Only $50? Seems like the Hmong folks were punished harsher not too long ago??

[theking]

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They defied California and drained an important salmon stream. Their fine: $50 per farmer


The Bee’s findings “should serve as a wake up call” for the Legislature and the Governor’s Office to change the law, one law professor said.

For eight straight days this summer, farmers in far Northern California drained almost all of the water out of a river in defiance of the state’s drought regulations. The move infuriated environmentali sts and salmon-dependent Native American tribes downstream.

California now knows the cost of the farmers’ blatant defiance: Less than $50 per farmer.

It’s the latest example of California’s lax water-use enforcement process — problems that were first exposed in a sweeping Sacramento Bee investigation published online last week.

On Friday, a day after The Bee’s story went online, the State Water Resources Control Board proposed issuing a $4,000 fine against the Shasta River Water Association, an irrigation district serving about 100 farmers and ranchers in Siskiyou County.

In August, the association disregarded a state drought order and turned on its pumps for eight days, sucking out nearly two-thirds of the water flowing down the Shasta River. State and federal biologists said the pumping almost certainly killed protected salmon.

Despite the alleged ecological harms — and the irrigation district making no secret it took the water to fill dry livestock ponds — a fine of $500 a day was the maximum amount the water board could levee on the farmers, said Robert Cervantes, the water rights enforcement program manager at the water board.

Cervantes acknowledged that less than $50 per farmer isn’t much of a deterrent, but the ranchers were savvy enough to shut off their pumps a few days before the fines would have increased to up to $10,000 a day.

He called the Shasta Water Users Association case the “poster child” for changing the law to give his agency more authority to crack down on violations.

“In the face of increased climate change and more severe droughts,” he said, “we’re going to need to be able to have the tools we need to make a positive impact and manage watersheds throughout the state, not just in Siskiyou County.”

Two farmers on the association’s board didn’t return a message from The Bee Wednesday for this story, but one of them told CalMatters they might just keep fighting back.