North Coast Water Board Increases Enforcement on Cannabis Growers, Issues Six-Figure Fines
Press release from the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board:
The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board reported last Friday that its enforcement actions against water quality violations have increased by 25% over the past two years, driven largely by its forceful response to the growing operations of cannabis cultivators whose activities threaten nearby waterways.
The cultivators involved generally operate without permits and are alleged to be dumping trash into creeks and rivers or recklessly building illegal roads that create erosion hazards. Board staff informed that, in addition to formal enforcement cases, scores of potential violations are also currently under investigation.
“While responsible cannabis cultivation is an important part of our region’s economic prosperity, the fact is that not everyone is following the rules. The ongoing blatant disregard for crucial regulations that protect water quality poses a dangerous threat to our environment and quality of life,” said Claudia Villacorta, assistant executive officer for the North Coast Water Board. “We’ve stepped up our enforcement efforts not only to safeguard the health of our creeks and rivers but to send a message to violators: If you harm our waterways, you will be investigated and cited.”
The intensification of the board’s investigation and enforcement activities is resulting in a number of orders, proposed fines and a spate of ongoing inquiries that could lead to significant civil penalties.
Since July 1, 2020, the board has issued 331 enforcement actions, a 25% increase over the two years prior, which include:
- 246 notices of violation (of these,140 were issued to cannabis growers)
- 30 notices of non-compliance
- 12 cleanup and abatement orders (of this total, nine were issued to cannabis growers)
- Nine administrative civil liability complaints (one complaint issued to cannabis growers)
- 14 administrative civil liability orders (one issued to cannabis growers)
- Two expedited payment letters for mandatory minimum penalties The following cases are examples of recent enforcement actions:
- In early August, the board imposed a $301,950 fine against cannabis cultivators on 100 acres in Humboldt County who built an undersized and misaligned road that threatened to cause erosion runoff into the nearby Mad River. In that case, the board increased by 40% the fine proposed by enforcement staff when the accused failed to show up for a hearing and never responded to orders to clean up the area and bring the road up to industry standards.
- In late September, board staff issued a proposed fine of $506,813 for a Trinity County case involving unpermitted cannabis growers with repeated violations on their four-acre parcel. The accused growers’ unwillingness to cleanup and fix numerous water quality issues lead to hefty proposed penalties. The board will consider adoption of the proposed fine at a board hearing in February 2023.
“While pursuing violations associated with expanding unpermitted cannabis cultivation is a top priority for the board, we also continue to enforce permits and investigate discharge violations for other types of agriculture and unauthorized dredge and fill activities in addition to discharge violations related to industrial and construction activities,” added Villacorta. “Common to all types of investigations is the regular failure by violators to meet deadlines in existing enforcement orders, but noncompliance will be met with higher penalties, from $1,000 to $10,000 per day.”
Members of the public who see or suspect water quality violations are encouraged to report them online through the CalEPA Environmental Complaint System. The public can also report violations by calling the regional board’s main line at 707-576-2220 or the North Coast enforcement coordinator at 707-576-2835. In all cases, the individual submitting the report is assured anonymity.
The North Coast Water Board’s mission is to develop and enforce water quality objectives and implement plans that will best protect the region’s waters while recognizing our local differences in climate, topography, geology and hydrology.
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
Why can’t WE THE PEOPLE instruct the government that THEY ARE OUT OF CONSTITUTIONAL COMPLIANCE.
the administrative state is waging war on the people who don’t believe that the corporate welfare state deserves to be protected from unfair trade practices
I kinda agree with you. I think it’s partly just that for some people at these agencies, their desk is the Center of the Universe. They have a hard time understanding why you don’t spend all day on their busy work.
