. Monitoring sites were carefully chosen to capture runoff coming only from irrigated agricultural land rather than urban areas, parks, or golf courses. Where this was not possible, background sites were monitored to establish the pollutant levels from these other sources.
 
Q. What happens next?
A. Because the initial sampling showed several violations of water-quality standards, landowners will now have to participate in the implementation of a Water Quality Management Plan. This plan outlines the process and strategies that will be employed to make sure agricultural discharges meet water quality standards.  On a farm level, landowners and growers will be asked to provide VCAILG with information on their management practices, participate in education efforts, and implement Best Management Practices to reduce or eliminate contaminated discharges.
 
Q. What if a landowner ignores the Conditional Waiver program?
A. State law provides for penalties of up to $5,000 per day for each day a landowner is in violation of the Conditional Waiver requirements, up to a cumulative total of $500,000.

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VCAILG Educational Opportunities

Landowners or their representatives are required to complete eight hours of  instruction in water-quality management to comply with the Conditional Waiver. In conjunction with UC Cooperative Extension, VCAILG offered 88 hours of classes between November 2006 and May 2008. Most — but not all — group members satisfied the requirement.
 
VCAILG does not plan to offer any more coursework. Members who fail to complete the required eight hours by the end of 2008 are at risk of being dropped from the group and would then be forced to comply with the Conditional Waiver individually. Continued failure to fulfill the requirements may expose violators to civil penalties.
 
Through a reciprocal arrangement with the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, Ventura County growers can satisfy their educational requirements by attending classes offered in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties. For more information about those course, consult the Central Coast Region or the Agricultural Watershed Coalition using the inks below.
 
Irrigation surveys developed by UC Cooperative Extension can be used to obtain one hour of Conditional Waiver education credits. Each survey contains instructions for completion and submittal.
Download the citrus survey
Download the nursery survey
Download the avocado survey
 
For information about the surveys, contact:
Dale Zurawski,
UC Cooperative Extension
669 County Square Dr. #100
Ventura, CA 93003
dezurawski@ucdavis.edu
(805) 645-1483.

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TMDL – Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What is a TMDL?
A. TMDL stands for Total Maximum Daily Load. It is a calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a water body can receive and still meet standards established by states and tribes to protect the beneficial uses of that water, such as municipal supply, body-contact recreation, agricultural irrigation and support of aquatic life. A TMDL sets the total amount of a single pollutant that can enter the water body, divides the total load among all of the sources of that pollutant in the watershed, and tells each discharger how much it can contribute.
 
Q. How do TMDLS differ from other pollution regulations?
A. Sewer plants, factories and other easily identifiable sources of pollution have long had to obtain permits regulating their waste discharges. TMDLs are primarily a way of addressing contamination from “nonpoint sources” that lack an easily identifiable discharge point, such as city streets, rangeland and farms.
 
Q. Who establishes the TMDLs?
A. They can be developed by state or federal agencies, or by stakeholder groups. Regardless of how they are developed, they are implemented in California by the state’s Regional Water Quality Control Boards following approval by the State Water Quality Control Board and the Environmental Protection Agency.
 
Q. What gives the Board the legal authority to impose these regulations?
A. Although authorized under section 303 of the Clean Water Act of 1972, TMDLs and nonpoint-source pollution were largely ignored by state and federal regulatory agencies until relatively recently. The EPA did not even adopt regulations for them until 1985, refining those standards further in 1992. And it has only been within the past decade that enforcement has begun, largely a consequence of lawsuits by environmental organizations seeking to force the EPA and the states to adopt TMDLs for impaired streams and lakes. There have been about 40 such legal actions in 38 states, and the EPA is under court order or consent decrees in many regions to ensure that TMDLs are established, either by the state or by EPA. One such consent decree is in place for the greater Los Angeles region, including Ventura County.
 
Q. How does the process work?
A. It starts with what regulators refer to as the “303 (d) list,” a comprehensive listing of all impaired waters within their jurisdiction that states, territories and tribes are required to submit periodically to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Each listing identifies the specific pollutants for which the water fails to meet health and safety standards. Once the pollutants have been identified, researchers conduct studies to figure out where they are coming from, how much of each can be discharged into the watershed under varying hydrological conditions without posing a risk, and how much each discharger will be allowed to emit. After those studies have been completed, the TMDL limits are written, submitted to EPA for approval and adopted by the state.
 
