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Conditional Waiver Monitoring Requirements

When Regional Water Boards adopt conditional waivers for irrigated agriculture a Monitoring and Reporting Plan is also adopted which sets the requirements for water quality monitoring. Both the Central Valley and Central Coast Regional Boards adopted monitoring programs that provide for growers to band together into groups to conduct the monitoring. Conducting monitoring as part of a group relieves the grower of the burden of arranging for monitoring and all growers in a group will share monitoring costs.

Taking on the obligation of monitoring alone is risky. First, monitoring must be performed according to carefully laid out plans and protocols or the information gathered is not considered valid. Developing these plans and coordinating monitoring for a single grower is going to pose much higher costs than if it were performed by a group. Additionally, the individual grower will have to monitor flows from their own property rather than at a location potentially far downstream. Monitoring so close to a grower's operations might produce data that could trigger immediate requirements to control runoff from the grower's property. As a result, making the decision to go it alone should be given the most serious consideration and carefully thought through.

Group monitoring may also produce data showing a water quality problem but the Regional Water Boards will likely go through an extended process to move upstream to identify the specific source of contamination. Each conditional waiver is different in how it applies its requirements once a stream is identified as containing pollutants that originate from irrigated lands and the value of participating in a monitoring group is made even more evident by the technical support the group leader can provide.

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