But more seriously, there’s a growing abuse of the Administrative Law system. Civil fines are issued, you are guilty. You may pay a settlement, admitting guilt, or start a four year pressure campaign risking outrageous fines, to defend yourself in a courtroom, usually six hours away in Sacramento, or Oakland. Many different agencies are employing these tactics. I’ve gone through this twice, and have another case pending now since 2018. In two of the three cases it was a mistake on the agencies part. In one case with the California Air Resource Board, the FIRST outreach was a letter (from Pomona? Not Sacramento) inviting me to source, buy, and replace a truck engine in 5 weeks. At precisely five weeks, I got a $3,000 fine, and registration cancelled. I’m all for clean air, but was this the way to do it? I just owned crap the Titans of Industry sold to me!
…CA Democrats should take note. You can have an asshole at one of these well intentioned agencies, voters empowered, who can abuse the small power their job gives them. This helps create the narrative that CA is over regulated. In many cases the “little guy” gets hit hard with tactics better reserved for a large corporate law firm. While we have huge SoCal methane leaks, oil spills off Long beach ( due to a ship striking a pipeline, while waiting for the port to load shit on TRUCKS) CARB is fining small operators for owning a truck they bought. The reality is they could simply mandate cleaner tech on new vehicles, the one all the big fleet, high mileage companies use! Nobody WANTS to use old junk! Their rules ( you gotta buy a new truck) rewarded the truck manufacturers who made their money selling us the “dirty” technology.
Why don’t you run for the water board , or public office, or go to law school if you’re so civic minded? Instead, you whine into the internet like some dopey proud boy. Many of “The people” actually want our water to be clean and our creeks to flow.
It’s possible to want clean water and also recognize that CA regulatory agencies are out of control…
How do you prevent bad actors polluting without regulation and associated agencies?
First. I respect clean waters and want streams that flow.
There are lots of people who are less than “bad actors” who could (at least initially) get a little regulatory spanking without the huge fines. Give people a reasonable time to address the issues. Not necessarily allowing continued use of genuinely jurisdictional water, but some allowance to ‘clean it up’ or whatever. Compassionate government. What a concept!
You remember when the administrative state said ivermectin was horse paste and refused to let it be administered?
You know anyone who has died from fentanyl?
They add poison to the water supply, fluoride, spray the sky with aluminum, barium, etc, add pesticides and herbicides to the food.
Yet there are no fines for this clown show, just a ridiculous green agenda and a literal looting of our treasury, to prop up a foreign country’s economic growth.
It’s sounds like you might not be paying attention?
I do not consent to this war on the people, a war on our farmers, our children.
It’s not “The People” Akbar. It’s “We the People”. Sounds like you’re one of the administrative state people. While we all want clean water, placing extremely high fines on small pot farmers just forces them to quit and run. Very few people have enough money to pay a six figure fine, which is what the headline in this article states is going on.
Nah, Ackbar’s grammar is correct.
They don’t quit and run. You are dealing with one of the most resilient sects of society. Those properties are still being grown on. A lot of dope is being grown on those properties. The owners laugh at those fines because everyone knows there is no way they can be paid. In those people’s minds, the property already belongs to the county, they’re just going to keep growing and/or living on it till the sheriff shows up. Even then they may return.
I want the creeks to flow so I can fam and take the water for my dope.
The creek running through my property flows about 5 GPM now, and can flow up to 300 gallons per SECOND during winter high flows, so sparing you the equations, about 23,328,000 gallons flow through my property each year. I use 65,000 gallons for weed. Pumped in winter during relatively high flows.
If you ever actually had to report to the water board, you’d notice they make you convert to acre/ft. Which is telling. I have to convert to hundredths of an acre ft. Northern California water is sold at about $1,500 an acre foot(+- 301,000 gal) in Kern Co.
You feel that ppl should be allowed to dump garbage into the creek and construct roads that input sediment into the watercourses?
Is that the only other option? Dump garbage into the creek? Do you think the Water Boards goofy reporting system stops somebody from dumping into a creek!? The creek dumpers obviously don’t care. The people engaged with the water board are trying to play by the rules. I got fined by the board because I had a duplicate registration, that the CalCannabis application made you do to continue, despite having already filled one out. It’s confusing because you submit the same information to multiple agencies. Disfunction junction.
