If this disparity proves nothing else, the Lake County Farm Bureau newsletter notes, it is a clear indication of how far the county has to go to get up to speed in putting agriculture on equal footing with other components of its General Plan.

The task of accomplishing that objective is in the hands of an Agricultural Element Advisory Committee recommended by Farm Bureau and appointed by the Lake County Board of Supervisors in April 2006. The committee has met once a month since then.

Its members are from a wide spectrum and include Bobby Gayaldo, directors Bob Dutcher, Paul Lauenroth and Tim Strong and advisory member Margaret Eutenier.

Other members are James Austin, Ken Barr, Michael Barrett, Ronald Bartolucci, Greg Hanson, Pamela Knispel, Philip Murphy and Toni Scully. Alternates are Victoria Brandon, Tommy Gilliam, John Ham, Katherine Harris and Diane Henderson.

In fairness, more than 25 years have passed since this region's General Plan was last updated.

And it's anybody's guess as to what priorities drove the lesser-populated Lake County of early 1980.

"I can't speak for what the situation was in 1981, but I'm sure we'll have a considerable amount of (new) information in this update," said Community Development Director Rick Coel.

The county's agricultural community's chief concern for the ag element in the new General Plan and the future of the county's 28,166 agricultural acres is the minimum acre parcel size for agricultural parcel size.

The Farm Bureau supports a 40-acre minimum and has publicly lobbied for that size since 2004 when it issued a policy document, including its position on acreage among a dozen recommendations. The document grew out of a facilitated special meeting on land use on March 13, 2004, involving the Farm Bureau and subject experts.

The Farm Bureau supports an expedited merger process that would halt the use of Certificates of Compliance to divide agriculturally zoned lands to non-conforming smaller than the 40-acre minimum.

The 40-acre minimum, however, is far from being officially accepted. Possibly as much as a year, even though the bulk of the General Plan is expected to be introduced in May or June and adopted in July, according to Coel.

Optional possibilities for a minimum parcel size are five, 10 and 20 acres. The decision rests with the Ag Element Committee, which Coel said he expects will take from six to 12 months to be delivered.

Coel, who provides county staff representation to the committee, hazards a guess that its eventual recommendation for minimum acreage will be from 20 to 40 acres, but he adds, "It's hard to say. I'm still trying to read the committee and what their ultimate recommendations will be."

The Farm Bureau opposes the 20-acre minimum option, which it says would do little to protect agricultural lands already split and would affect about 25 percent of the parcels already zoned ag.

"It seems the majority wants to keep it at 40 (acres), but diversify the allowed acreage land use to include other soils,” said Coel.

The most significant change of designation would be the county's 9,000 acres in vineyards, currently zoned rural because, as Coel notes "they are not on high class ag soil" and, as a matter of course, don't need to be.

"They're not on Class 1 ag soil. They tend to be class 5 or 6, but they're still ag," he said.

"It's appropriate obviously to expand the definition of agriculture,” Coel added. “We need to include those sites which right now are zoned rural land instead of agricultural."

Among other concerns that the Farm Bureau has weighed in on and which the committee will be deciding upon is defining what fits the parameters of agritourism, projected to be of growing importance in the next decade; buffers that protect agricultural operations; the strengthening of the county's "Right to Farm Ordinance"; and compliance with the protective Williamson Act in future development.

E-mail John Lindblom at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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This week, Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) introduced SB 319, a bill she said is important because of the labor shortage during the county's pear harvest.

“Agricultural plants in Lake County have depended on high school seniors to complete their packing schedules on time,” Wiggins said. “At the same time, job opportunities for the local youth can be scarce, and the summer break offers them a chance to earn extra money by working in the packing plants. This exemption to the law helps them earn money while also contributing to the local economy.”

Under existing law, minors 16-17 years of age are normally prohibited from working more than eight hours per day and 48 hours per week, Wiggins reported.

Wiggins' bill would authorize the California labor commissioner to grant an exemption from this prohibition to allow Lake County youth to work up to 10 hours per day in agricultural packing plants during non-school periods during the peak harvest season.

The exemption, which is currently set to expire Jan. 1, 2008, also authorizes the labor commissioner to permit the packing plants to employ minor students up to 60 hours per week upon prior written approval by the Lake County Office of Education.