Q. What TMDLs have been developed for Ventura County?
A. It varies by watershed. For Calleguas Creek, six TMDLS have been adopted: nitrogen and algae, historic pesticides (DDT and chlordane), metals (copper, nickel, zinc, mercury and selenium), toxicity (anything that kills aquatic life or impairs its ability to reproduce), sediment and trash. A TMDL for salts (chloride, total dissolved solids, boron and sulfate) is awaiting EPA approval, and one for bacteria is being developed. For the Santa Clara River, TMDLs for chloride, nitrogen and algae have been adopted, and those for historic pesticides, toxicity, salts and trash are in the works. For the Ventura River, a trash TMDL is in effect, and TMDLs for nitrogen and algae, historic pesticides and bacteria are in development or will be soon.
 
Q. What’s the difference between TMDLs and the pollutant limits contained in the Conditional Waiver program for which VCAILG was formed?
A. There is some overlap in the requirements for compliance, but they are two different regulatory approaches to improving water quality. The Farm Bureau, VCAILG and their consultants (Larry Walker Associates) are working to ensure that the monitoring and mitigation requirements developed through the TMDL process take advantage of work already done — and money already spent — to develop the Conditional Waiver compliance program.
 
Q. If these are two different programs, why did I get a TMDL bill from VCAILG?
A. The Regional Board asked VCAILG to serve as the collection agency for billing of costs associated with the TMDL process in the Calleguas Creek watershed. VCAILG directors agreed to do so, because otherwise the Regional Board might have taken steps to incorporate the TMDL limits into the Conditional Waiver itself. Had they done so, it would have opened the entire waiver program to renegotiation, which might have exposed growers to the risk of additional rules and costs imposed at the behest of third parties.
 
Q. How much does the TMDL program cost?
A. It will vary from year to year, depending on the scope of work conducted. Total costs for the first year are estimated at about $1.4 million for the Calleguas watershed alone.
 
Q. Are agricultural landowners paying for the whole program?
A. No. Costs are being shared among all contributors discharging runoff into the watershed, including cities, sanitation districts, water agencies, the U.S. Navy and the California Department of Transportation.
 
Q. What is agriculture’s share?
A. In the Calleguas Creek watershed, agriculture is responsible for 47 percent of the total cost. The initial billing to growers was for $17 an acre, and it is likely a supplemental billing will be necessary after contractors and consultants are hired and the actual costs become more clear.

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River Salt – Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What is the source of the salt in the river?
A. There are several sources. Much of the water delivered to homes in the Santa Clarita Valley is from the State Water Project, and it picks up salt before it is pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Some salt is a product of the water-disinfection process. The biggest single contributor, however, is the brine produced by self-regenerating household water softeners, which is discharged into the municipal sewer system.
 
Q. Why is salt a problem in the Santa Clara?
A. When salt levels rise above a certain level, they cause plants to weaken or even die. Even minor plant damage reduces crop yields, cutting into farmers’ revenue. Nursery stock being grown for ornamental purposes often cannot be sold if its foliage shows signs of damage. Currently, the Saugus and Valencia treatment plants discharge more than 8 million pounds of salt into the river each year.
 
Q. Is anything being done to reduce the salt level in the river?
A. Yes. State water-quality regulators have ordered the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District of Los Angeles County, which operates the wastewater treatment plants in Valencia and Saugus, to reduce the level of salt in the effluent they discharge into the river. The allowable limit has been set at a level that will protect salt-sensitive crops in Ventura County.
 
Q. How will the they do that?
A. Agencies in the Santa Clarita Valley have adopted several strategies. They have banned water softeners in new construction. They are providing rebates to homeowners who voluntarily remove existing water softeners, and they have placed a referendum on the November ballot asking voters to outlaw existing softeners. They also are planning to switch to a new water-purification system using ultraviolet light instead of chlorine, which also will reduce chloride in the supply.
 
Q. Will that be enough?
A. No. The districts also are planning to build an advanced treatment facility that will filter salt out of the wastewater-plant discharge before it enters the river.
 
