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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.
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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.
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, the necessary number of monitoring sites, and the types of contaminants being analyzed. The average cost per acre in 2010-2011 is $23.
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. More than 1,400 of Ventura County’s 1,700 agricultural landowners have enrolled in VCAILG. That figure represents 94 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), Jerry Conrow (Ojai Basin Groundwater Management Agency), John Krist (Farm Bureau), John Matthews (Arnold, Bleuel, LaRochelle, et al), Dave Souza (Pleasant Valley County Water District), 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.
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 first Conditional Waiver program on Nov. 3, 2005. The waiver was renewed on Oct. 7, 2010, for another five years.
Q. Has VCAILG’s monitoring detected pollution coming from agriculture?
A. Yes. Samples collected in 2007, 2008 and 2009 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 sampling showed several violations of water-quality standards, VCAILG developed Water Quality Management Plans outlining the process and strategies that will be employed to make sure agricultural discharges meet water quality standards. On a farm level, landowners and growers are being 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
Required education classes scheduled
In order to comply with the Conditional Waiver adopted in October by the Regional Water Quality Control Board, all owners of irrigated agricultural land (or their designated representatives) must obtain eight hours of education on water-quality issues over the next two years. A similar requirement was included in the version of the waiver adopted in 2005, which expired and has been replaced by a version that extends through 2015.
To help members of the Ventura County Agricultural Irrigated Lands Group (VCAILG) comply with the education requirement, Farm Bureau is planning a series of workshops and tours. These classes will be organized around two types of sessions.
In the first four-hour general educational session, participants will learn about the results of water-quality monitoring VCAILG has been conducting since 2006. Presenters will talk about farming practices that improve the quality of the runoff from fields, and provide information about financial assistance available to growers for making changes. These sessions will be in June and July, and will be held in different parts of the county.
The second four-hour session will be in-the-field farm tours. These site visits will demonstrate what some progressive farmers have done to improve crop performance and reduce pollutants in their runoff. Field tours will be planned for August through November.
The schedule of four-hour general educational classes follows. Please decide which session you or your designate will attend, and call Farm Bureau at (805) 289-0155 to register. The courses are free, but your attendance must be verified in order for you to receive credit.
VCAILG General Educational Classes
(Note: attendance at one of these sessions will satisfy half your eight-hour education requirement under the new Conditional Waiver.)
Monday, July 25, 2011
8 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Santa Paula Community Center
530 W. Main Street
Santa Paula, CA 93060
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
8 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Pierpont Inn
550 Sanjon Road
Ventura, CA 93001
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
8 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Courtyard by Marriott
600 E. Esplanade Drive
Oxnard, CA 93036
Thursday, July 28, 2011
1 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Freedom Center
515 Eubanks St.
Camarillo, CA 93010
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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.
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 —met numerous times in 2007 and 2008 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 was finalized and signed by all affected parties on Oct. 23, 2008. Because certain elements of the plan required revision of water quality standards for sections of the river in Los Angeles County, approval by the Regional Water Quality Control Board was needed. The Regional Board unanimously approved the plan on Dec. 11, 2008. The various agencies have begun the project design and environmental review process, which is expected to take several years.
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VCAILG Links
Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board
Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board
Agriculture Water Quality Alliance
Central Coast Agricultural Water Quality Coalition
Clean Water Act
Download VCAILG Documents
Article by local researchers on effectiveness of BMPs
PDF of the FAQ about VCAILG
2005-2010 Conditional Waiver
2010-2015 Conditional Waiver
List of monitoring sites and maps of locations
2007 VCAILG Annual Monitoring Report
2008 VCAILG Annual Monitoring Report
2009 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
2008 Water Quality Management Plan
PowerPoint presentation to strawberry growers on 2007
monitoring results
VCAILG Cost-Benefit Analysis
Management Practices Survey
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
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
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/Top
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
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 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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