Toni Scully of Scully Packing Co. said the bill is very important to the local pear industry. especially in light of recent labor shortages. She's been a proponent of the labor law exemption, which first began in 1996, she said.

“We're very pleased that Sen. Wiggins has sponsored this legislation,” said Scully.

She reported that Wiggins visited the county last summer to see the teens at work in the pear sheds.

That summer, Scully said, 47 local teens worked at Scully Packing during the harvest.

Heidi Abbott of the Lake County Office of Education's Student Programs and Services office, tracks summer vacation work permits. Abbott said there were 164 work permits issued countywide last summer, and just under half of those worked in the pear sheds.

Scully said that high school students working in the sheds in 2006 earned about $60,000.

Local teens have been working in the pear sheds for four or five generations, Scully explained. In the 1950s, there was a law that allowed teens to work longer hours in the Lake County pear sheds during the summer.

Then, in 1996, the child labor law was rewritten, she noted, which “threw our little Lake County law out.”

Members of the local pear industry called on Mike Thompson at the time, she said, and that effort gave birth to a labor bill that once again allowed teens to work longer hours under an exemption to child labor law.

The bill sunsets every three years, said Scully, although it originally sunseted every two years.

This is the fifth time since 1996 that the exemption has gone back for renewal, she said.

“It's been a real win-win for the pear business and the community,” said Scully, who noted that the bill allows teens to receive overtime for their longer work hours.

Local teens often have a hard time finding summer employment, said Scully, and the bill helps offer them an option.

Scully has experienced firsthand the difficulties with finding labor for the local pear harvest.

During the 2006 harvest, local pear sheds struggled to find enough labor. Scully has estimated that only 400 of the 900 skilled workers needed in the orchards came to the county. The pear sheds needed another 600 workers for processing, spots that Scully and the other local pear shed still in operation, Adobe Creek Packing, struggled to fill.

County Agriculture Commissioner Steve Hajik has stated that 25 percent of the county's 2006 pear crop was lost due to lack of labor.

In January, Scully traveled to Washington, D.C., where Sen. Dianne Feinstein had invited her to speak at the formal introduction of the AgJOBS bill.

“Now, with the labor shortage, it's very important for us to keep these student helpers,” Scully said.

Each time the teen labor bill is extended, Scully reported that more counties wanted to be included in it, although the Legislature's Labor Committee has refused to expand the bill.

“That why Lake County is the only county that has this privilege,” Scully said.

She said it's also a way for local students to make money for college.

The bottom line, Scully added, is that the money stays in the community.

“It has been a very positive program,” she said. “We're very proud of it.”

The law, which would extend the exemption until Jan. 1, 2012, also would require the labor commissioner to inspect working conditions at the plants which hire minors and report back to the Legislature.

Wiggins' bill has the support of the Lake County Sheriff Department, Lakeport Unified School District, the Board of Supervisors and the County Probation Department.

Visit her Web site at www.dist02.casen.govoffice.com.

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Lake Mendocino, pictured in December, with a snag exposed by the low water level in the foreground. Photo by Elizabeth Larson.

LAKE COUNTY – Water that originates in Lake Pillsbury and makes its way to Lake Mendocino is at the heart of a disagreement between Mendocino County farmers, Pacific Gas & Electric and a federal agency.

At the core of the issue, which daily appears to become more complex, is water released through Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s Potter Valley hydroelectric project.

This past fall, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which receives daily monitoring reports from PG&E on the project, noticed that in the spring too much water was being diverted through the project, according to Dick Butler, NMFS's area office supervisor.

By releasing too much water, Butler said PG&E was in violation of its license with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to operate the project.

Butler said NMFS called the situation to PG&E's attention; PG&E then set out to find what the impacts to the diversion would be if they complied with the license terms and conditions.

PG&E used 21 years of hydrological data and arrived at a 33-percent overall reduction of water through the project on an annual basis, said Butler.

“That surprised us,” said Butler.

He explained that during the environmental impact report statement process on PG&E's license update with FERC, “everyone's target was to reduce the diversion by 15 percent on an annual average basis,” half of what is currently proposed.