Q. How will that work?
A. The original strategy being considered would have involved construction of a very large reverse-osmosis plant to purify all or most of the effluent. That purification process produces mineral-laden brine as a byproduct, so the project also would have involved a 43-mile pipeline to carry the brine along the Santa Clara River through Ventura County to a new ocean outfall off the Ventura coast. This alternative is no longer regarded as desirable, however.
 
Q. Why not?
A. The project would be hugely expensive, involve a daunting set of political and legal obstacles during permitting and construction, and would result in greatly reduced flows in the Santa Clara River. Recent modeling suggests that the loss in usable flow downstream in Ventura County would be about 7,000 acre-feet a year — equivalent to the entire annual contribution of the Freeman Diversion Project to the county’s water supply. Raising the money to purchase that much replacement water, even if it could be found, would require United Water Conservation District (which operates the Freeman) to more than double its rates for agricultural users.
 
Q. What’s the alternative?
A. The Alternative Water Resources Management Plan that’s been developed through negotiation between the Sanitation District and the Ventura County Agricultural Water Quality Coalition — of which the Farm Bureau is a founding member — involves several physical components, all of which would be funded by the Sanitation District:

• A small reverse-osmosis plant to purify effluent at the Valencia treatment plant, with the waste brine piped to a deep-well injection field in Los Angeles County.

• A new extraction well field in the East Piru Basin at the approximate location of Camulos Ranch.

• A pipeline to carry purified water from the Valencia plant to the well field, with an additional turnout approximately at the county line.

• A second pipeline from the well field to an outlet on the Santa Clara River near the Fillmore Fish Hatchery.
  

Q. How would the project operate?
A. Under typical conditions, the facilities would be operated in concert in the following fashion:

• High-quality treated water from the Valencia RO plant would be piped to the East Piru well field, where it would be blended with low-quality groundwater pumped from the wells.

• The blended water would be piped to the fish hatchery outlet (thereby bypassing the “dry gap” in the river where all flows typically are lost to the subsurface basin) and dumped into the river. The blended water would be low enough in salt to have a diluting effect on the total river flow, enabling it to meet regulatory standards established to protect salt-sensitive crops.

• That water would flow downstream and be available for diversion at Freeman and eventual delivery to users.
  

During drought years, or other times when State Water Project water has high salt levels, the project would be operated a bit differently, but the overall effect on water quality in Ventura County would not change.
 
Q. How would this benefit Ventura County?
A. The benefits to Ventura County are substantial:

• A net increase in local water supplies, thanks to the provision of year-round flows suitable for diversion at Freeman.

• Reduced overdraft  and seawater intrusion on the Oxnard Plain, as increased diversions at Freeman provide additional surface water to displace groundwater pumping.

• Improved water quality in the Santa Clara River and in the East Piru Basin.

• A faster timetable for protection of agricultural users.

• Avoidance of the negative impacts associated with the large RO plant and brine line, including high energy use, conflict over permitting and environmental impacts, loss of river flows and increased costs for irrigation water.
  

Q. What’s the status of the alternative plan?
A. Members of the Ventura County Agricultural Water Quality Coalition — which includes the Ventura County Agricultural Association and United Water Conservation District — have met numerous times over the past year with representatives of the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District and upstream water purveyors to develop a legal document describing the plan and committing the Sanitation District to the actions required to implement it. That agreement has been finalized and signed by all affected parties. Because certain elements of the plan will require revision of water quality standards for sections of the river in Los Angeles County, approval by the Regional Water Quality Control Board is needed. A hearing on that request has been set for Dec. 11, 2008. It will be conducted at 9 a.m. in the Board of Supervisors Hearing Room, 800 S. Victoria Ave., Ventura.

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VCAILG Links

Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board
Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board
Agricultural Watershed Coalition of Southern San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties
Clean Water Act




Download VCAILG Documents

PDF of the FAQ about VCAILG
Conditional Waiver adopted by the regional board
List of monitoring sites and maps of locations
2007 Final VCAILG Annual Monitoring Report
Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act
John Krist’s commentary for the Ventura County Star about
the Conditional Waiver
Regional Board FAQ about the Conditional Waiver program
2007 Water Quality Management Plan
PowerPoint presentation to strawberry growers on 2007
monitoring results
2007 year-end VCAILG financial report (coming soon!)
BMP reporting sheet (coming soon!)

