Water Regulations for Marijuana Farmers

Cannabis cultivators on farms over 2,000 square feet in the north coast region will now have to register with local board to control erosion and runoff issues

The new regulations will force pot growers to be responsible for any contamination of water or land degradation.

But, despite the 5-1 vote, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board is unlikely to face a smooth roll-out of the new oversight and regulation.

“This is going to be good in the long run, but getting all of us growers, especially the small ones like me, is really going to be hard to do immediately,” Robert Anderson, a small pot farmer near Santa Rosa who barely makes the cutoff for the new regulations of a 2,000-square-foot farm, said on Thursday evening.

He was quick to insist however that the downsides of implementation should not outweigh the need to ensure the environment is protected. “We wouldn’t be good pot growers if we didn’t want to keep the land in good shape.”

The new rules will require pot growers with more than 2,000 square feet of land used for marijuana cultivation to register with the agency, or a third-party non-governmental agency or organization that has been approved by the regulatory body.

A number of issues including erosion control, water and wetlands buffers, irrigation runoff, chemical contamination and waste will be regulated under the new rules.

Each farm will then enroll in an annual program based on three regulatory tiers determined by the farm’s characteristics and the water resources it uses.

Source: The Guardian

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