Water board’s Smith River runoff order ‘failed on … very important fronts’
Earlier this month, the California North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board adopted discharge requirements for commercial lily bulb growers in the Smith River Plain. The water board’s order is a first for a waterway where environmentalists have been struggling for decades to secure restrictions on pesticide use — which they say has degraded what should be one of the state’s most pristine and ecologically significant riparian areas. That struggle has pitted people like Greg King, the founder, executive director and president of the Siskiyou Land Conservancy, against some of the area’s most powerful agribusiness interests, particularly three companies located along the Smith River plain that are responsible for roughly 90% of the nation’s Easter lily bulb production.
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