There’s a killer among us on the North Coast. It started out benignly but has become a great cancer that will wipe out many farm, ranch and timberland families in the next decade unless we do something about it. This disease is excessive regulation.
As an interested property owner, I recently spent another morning and early afternoon in the California North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWQCB) meeting room.
In this particular case, the NCRWQCB passed another regulation that makes it more costly, burdensome and complicated for all property owners to access the timber resources on their properties.
At the NCRWQCB, there are three categories: agencies, the public and Òdischargers.Ó My family has never cut timber in the 30+ years we have held our property. We have grown a lot of trees. We have always gone out of our way to be as conservation-minded as possible. Now, however, we are concerned that heavy undergrowth on our property is a fire danger and working against good wildlife habitat management. We would also like to put a little money in the bank to help pay taxes and other carrying costs associated with our property. I must admit, it rubs me the wrong way that when I speak from a landowner’s point of view at a NCRWQCB meeting I am labeled as a Òdischarger.Ó I feel that I am labeled a public enemy by just showing up.
The ÒpollutantÓ that the NCWQCB focuses on with farmers, ranchers and timberland owners is sediment (also known as dirt). When timber is inexpertly harvested, rains can create excessive run-off which, in turn, creates sediment that muddies the water and is a threat to fish. Water quality issues aside, it is obviously in the best interest of most agricultural landowners to keep as much topsoil on their properties as possible.
Aware that the crescendo of new demands will strangle many long-term stewards of the land, many agencies are suggesting that landowners apply for grant money to help them comply with new requirements. This is a recipe for disaster. Not only does it render private property unproductive, but it also trains the private sector to take handouts to survive. In the long-term, you cannot take productive farms or ranches that were employing people and paying taxes, load them up with regulations until they can no longer afford to be in business and then subsidize them at public expense.
To show the seriousness of the situation, even before this latest additional layer of regulations, let’s take a look at a few vital signs of our North Coast economy. Harwood Corporation, a Mendocino County lumber mill located in Branscomb and surrounded by a sea of timber, is importing logs from Washington and Canada! Soper-Wheeler Corporation, a longtime local timberland owner, has moved part of its operations to New Zealand to grow redwood trees. Think about how broken this is! The North Coast has some of the best conditions for timber growth in the world. These companies haven’t gone to Washington, Canada and New Zealand because we don’t have resources available; they have fled because of excessive regulations! Where there used to be jobs and a thriving community, now we have no jobs and a weaker economy. Where we used to produce efficient renewable resources, now we waste fossil fuel to bring the resources in!
Here’s another example of the kind of situation a rural landowner could face. Let’s say a farmer or rancher decides it would be prudent to put a pond on his property because he wants to help the environment by not using the stream. The pond will be used to irrigate crops, water livestock, provide fire protection and recreation for the family. I have been told that a pond like this could require the permission of the following agencies: Fish and Game, Army Corps of Engineers, National Marine Fisheries Service, NCWQCB, State Water Rights, County Building and Grading Department, County Agricultural Commissioner and California Geological Survey. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service may also have to be consulted. In this example a well-intentioned landowner could be subject to fees, forms and delays from this matrix of competing agencies. Add to this that each agency may have their own agenda or be in an inter-agency power struggle to gain turf, and it is pretty easy to see that we most likely have a deal breaker for the family that had nothing but good intentions.
In my estate planning and financial practice, I have helped many families keep their ranches, farms and businesses for the next generation. Many of these families have amazing stories to tell of how they survived tough economic times, often by changing crops when times were hard. If those families had been faced with today’s regulatory costs and delays, it is doubtful that they would have made it. People don’t change crops when times are good; they change crops when they can’t make it any more. Could you imagine paying for a $50,000-$100,000 Environmental Impact Report, and at least one season’s delay, when you just went bust? How are farm and ranch families going to deal with the costs and delays of all the excessive regulations in the future? They’re not. They’re just going to sell out.
These families are a big part of what has made our North Coast great and have helped protect what keeps us here. It is sad to see families like these so loaded up with regulations that few will be able to survive.
What can we do? We should be as mindful of the unintended consequences of regulation as we are of the environmental protection that regulations are meant to provide. We should be wary of extreme preservationist groups that have little invested and nothing to lose. We should look at the total cumulative impact of all regulation. We should demand that one lead agency be in charge, rather than a multitude of dueling agencies. We should give all of the last decade’s regulations a chance to work before dumping another load on top of them. We should ask, ÒHow much will it cost, and is it really worth it?Ó
Let me leave you with a few questions. When you look around, have most of the farmers and ranchers done a pretty good job of taking care of the land at little cost to the public? Have you seen many regulations or taxes ever go away? Can ranching and farm families survive under the cumulative regulations that have been piled on over the last few decades? Will we be better or worse off from excessive regulation?
Ted Stephens has co-managed a family ranchland property in Mendocino County for over 30 years and has worked with many California families through his estate and financial advice practice in Santa Rosa.