Maybe people would be more willing to comply with them if they weren’t so totally unrealistic!
Yeah, don’t dump garbage or sediment into the creek. So unrealistic.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. That’s what empowers the Waterboard. Only a small percentage have to actually deal with them.
Ah yes- Legalization has made us Free and Safe!!
Awesome news, keep it up Water Board good for you to finally step up and fine these poor stewards and violators!!!!
Just like the rest of the compliance this industry has been destroying our creeks, streams, and springs for decades.
Bust them all day, all year long, and good riddance!!
You’ve never actually dealt with em obviously! So far, they go hard on the people who signed up. They may have fired a few jerks, or realigned their priorities, but my experience is they’re more interested in levying fines than understanding or regulating water use across the state.
I’ve received $3,000 fines for their system problems, unresolvable duplicate filings, instead of trying to fix their mistakes, they try to play “gotcha” making up permits you should have-all of a sudden! Their outreach is pathetically passive unless you grow weed. In theory ALL rural water withdraws had to be registered around 2013, but they never did any notification. KMUD ran stories, but that’s far from mandatory listening. All they had to do was get County’s information on Community Service Districts that supply water. Eliminate all those addresses, send surveys to everyone else in the State, because they are supplying their own water.
Meanwhile, after a car wreck took out one of their poles, Frontier Communications, a “legit business” cut the rest of the treated pole into unusable lengths, and instead of leaving it accessable by the side of the road, or taking it, they went out of their way to toss it all IN THE CREEK! Almost smashing the pump for my 98 year old hyper regulated, now, 10 day a year withdrawal!
it seems you have never dealt with diesel entering your water system intake from some idiot up stream that feels the way you do.
What would a water board fine do? We’re all “you people” to them.
And read the end of my too long comment. Frontier just about smashed my intake, going out of their way to toss pressure treated pole scraps IN THE CREEK. What’s the Waterboard gonna do about it?(fine me)
‘Fine you’? Probably. 🙁
This applies to all. They highlight cannabis so they can tap those funds but if you paid attention roughly a third didn’t grow cannabis. This is about your rights as a citizen against a government that is out of control. Honestly for me not an issue but a lot of citizens not just growers need to pay attention. Good luck and when they come knocking on your door to say your trash can is to close to a waterway and fine your ass maybe then you’ll understand.
I work in timber. Timber companies have been dealing with this for 20+ years. Now, the roads are tight and right and there isn’t much the waterboard can say or do to them. Hard to have sympathy for the growers coining for decades and not paying taxes. Follow the rules and you’ll be fine.
Exactly, and its also way cheaper in the long run to do roads right, designed right you cut long term maintenance costs way down
Guess ya gotta be a long time landowner to understand.
//The roads are tight and right //
Bullshit!! This a money grab but you failed to recognize 1/3 were not growers at all. Shouldn’t it have been a requirement the county provide a proper infastructure (Roads) in its decision to authorize residential neighborhoods. I can name many to include the three year fiasco on AP yet logging trucks still drive up and down but let’s blame the grows.
Well as I said this grower doesn’t have anything to worry about and I look forward to your opinion in 5 years from now.
I’ve been running my particular biz longer than anyone now over the 100 plus years it’s been in operation. It’s always been a farm, ranch, etc. We never heard from the Waterboard until we finally actually planted weed along with everything else, and went out of our way to tell them! At best they’ve been ineffective and annoying. Their outlandish fine threats, for us, have been easily sidestepped by pointing out the foolish system errors, leading up to them cranking it to “11”!
Ha! If you’re in Timber you should know better: ‘following the rules’ just leads to more rules.
I’m glad you learned how to grade a road properly though!
“This applies to all” No it doesn’t. Coastal wetlands have been destroyed by an ill-considered weeding program, when reported to the County or the WaterBoards
they play stupid. With pot growers its hardball all the way.
As corrupt as can be.
Well as a grower after all these years I have become comfortably numb to their laws, policy and codes.
