July 7 2006 comment letter to board

June 28, 2006 Regional Water Quality Control Board Region 3 895 Aerovista Place, San Luis Obispo, Ca. 93401 Re: Conditional Waiver of Waste Discharge Requirements from Irrigated Lands Dear Members of the Board, This letter is submitted on behalf of The Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo, The Environmental Defense Center (EDC), The Ocean Conservancy, and Santa Barbara Channelkeeper. These groups were all participants on the Ag. Advisory Panel that provided recommendations to your Board on the agricultural waiver adopted in 2004. Our groups would like to take this opportunity to voice our continued support for the implementation of the conditional waiver program. Overall, we believe the program is headed in the right direction and we are pleased with the progress that has been made to date. We especially appreciate the hard work of Regional Board staff as well as leaders within the agricultural community who are critical to the success of the program. While we are aware of some of the start up challenges facing the program (incomplete enrollment, data collection and management, notification, etc.), we believe that such issues were to be expected with the launch of a program of this complexity and scope. With continued support from your Board, staff, and community members, we are confident that this program will improve in the coming years. As seen in your staff report, Phase I monitoring results have ...