Dear Editor:
I am dismayed to learn that the public works department plans to remove the agricultural spray filling stations and that the reason for doing so is so that water used by farmers for spraying will go through a meter.
I primarily use the filling stations in the periods before and after the irrigation is turned on. The spray season and the irrigation season do not coincide. Removing the stations and asking farmers to use their own facilities creates the following:
The period before and after irrigation often involves freezing conditions. You are asking farmers to risk freezing not only their own systems, but also the meters that are above ground and exposed to the cold. Summerland is unique as an irrigation supplier because meters were installed above ground. Other metering districts have safer subsurface meter installations. The current spray fillers are relatively easy to protect and can be turned off easily should extreme cold be in the forecast. One filler is easier to shut off than many individual systems.
Many farmers will not pay the late turn off/early turn on fee and will use a garden hose at home. As it takes a long time to fill a spray tank with a garden hose, most will put the hose in the tank and go for a coffee. This has the potential of introducing contaminated water into the municipal water system should a back siphoning event occur. I only know of one person who has an anti back flow attachment for their garden hose.
The amount of water used by sprayers is trivial in comparison to the amount irrigated. Under current regulations, an irrigator is allowed six gallons per minute per acre for approximately five months, which is roughly 1.325 million gallons. For this he is charged $121.75. This works out to $0.000092 per gallon. A 200 gallon spray tank would therefore use 1.8 cents worth of water. I understand that in the future, farmers will be allocated 2.62 feet of water per acre, which is the equivalent of 855,255 gallons. At $121.75 per acre, this works out to $.00014 per gallon or 2.8 cents for a 200 gallon sprayer tank. The four tanks or so that I spray per acre in a season would use 12 cents worth of water. The six of us who use the filler would not use $20 worth of metered water for all of our acres combined — all season. How does that compare to the funds budgeted for the removal of the filling stations in order to capture that $20?
Road contamination would not be addressed, as many farmers will be forced to travel great distances from their leased lots to their home base in order to refill their tanks. Previously they would use a neighborhood filler.
In the interests of safety and costs, I would ask you to reconsider your intention to remove the spray filling stations.
Ron Vollo
Summerland