NMFS, said Butler, then looked at PG&E's analysis methods and came up with a 28-percent reduction.

David Eisenhauer, PG&E's spokesman, said the company believes a 33-percent reduction will keep the company in compliance with its FERC license.

For Potter Valley farmers, frost protection this spring is a critical issue, and they're concerned that the reduction will mean no water to protect their crops.

Eisenhauer said that PG&E and the Potter Valley Irrigation District (PVID) discussed the frost protection issue, and that PVID suggested it fell under a “rare and brief emergency power demand.”

PG&E asked NMFS to consider allowing more water for frost protection under the agency's “reasonable and prudent alternative” (RPA) rule. Eisenhauer said NMFS said no.

PG&E's request that NMFS consider frost protection an emergency was the first time the agency heard about the issue, said Butler.

He explained that the agency budgets water to protect coho and Chinook salmon, which are listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), as well as steelhead, in the Eel and Russian rivers.

If NMFS allowed more water to farmers for frost protection, said Butler, the agency itself would be in violation of the Environmental Species Act.

NMFS met with local farmers, said Butler, who told him they have between three and five days of water in reserve for frost protection. Last year, the farmers indicated they needed water for only one day of frost protection, he added.

Allowing extra water would exceed the level of impacts that NMFS has analyzed, said Butler, which could result in a reinitiation of discussions with FERC about the ESA in relation to PG&E's Potter Valley Project license.

The recent license amendment took 20 years to complete, said Butler, and PG&E said it doesn't want that to happen. Meanwhile, he said, the Friends of the Eel River have petitioned FERC to reinitiate the process.

Eisenhauer said PG&E plans to come up with an analysis tool to assess real-time flow data once they've looked at the rainy season. That, he said, will give the company better numbers on which to base a discussion of the RPA.

Eisenhauer said PG&E has asked NMFS and FERC to take a closer look at the frost protection issue, which they consider critical to farmers. So far, he said, they haven't received a response from the federal agencies.

The issues with the water flows don't just affect farmers in Potter Valley. Reduced flows will mean less water in Lake Mendocino, which is used not just for recreation but to provide water for the city of Ukiah and for other cities downstream in Sonoma County.

Butler said NMFS plans to partner with the Sonoma County Water Agency to develop a good tool for estimating an average annual reduction into the Russian River. He said they'll use 96 years of US Geological Survey data for that study, rather than the 21 years of data PG&E used, which he said was one of the flaws in PG&E's modeling method.

Neither is it known what farmers and other waters users could expect in dry or critically dry years, said Pauli.

There's also an issue, said Pauli, with just how much water Lake Pillsbury is able to hold.

She reported that PG&E recently completed a study that found the lake holds 74,900 acre feet, rather than 82,000. NMFS had developed a storage target curve that helped determine when water would be released from Pillsbury according to lake levels.

The finding that the lake holds less water than the original calculations called for, said Pauli, could be another factor that will mean less water for farmers.

She said she's hoping a recalculation of the lake's storage will be a simple issue. “Although it doesn't seem like anything here is simple.”

Eisenhauer said that the storage capacity issue arises from soil buildup in Lake Pillsbury, which means the lake will be below the necessary storage curve more often. “It definitely does have an impact,” Eisenhauer said.

He added that PG&E has calculated that factor into its 33-percent flow reduction.

Meanwhile, area farmers have decided to continue working with PG&E to find both short-term and long-term solutions, said Pauli.

No one has ever done a study of the impacts on flow reductions, she said, and now is the chance to do so.

Farmers and downstream water users were assured that in normal years there would be no impact on their water supply, said Pauli.

The goal is to find a long-term solution that will protect the water supply, she added.

“A long-term solution will take a while, but we'll come to that, I hope,” said Pauli.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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LAKE COUNTY – While farmers around California are struggling with damaged crops due to extremely cold winter weather, Lake County's crops appear to have escaped any real harm.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – A study unveiled Wednesday on Capitol Hill finds that the United States' wine, grape and grape products industries contribute more than $162 billion annually to the American economy.

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Toni Scully, sixth from the left, at Wednesday's press conference (courtesy photo).

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