Considering that agricultural lands comprise 37 percent of our state and represent approximately 74 percent of water use state-wide, it’s no surprise that agriculture plays a significant role in the recovery of Washington’s salmon. Approximately 37,000 farms cover 15.7 million acres and produce more than 200 commodities, such as apples, milk, hay, berries and Christmas trees. More than half of these farms are smaller than fifty acres, while others are large corporate entities. Large and small farms combined provide thousands of jobs and contribute billions of dollars to our state’s economy.
Unfortunately, agricultural activities sometimes contribute to the degradation of water quality and reduction of water quantity; both of these can significantly affect salmonid habitat. Activities which remove riparian habitat along streams, or that add excessive amounts of nutrients and silt to water, contribute to the increasing numbers of water bodies not meeting water quality standards. These activities also play a role in the listing of several salmon, steelhead and trout populations as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Most existing state and federal laws and regulations dealing with agricultural practices apply incentive-based approaches and rely largely on providing technical and financial assistance to farmers. Most program delivery is through local Conservation Districts in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The Washington State Conservation Commission provides grant funds to the Districts to implement local conservation practices, and NRCS staff provides technical assistance to private landowners. They also join with Conservation District staff to help landowners develop management plans that protect resources, as well as the landowner’s economic interests.
In addition, the State Conservation Commission funds a variety of water quality projects using state Centennial Clean Water funds. These projects are implemented by local Conservation Districts. The Department of Ecology also funds agricultural water quality and quantity projects.
·
Improve farm and sector-based practices to provide the water
quality, water quantity, and functional riparian habitat needed for salmon
recovery in the agricultural sector.
·
Revise the
Field Office Technical Guide (FOTG) to provide the tools needed to enhance,
restore and protect habitat for fish and to address state water quality
standards.
·
Ensure that
there is thorough stakeholder participation in the process of revising the
Field Office Technical Guides under the Natural Resource Conservation Service’s
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with state and federal resource agencies.
·
Raise the
awareness and understanding in the agricultural community of salmon recovery
and watershed health, and build support for the agricultural strategy and its
implementation.
·
Support
agricultural organizations’ and associations’ efforts to implement the
agricultural strategy and to help communities and general public understand and
support this effort.
·
Fully implement
the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) and expand its scope to
include tree fruit, berries and grapes.
The agricultural
strategy builds on the infrastructure used for the last 40 years to implement
conservation practices on farms. This system has relied on voluntary actions
and incentives, with technical assistance and cost-share money provided by the
Natural Resource Conservation Service and state Conservation Districts. The
Strategy will encourage comprehensive programs in those areas most in need of
protection and restoration.
The first priority
of the strategy is to review and, if necessary, upgrade the conservation
practices currently used by the Conservation District — Natural Resource
Conservation Service partnership. These standards will address water quality
and fish habitat on farms and are designed to provide upgraded conservation
standards that meet Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Clean Water Act (CWA)
requirements. Conservation Districts and the Natural Resource Conservation
Service will use these to develop farm plans that will be the mechanism used to
address water and fish habitat quality. Federal and state programs will be used
to provide technical assistance and cost-share money to help farmers implement
the practices. The program will use conservation practices from the Natural
Resource Conservation Service’s updated Field Office Technical Guide. A second
component of this effort is a guidance document to assist irrigation districts
in developing comprehensive plans that address their ESA-related concerns. This
effort is known as the “Agriculture, Fish and Water” (AFW) forum.
A second cornerstone
of the strategy is implementation of the Conservation Reserve Enhancement
Program (CREP). The program is a joint effort between Washington state and the
U.S. Department of Agriculture to restore fisheries habitat on private
agricultural lands adjacent to depressed or critical salmon streams. The
program has $250 million in funding, enough to restore between 3,000 and 4,000
miles of degraded riparian habitat.
The strategy also
relies on a commitment by the state to enforce existing environmental laws and
regulatory programs. It includes better tracking and accountability than in the
past and calls for monitoring and adaptive management. Benchmarks will be set
to measure success, and if they are not met within three years the state will
seek new authority from the Legislature to ensure salmon protection in
agricultural areas.
The strategy also
encourages sector-based approaches such as commodity groups or irrigation
districts developing Habitat Conservation Plans. The state will provide
technical and funding support to groups developing these comprehensive
commitments.
The
Conservation Districts and NRCS will implement monitoring at the local level.
The state Conservation Commission will develop a statewide database to track
implementation by watershed, or Water Resource Inventory Area (WRIA), region or
statewide. An oversight committee will develop a process to assess the success
of implementation.
An
effectiveness monitoring system will be designed to ensure conservation
practices are working. This will be part of an overall monitoring strategy used
by the state to measure success in providing clean water and good physical
habitat.