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TMDL Links

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Calleguas Creek Watershed TMDL program
Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board
Larry Walker Associates




Download TMDL Documents

PDF of the FAQ about TMDLs
PowerPoint presentation on the Calleguas TMDL process
John Krist’s TMDL story for California Planning & Development Report
Latest edition of the University of California's Farm Water Quality News

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Santa Clara River Chloride Links
 
Ventura County Agricultural Water Quality Coalition
Upper Santa Clara River Chloride TMDL process
Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County
United Water Conservation District
Notice of Regional Board's Dec. 11 hearing
Staff report for the Dec. 11 hearing
FAQ About Chlorides





Download Chloride Documents

PDF of the FAQ about chlorides in the river
Technical report on the effect of chloride on crops
Presentation on the Alternative Water Resources Management Plan
John Krist’s commentary for the Ventura County Star about chlorides
in the river
Rob Roy's remarks prepared for the Association of Water Agencies
of Ventura County

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Additional Resources and Contacts

General information
Nonpoint sources of pollution in agriculture
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8055.pdf
Developing a nonpoint source pollution program
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8087/pdf
Evaluating water quality
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8118.pdf
Soil erosion in agriculture
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8196.pdf
vegetated filter strips
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8195.pdf

Farm water quality planning
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu
click on FREE PUBLICATIONS
click on FARM WATER QUALITY PLANNING

Pesticide information
PesticideWise (toxicity, leaching, runoff potential)
http://www.pw.ucr.edu/
Pesticide selection
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8119.pdf
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/
UCCE pesticide runoff and mitigation education
http://groups.ucanr.org/PesticideMitigation/

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Nursery, floriculture, greenhouses
Nutrient management goals for nursery and floriculture
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8122.pdf
Nutrient management in nursery and floriculture
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8221.pdf
Sediment management goals for nursery and floriculture
http://anrcalalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8124.pdf

Strawberries
Sediment management goals for strawberries
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8071.pdf
Nutrient management for strawberries
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8123.pdf

Vegetables
Nutrient management goals for vegetables
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8097.pdf
Nutrient management for vegetables
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8098.pdf

Orchards
Avocado Handbook: Diseases, Economics, Fertilization, Fire, Frost Control, Harvesting, Horticulture, Irrigation, Pest Control
http://ceventura.ucdavis.edu/Agriculture265/Avocado_Handbook.htm
Citrus Web site: disease, insects, weeds
http://ceventura.ucdavis.edu/Agriculture265/Citrus.htm
Sediment management goals for orchards
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8219.pdf
Orchard water requirements
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8212.pdf
Pest management-avocado
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/selectnewpest.avocado.html
Pest management-citrus
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/selectnewpest.citrus.html
Cover crops in orchards
http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/ccrop/CCPubs/CCSelectionAn
Management.html
Cover crops to scavenge nitrogen in orchards
http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/newsltr/v5n3/sa-4.htm

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Irrigation scheduling
CIMIS (California Irrigation Management Information System)
http://www.cimis.water.ca.gov/cimis/welcome.jsp
CA Avocado Commission Irrigation Calculator (Useful for any
micro-sprinkler irrigation system)
http://www.avocado.org/growers/irrigcalc.php

Research and conservation resources
University of California Cooperative Extension
669 County Square Dr. #100
Ventura, CA 93003
(805) 645-1451
E-mail: ceventura@ucdavis.edu
Web: http://ceventura.ucdavis.edu/
Tree Crops: Farm Advisor Ben Faber
805-645-1462, bafaber@ucdavis.edu
Vegetable or Strawberry: Farm Advisor Oleg Daugovish
805-645-1454, odaugovish@ucdavis.edu
Nursery and Floriculture: Farm Advisor Julie Newman
jpnewman@ucdavis.edu

Natural Resources Conservation Service
3380 Somis Rd.
Somis, CA 93066
(805) 386-4489
District Conservationist: Brooks Engelhardt
brooks.engelhardt@ca.usda.gov

Ventura County Resource Conservation District (Mobile Irrigation Lab)
3380 Somis Rd.
Somis, CA 93066
(805) 386-4489
District Manager: Marty Melvin
marty.melvin@vcrcd.org

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