Santa Barbara Channelkeeper

Keeping Watch for Clean Water

Polluted Runoff

Holding Agricultural Polluters Accountable

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The State Water Quality Control Board recently accepted our coalition’s request to review the rules regulating pollution from irrigated agriculture.

Fertile soils, abundant sunshine, and cool, coastal influence make Santa Barbara County a prosperous agricultural region with 720,000 acres of farmland. While climate and soil characteristics in Santa Barbara County provide for optimal crop yields, pollution that results from agricultural runoff has detrimental impacts on the environment and the health of our community.

In California, irrigated agriculture is the number one source of pollution to rivers, streams, and groundwater supplies. Despite this fact, discharges from irrigated agriculture are not regulated by the Federal Clean Water Act. Agricultural pollution in Santa Barbara County is regulated by the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board through a program previously known as the Ag Waiver. In April 2021, the Regional Board reviewed and approved Ag Order 4.0, the latest iteration of the regional program that is supposed to protect our waterways from fertilizer and pesticide pollution.

California Coastkeeper Alliance (CCKA), Santa Barbara Channelkeeper, Monterey Coastkeeper, and other allies have worked tirelessly for many years advocating for common-sense rules that would require the agricultural industry to protect both surface water and groundwater.

While the new Ag Order 4.0 rules are lacking in many ways, they also represent important advancements. For example, for the first time in history, fertilizer application limits were set in an effort to prevent overapplications of nitrogen. This is an important step toward addressing nitrate pollution problems.

Despite improvements, Ag Order 4.0 is significantly flawed. The Regional Water Board caved to political pressure from the industry to avoid collecting minimal site-specific water quality data so pollution can be traced to its source. Fertilizer application limits, while critically important, are set so high that only the most egregious applications are limited, and many water supplies will continue to degrade for decades to come. Additional loopholes and exemptions abound within the Order.

California Coastkeeper Alliance, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper, and Monterey Coastkeeper are working to ensure agricultural practices on the Central and South Coasts are protective and lead to fishable, swimmable, and drinkable water in our creeks, rivers, and coastal areas. 

First, we are working with other stakeholders and the Regional Board to make sure the existing rules of Ag Order 4.0 are implemented in a timely, fair, and effective manner.

Second, we successfully petitioned the State Water Quality Board to review Ag Order 4.0 and are demanding that it be improved. Specifically, we are advocating that the State Water Board:

  1. Require water quality monitoring that allows the Regional Board to determine which farms are polluting so they can be held accountable for degrading our waterways.
  2. Include timelines attached to enforceable, quantifiable milestones to ensure that farms make progress over a reasonable period of time and eventually meet water quality standards.
  3. Establish and maintain healthy riparian zones to protect water quality and natural ecosystems.

Ultimately, the duty of the Water Boards is to protect and restore water quality for today and generations to come, not to protect corporate agriculture. We will defend the modest improvements proposed by the Central Coast Regional Board and continue to fight for stronger rules that will fully protect our shared water resources.

For more detail, see CCKA’s Principles to Protect Californians and Our Waterways from Unsustainable Ag, available here.

Tracing the Path of Trash

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Text by Arianna McDonald


On a morning walk last week, I picked up a half-buried candy wrapper on the beach. The plastic film and blue lettering seemed so out of place against the sand. I wondered: how had it ended up here? 

I imagined that someone was hungry and bought a convenience store snack. They may have put the wrapper in their pocket, intending to throw it away later. Perhaps it fell out before they could. Blown by the wind, it found its way into a gutter or storm drain, and rainwater carried it through the network of storm pipes into streams. Eventually, the wrapper ended up in the ocean.

Santa Barbara has an elaborate network of storm drains that carries water away from urban areas (page 8), but the stormwater it conveys is not filtered for debris or treated before it enters the ocean. Runoff from irrigation, residential car washing, and sidewalk and parking lot washing can pick up pollutants and carry them through storm drains and waterways to the ocean. 

In 2011 the City of Santa Barbara installed screens in front of storm drains in order to catch trash and other debris from finding their way into the water system. However, these screens retract during times of rainfall to prevent flooding, allowing debris that has collected to enter the drains.

Each year, 5 to 14 million tons of debris flows into the ocean from coastal areas. Not only can it be toxic to aquatic wildlife and humans, this pollution degrades the water quality and also destroys the beauty of our oceans and beaches that we swim and play in. 

Plastic doesn’t biodegrade in the ocean like natural materials do. Once in the ocean, UV exposure, weather, and heat cause the plastic debris to break down into smaller and smaller pieces, known as microplastics. These microplastics cannot be easily removed because they become so small. Fish and other marine life may ingest the plastic pieces, blocking their digestive tracts and changing their eating habits, which can influence their growth and reproduction.  

Toxins and pollutants can bind to the surfaces of microplastics. When these tiny pieces are ingested, they can spread toxic chemicals throughout the food chain. Researchers have also found that smaller particles, or nanoplastics, can permeate tissues and organs, and affect a variety of species when small creatures are consumed by bigger fish and mammals, including people.

A recent study revealed that the rate of plastic consumed by fish has doubled within the last decade and is increasing by more than 2% each year. Two-thirds of the species that had ingested plastic were species that are commercially fished, indicating that human consumption will likely increase in parallel. 

These microplastics can be found all over the ocean, including in the deep sea, and frozen in Arctic sea ice. It’s estimated that 269 thousand tons of plastic are floating in the ocean, with more being added every day. 

Statistics such as these underscore the importance of responsible litter disposal. They serve as a reminder that each of us can take steps to help keep plastic waste out of storm drains and prevent it from entering our oceans. We can choose to be part of the solution–one candy wrapper at a time.

How you can help:
  • Refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle. Choose reusable items and use fewer disposable ones (e.g., bring your own reusable bags).
  • Make sure any waste you produce (plastics, technology, etc) is disposed of properly, whether that be sending them to landfill, recycling, or e-waste drop-off sites. Being diligent about discarding your garbage properly is key to keeping it out of our oceans.
  • Stop the flow of trash to the sea by helping keep streets, sidewalks, parking lots, and storm drains free of garbage. Learn more about how the path trash takes to the ocean and download our Watershed Wise poster here.
  • Get involved! Join Channelkeeper’s Watershed Brigade! Conduct clean-ups in your neighborhood, at a creek, beach, or anywhere and invite others to help keep the beaches and oceans clean.
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