In the case of the mad river property the owner passed away. Pretty tough to show up for a hearing when you are dead.
??Tell it to the judge.?
Speaking of the Mad River…I wonder when they’re gonna bust that hippy commune growing tons of indoor, with cars parked all over the place, giant lights on all night…they dammed up the whole river to make a pond! The commune, I think it’s called Yowza, or Eureka or something, and Arkahtah…the pond they call Suzie, or Ruth or some BS…
haha, good one. Instead of having municipalities should we all scatter into the hills and figure it out for ourselves? It’s a weird perspective from the outdoor folks: I want to get rich, with no rules imposed on me, without contributing taxes, but i’ll come into town for supplies and parties when I see fit. tfoh
Meanwhile almond growers in the Central valley are installing unprimitive wells left and right.
To get that whopping $1.85 /pound raw almond price.
Can grow a lot of pounds of almonds in the same square footage as your one pound of weed.
As others have said this Water Boarding is not only for cannabis. They only used the cannabis as a spearhead for their complete takeover of all water rights in CA. The regulations were already passed quietly. After the huge cannabis program you can expect their regs to start being applied to tomatoes and brushing your teeth. They say that you need a permit from them to use your own water coming from your own spring or well on your own property. Of course it will cost you hundreds of dollars because you need a qualified engineer to sign off. It is an annual permit that of course can be revoked. It’s a huge shift in private property rights and there should be a huge popular uprising against the Water Board. But for now these regs are being proposed as ” against environmental destruction caused by cannabis grows” and so opposition is splintered. I do want environmentally destructive mega-grows wiped out. But I also see how we are all getting played by our government. They want control of all of your water, even from your own ground…because it’s not yours anymore- it is theirs!
//” They want control of all of your water, even from your own ground…because it’s not yours anymore- it is theirs!”//
You’re demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of water rights in CA.
Water rights….
Why does the state own the water JB?
//”Why does the state own the water JB?”//
It all goes back to the CA Constitution and the Water Commission Act of 1913. This Act was virtually unchanged until the SGMA program 101 years later.
You can ask me “why?” all you want but wasn’t there 110 years ago to be privy to the debate, but this could be a good read for someone interested in such.
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/MUELLER_-_MLI_Water_Rights_Paper.pdf
Because the water from the well I dug on land that I own never was my water? Is that where I’m wrong? I was told that springs that lead continuously into blue line creeks was not mine but that unconnected springs on my land were mine. Has all of it always been property of the state?
If that is the case indeed shouldnt a massive property tax refund be owed to property owners if having springs on your land equals public space how can they tax you for it ? And if the do tax you for it shouldnt you be owed rent for their water flowing onto your property ? And what about their water when it floods and damages your assets ? Shouldnt they be paying those costs as well ?
The land is not yours. Repeal property taxes so we can own the land and actually opt out of society if we so choose.
that is something else we agree on however i did not have the time to get deeper
It’s cause the land has never been your land! You haven’t figured that out? You just rent it from the government, that’s why you pay property taxes every year, that’s your rent. If “your land” was actually owned by you, the property tax would be a one time charge levied at the point of sale, like a large sales tax. Instead, it’s paid annually, and if you don’t pay your rent, I mean property tax, the government boots you off and finds somebody who will!
“They want control of all of your water, even from your own ground…because it’s not yours anymore- it is theirs!”
Truth. That’s where it’s all headed. There are places in CA where it’s illegal to collect rainwater from your rooftop. Riparian water rights have quietly been eroded, no pun intended. Current (again NPI) rules on creeks are that if you don’t file your water use with the water board, you lose your water rights. I used to think all that Agenda 21 stuff was paranoid fiction. These days, I’m not so sure.
Want to go down a rabbit hole? Look up Agenda 21, ICLEI, humboldt general plan, supervisor Mike Wilson, and carbon impacts. They all connect. Humboldt signed up with ICLEI in 2007.
//“They want control of all of your water, even from your own ground…because it’s not yours anymore- it is theirs!”//
And this is the fundamental misunderstanding I mention above. It’s never been yours – since 1913 it’s all been owned by the state and feds with various permissions/rights granted.
