Violation notices for failure to file a nitrogen management plan summary report have been issued to 67 farmers in the East San Joaquin Water Quality Coalition. The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board said that waste discharge requirements necessitate that each coalition member prepare and implement a farm-specific Nitrogen Management Plan (NMP). On the NMP, coalition members estimate projected nitrogen needs and application rates for the upcoming crop year. Actual nitrogen applications are recorded in the NMP at the end of the season.
“The Nitrogen Management Plan Summary Reports are critical to the Board’s efforts to address nitrate contamination in groundwater,” said Andrew Altevogt, assistant executive officer for the Central Valley Water Board. “If the NMPs and Summary Reports are ineffective because of poor coalition member reporting, the Board may have to resort to a more expensive and intrusive option: issuing individual permits to growers and requiring farm-specific downgradient groundwater monitoring to demonstrate compliance with water quality objectives,” he added.
Almond Board of California (ABC) has developed a Nitrogen Calculator, which provides almond-specific data and also has the ability to provide the paperwork for the NMP.
Learn more about the Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program (ILRP), including the template for the Nitrogen Management Plan Summary Report.
