Consensus Reached on San Luis Reservoir Storage Increase

The Bureau of Reclamation and the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority have announced a negotiated consensus has been met for the B.F. Sisk Dam Raise and Reservoir Expansion Project.  The joint project creates an additional 130,000 acre-feet of storage space in San Luis Reservoir, the nation’s largest off-stream reservoir, producing additional water supply for two million people, over one million acres of farmland and 135,000 acres of Pacific Flyway wetlands and critical wildlife habitat. Reclamation signed the Record of Decision for the project on Oct. 20, 2023, the first approval of a major water storage project in California since 2011.  Significant provisions of the agreement include cost sharing and space management for the federally-funded and authority-funded shares of the expanded reservoir.  A $25 million investment to the project under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was announced in October 2022 and an additional $10 million in July 2023.  An additional $60 million was authorized for project construction from the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, for a total of $95 million in federal contributions to date in construction costs.  Previously, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided over $100 million to the B.F. Sisk Dam for a separate but connected project that will increase the dam crest by 10 feet to improve seismic fortification. Leveraging this existing project, Reclamation and project partners entered now-adjudicated negotiation sessions to add an additional 10 feet to the dam to allow for expansion of the reservoir’s storage capacity. The expanded space will store water that can be delivered to south-of-Delta water contractors and wildlife refuges. This water would meet existing contractual obligations and not serve any new demands.

“It’s an honor to celebrate this exciting milestone today with our partners,” said Bureau of Reclamation Regional Director Karl Stock. “The addition of new water storage capacity south-of-Delta in San Luis Reservoir is a crucial part of our strategy for enhancing water reliability for California communities, agriculture, and wildlife.”

“San Luis Reservoir has served as the hub of California’s water system south of the Sacramento San Joaquin Bay-Delta since its completion in 1967,” said San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority Board Chair Cannon Michael. “The ability to capture more water in the years it is available, particularly given California’s dynamic hydrology, is a critical component of a more secure future for the communities, farms and wildlife dependent on the Authority’s member agencies for their water supply.”

"This is a significant milestone for this project, and we are grateful to Reclamation and the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority for the continued partnership and effort it has taken to get here," said Valley Water Chief Executive Officer Rick Callender. "Investing in water infrastructure, including surface storage, is needed now more than ever to become more drought resilient."

CDPR Proposes Further Restrictions on the Use of 1,3-D

The California Department Pesticide Regulation (DPR) has proposed new regulations, developed jointly and mutually with the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), to protect occupational bystanders in the general vicinity of a treated field to reduce the risk of 1,3-D exposure.   The proposed regulations require the use of totally impermeable film (TIF) tarps or alternate measures during application that provide a comparable degree of protection, such as a combination of alternative application methods and buffer zones, to achieve OEHHA’s recommended target air concentration level.  Based on OEHHA’s assessment, the proposed regulations establish a target air concentration of 0.21 parts per billion (ppb). The proposed regulations also require DPR to regularly evaluate the effectiveness of the regulations and, if necessary, to develop with OEHHA and local county agricultural commissioners, interim mitigation measures at a township level (6 x 6 miles areas) to address local conditions.  The proposed regulations build on recently adopted 1,3-D regulations that went into effect Jan. 1, 2024.  The Association is currently reviewing the proposed regulation and will be developing comments.

WAPA Hosts Assemblyman Juan Carrillo

This week, the Western Agricultural Processors Association hosted Assemblyman Juan Carrillo (39^th Assembly District) at Setton Farms Pistachio in Terra Bella. The site visit was part of a larger tour that included visits to Johnston Farms, a citrus packing house in Edison, and California Dairies, Inc., a milk processing operation in Visalia. While visiting the pistachio processing operation Plant and Grower Relations Manager Jeffrey Gibbons explained the pistachio processing operation while also discussing challenges with air quality, water quality, and other regulatory issues. Participating in the site visit was Association President/CEO Roger Isom, Assistant Vice President Priscilla Rodriguez, and Director of Technical Services Christopher McGlothlin. Partnering organizations included the California Citrus Mutual and California Dairies, Inc. 

FDA Human Foods Program Update: FY 2025 Priority Deliverables

This week, the FDA’s Human Foods Program (HFP) released its 2025 Priority Deliverables, which highlights activities the HFP plans to focus on during its first year following a reorganization of the program’s design and responsibilities that went into effect on October 1, 2024. To meet its public health mission and vision the HFP centralized its risk management activities into three main areas:  

• Microbiological Food Safety: Advancing strategies to prevent pathogen-related foodborne illness in close collaboration with other regulatory agencies, states, industry, and other stakeholders.  This will include finalization of an implementation plan for pre-harvest agricultural water, and issuance of the final guidance on the Produce Safety Rule (PSR). 
• Food Chemical Safety: Ensuring that exposure to chemicals, including both additives and contaminants, that occur in foods is safe, advancing dietary supplement safety, and supporting and effectively regulating food ingredient innovation.
• Nutrition: Elevating and empowering action on nutrition science, policy, and initiatives to help reduce the burden of diet-related chronic diseases, improve health equity, and ensure the nutritional adequacy and safety of infant formula.  

For each risk management area, the priority deliverables are intended to strengthen regulatory oversight and promote priority policy initiatives, advance the science needed to inform the agency’s decision-making, and better leverage partnerships and engagement to help achieve the HFP’s public health mission.  While the HFP was officially established on October 1, 2024, work continues to fully operationalize the program, particularly in the areas of enhanced risk modeling, laboratory integration, regulatory workforce development, and performance management.  The design of the HFP streamlines operations and unifies all FDA food functions, personnel, and resources that are programmatic in nature under the leadership of the Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods.  The reorganization which created the Human Foods Program took effect on October 1, 2024, and is the single largest reorganization in the FDA’s modern history.