Your link describes appropriative water rights, but not riparian rights, which are under attack.
From waterboard website:
A riparian right entitles the landowner to use a correlative share of the water flowing past his or her property. Riparian rights do not require permits, licenses, or government approval, but they apply only to the water which would naturally flow in the stream. Aug 20, 2020
Water Rights Process – State Water Resources Control Board
//”Your link describes appropriative water rights, but not riparian rights, which are under attack.”//
My link was response to a very specific question “Why does the state own the water?” and was purposefully selected only to address that question by quoting and exploring the CA Constitution.
There are plenty sources which explore riparian rights specifically and again your characterization of “riparian right, which are under attack” is incorrect.
As with appropriative rights, riparian rights go back more than 100 years and there have been no substantive changes to these rights since that time. According to CA riparian rights law, these rights are “correlative”, meaning that if there is insufficient water for all riparians, controls kick in to divy up the remaining supply.
What has changed is the quantities available. When there was more than needed, there was nothing to fight over. Now when water is in shorter and shorter supply, the scales are polished, resolution increased and tempers inflamed.
One of the scales being polished and brought to bear is the the issue of ‘hydraulically connected’ wells. While ‘overlying rights’ to aquifer based ground water has historically been near absolute (finally corralled in by 2014s SGMA), these rights don’t extend to wells which are essentially underground portions of a surface waterway. All one must do is demonstrate (though certified geologic study) that your well is not connected such and you’re no longer subject to the correlative nature of riparian rights. Unfortunately, in the mountain regions of the Triangle, reaching down to what are considered independent aquifers is mostly impractical and as many are finding out, their ‘riparian’ wells that they have used for years (without oversight) are now under scrutiny of long existing correlative rights.
Just because no one complained for 100 years about the water you took for which you had no entitlement, does not mean that your rights are now being “attacked” when people begin choking off your unentitled usage.
I appreciate your input on the subject although I’m not sure how “attacked” and “choking off” are any different. Changing the rules and reinterpreting the rules, in the end, amount to the same thing.
If they are amping up enforcement, and if they are tightening the guidelines…well…it’s like if the speed limit is 55 and they start giving out $900 tickets for going 55 1/2mph, the rules have essentially changed, even if the laws haven’t.
//”I’m not sure how “attacked” and “choking off” are any different.”//
It’s not – it the “rights” and “unentitled usage” that is the difference.
Your claim was the ‘rights are being attacked’. That is simply not true. No one ever had the right to uncorrelated riparian rights – they have simply been using them without rights.
//”it’s like if the speed limit is 55 and they start giving out $900 tickets for going 55 1/2mph, the rules have essentially changed, even if the laws haven’t.”//
It’s not even a rule change. The need for water has grown and the quantities available reduced. To use your analogy, it snowed and the roads are slick so they are now writing tickets to reflect the change of conditions.
The land has never been yours either.
If someone considers “ownership” to mean ‘possession with impunity’, you are correct.
CALL THE COPS ON YOUR NEIGHBORS NOW !!
Yeah, yeah and call their moms and tell on ’em, too!!
When did the county cite & fine the property owner who owned, logged, subdivided and sold 10 acre parcels in the destroyed part of Alderpoint known as Murder Mountain AKA Rancho Sequoia.
Oh yeah, they didn’t. Cause that was then & this is now.
it was a permitted development related to a proposed dam that would make a massive reservoir. it would have been lake front and lake view property.
Everyone with dirt rds should have this book, “Handbook for Ranch and Forest RDS” it will save you money and maintenance costs in the long run if you follow the rd building and maintenance guidlines in this book. You will have a stable rd that produces way less sediment, is cheaper and easier to maintain, wont blow out etc. There’s a ton of grant funding for roads at the moment, there are no excuses for not building, fixing and maintaining rds right
Outlaw growers will never comply…
This is the Bible, the principles are easy, you save tons money and prevent tons of sediment going into the creek. You have a stable rd, and way cheaper maintenance costs.
http://www.pacificwatershed.com/roadshandbook
But then log onto the WB! Its pretty tedious to go through the details of frustrations that pop up when attempting simple mandated reporting. Which is fine. That’s business. It’s just that one little mistake on their end and boom! Outsized ridiculous fine. That’s their focus, never actually quantifying rural water use.
