Under the new laws, county farmers could be required to pay for time-consuming and costly environmental reports that predict how clearing and grading land might harm the environment. But county officials said yesterday that they plan to streamline the process, so that individual farmers will not be subject to extensive environmental reviews every time they wanted to clear or grade land. Taking that burden off farmers, however, means that the county will have to prepare its own countywide study. County planners told the supervisors they will prepare the new permit system and the environmental study within the next three months. Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau, said farmers have based their support for the new laws on the promise that the county will make it easier for them to get clearing and grading permits.
Farmers argue that they are among the best stewards of open land.
It is clearly not in their interest to allow fertile soil to erode from their fields and groves, they say. In San Diego County, an average of 1,200 pounds of soil per acre erodes each year from disturbed land, whether it is farmland or a construction site, and into rivers, streams or other waterways, said Ivan Holler, building division chief for the county's Department of Planning and Land Use. By contrast, an average of 200 pounds of soil per acre erodes from undisturbed land each year, he said. The county's new laws, while focusing on farmers, also call for developers of nonagricultural properties to do a better job of controlling erosion with such techniques as using silt fences. Environmentalists at yesterday's meeting where unsuccessful in opposing a change in one of the laws that allows property owners, whether farmers or not, to clear and grade up to 5 acres of their own land without obtaining permits.