Farm bill may have funds for irrigation Salmon, blueberry interests would benefit

WASHINGTON – The farm bill approved this week in the U.S. Senate could provide millions of dollars to help blueberry and cranberry farmers stop drawing water from Down East salmon rivers, according to a proponent of the federal legislation.

Scott Faber, an attorney with Environmental Defense, a national nonprofit advocacy group base in New York, said the Senate version of the farm bill provides $375 million to seven states to conserve water for fish that are on the endangered species list.

The wild salmon in eight Maine rivers – including five in Washington County – are on the endangered species list, and the state could receive more than $10 million over five years, Faber said.

The other states are California, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada and New Hampshire.

Details of the bill will be hammered out between the House and Senate over the next few weeks.

If the $375 million for water conservation makes it into the U.S. Department of Agriculture appropriation, the money will come to each state in something akin to a block grant, Faber said. The governors will designate a state agency to oversee the program, he said.

Faber said Congress sees that as the best way to distribute the funds because there are big differences in agriculture and water laws among the seven states.

The money can be used as a cost-sharing program for efficient irrigation systems, provided most of the conserved water is used to provide adequate stream flows for fish; to pay farmers for switching to crops that don’t use as much water; or to purchase or lease water rights from farmers.

Maine does not have water-leasing laws, but growers who irrigate from rivers where wild salmon are an endangered species do have problems.

Blueberry growers who draw irrigation water from the five Washington County salmon rivers in particular say the costs of conserving water for salmon are beyond their means. The farm bill funds may be used to help them, Faber said.

In 2000, the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine submitted an ultimately unsuccessful bill to the Maine Legislature asking for $8.3 million to help growers develop alternative water sources.

The growers said they needed the money to develop high-yield wells and build impoundments. The impoundments would allow growers to take water from the rivers when flows are high and store it for use in the summer growing season.

The Legislature did not approve the request, but Maine’s congressional delegation has been successful in obtaining federal funds for the growers, including $500,000 that will be distributed over the next three years to assist blueberry and cranberry irrigators to develop alternative water sources.

The program is a 50-50 cost share, and the first large grants were awarded last month to two Washington County blueberry companies.

Jasper Wyman and Son of Milbridge and Northeastern Blueberry Co., a Columbia Falls company owned by the Passamaquoddy Indian tribe, will receive up to $50,000 each to develop high-yield production wells as alternatives to drawing from streams or brooks that feed the Narraguagus and Pleasant rivers.

Nate Pennell, director of the Washington County Soil and Water Conservation District, said another 20 blueberry growers and one cranberry grower have been cleared for 50-50 cost-share grants of up to $2,500 to develop irrigation water management plans. The plans require growers to determine their total irrigation needs and how those needs can be met. Growers must have whole farm irrigation water management plans to apply for cost-share funds to develop alternative water sources.

Those growers, most of whom are in the watersheds of the Machias and Pleasant rivers, irrigate from 4 to 80 acres.