This place (Humboldt county )was just a freshly clearcut “pile of shit “when my parents showed up in the 70s. Back then you could buy some cheap land that had been recently clearcut ,the place was completely destroyed by logging industry .Some folks actually did lifetimes of rehabilitation of this unregulated logging destruction -many with no permits ( the actual horror).
Lol, you must not have grown up in Humboldt because it was never a “clearcut pile of shit”.
It sure was when I got here 1972 and worked in the mill and veneer plant….299 was clear cut all the way from blue lake to lord ellis…what we see there today was trees planted in the 70’s.
Exactly why the timber industry crashed is because of greed that turned humboldt county into a massive clearcut. It looks a lot different now 50 years later.
You can download a pdf of “Handbook for Ranch and Forest Rds” put out by Pacific Watershed Associates
https://file.dnr.wa.gov/publications/fp_sflo_rrmap_ranchroads.pdf
Too many in positions of authority or collective influence who have owned no land, built zero business, and have produced nothing tangible in their entire lives. Service sector collectivists who do not save and blow their money at the pub arcade, who are well into adulthood, have a deeply perverted perspective that is dangerous to us all; it is easily hijacked by those in power. We are shoehorned ever further into the new architecture of the Great Reset cult: you will own nothing.
It’s easy to remain optimistic if you have no savings and a giant social safety net provided to you by those who risk and work hard. The wholesale fleecing of the middle class doesnt affect you. If you are a saver and a business owner, you have been absolutely over-a-barrel pants down robbed.
Im not a fan of legal pot. I still wish the best for those of you who went out on a limb to secure a future in the community you are truly a part of( not including those buying land next door to blow up a scene, although it looks like that problem took care of itself). But, anti-pot landowners and producers of real wealth need to take heed; this is yet another trojan horse. Its time to get behind our community members, who you may disagree with on weed/politics, and protect our futures and freedoms from those who are actively subverting our natural born rights and freedoms. This place is going to hell, fast. I never thought id say this, but Im with the legacy dopers here, 100%
Well-said!
Just imagine how many roads would have been fixed in 2017-2018 if WQ and CDFW were not so lost in the minutia of little details. Their adversarial, hand wringing approach is on them, not growers. They totally lost the plot, the market crashed, and thousands of miles of ranch roads built in the 1960s are infeasible to fix now. Its almost as if permit fees and fines was the real goal.
Absolutely it was just about the fees and fines. Also funding for the increased staffing. CDFW told me the cannabis LSAAs alone will keep several people busy for many years.
Grow veggie’s, they are worth more!
About time they crack down on growers and the enviros from Humboldt should support this. I’ve seen numerous illegal clear-cuts, illegally dammed creeks, garbage dumped all over, heared of diesel spills, seen chemical containers dumped down embankments… Growers care only about themselves and money.
Could you try to generalize more? Lol you act like logging didn’t do all of that and more.
When I go to places and see a permitted farm put in a airplane landing strip illegally moving thousands of yards of dirt, a permitted farm filling a stream with sediment from their permitted grading runoff, or a permitted farm installing greenhouses less than the required 150 feet from the River I would think Water Quality would be doing their job and going after those people. These violators are some of our biggest players in the pot market that have influence over the Water Quality and CDFW. Nothing is done and and these farms continue to trash our waterways while Water Quality turns their head they go after the little people like the two old ladies living on a pension that had 25 plants in their vegetable garden.
Shame on you Water Quality!
Weed industry in the north coast is drying up like the over pumped creeks. Let the Waterboard finish them off. No need to give a bunch of handouts to something society no longer wants