After rejecting a request for a delay, the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission on Wednesday formally denied a proposal to install 15 acres of reservoir ponds to defend a Cuyama Valley vineyard from frost damage. 

Commissioners voted 3-1 to adopt findings of denial for the North Fork Ranch Frost Ponds Project to install three large water reservoirs south of Highway 166 for land owned by a Harvard University endowment fund.

The lone opponent was Fourth District Commissioner Larry Ferini; Commissioner Vincent Martinez recused himself from the discussion and vote because of a conflict.

The panel first considered the item March 29 when the majority directed staff to prepare findings for denial as supporters emphasized Wednesday that the project raised right-to-farm issues.

“I think that this case presents a very interesting intersection of all sorts of important principles regarding agriculture and water use and what occurs in the Cuyama Valley and so forth,” commission chair John Parke said.

Yet, the project’s specific circumstances required planning commissioners to deny it, he added. 

Parke and other commissioners rejected some project supporters’ label that denial would set a precedent.

“It’s really up to us to accept staff’s views or not in our independent discretion to decide these issues. We rely heavily on staff. We don’t always agree automatically, and we’re not required to,” Commissioner C. Michael Cooney said. 

Ferini argued against denial, but he didn’t sway his colleagues.

“To me, this is a very technical issue, and I think this commission lacks the technical evidence and analysis to move forward with the denial of this project,” Ferini said, adding that growers aren’t used to being told what to do since right-to-farm regulations mean they use best available practices.

The project’s applicant, Brodiaea Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard Management Co.’s endowment fund, leading some Cuyama Valley residents and Harvard graduates to accuse the organization of making land and water grabs. 

The three water-storage reservoirs to serve an existing 840-acre vineyard would sit on a 6,565-acre parcel south of Highway 166, approximately nine miles west of New Cuyama in the northeast corner of the county.

Each reservoir, with a maximum depth of about 27 feet, would span 5 acres and store less than 49 acre-feet of water with the supply coming from existing wells. An acre-foot equals roughly 326,000 gallons — or enough water to cover an acre of land, about the size of a football field, 1 foot deep.

On cold nights, water from the ponds would be sprayed on the vines to freeze and provide a blanket of protection against frost. As the sun rises and temperatures warm, the water drips to the ground, irrigating the plants or entering the ground. 

One of the appellants, Stephen Gliessman, who has a dry farming operation in the Cuyama Valley, cited water as the big issue for opponents.

“And the Cuyama (Valley) historically does not have that water. We’re not only a critically overdrafted groundwater basin, our only source of water, other than rainfall, is groundwater,” Gliessman said. “There’s no pipelines, there’s not reservoirs, there’s no permanent surface water. We have to take care of that groundwater, and we’re looking toward the future.” 

The applicant’s representatives and supporters raised right-to-farm concerns.

“Those grapes are out there and they are growing now. The amount of water that they use is not going to change with those reservoirs. They’re there for frost protection only,” said Kevin Merrill from the Santa Barbara County Farm Bureau and a member of project’s management team. “It is incredibly important to agriculture that you allow this to go through and you think carefully about what the precedent it is setting, because it’s not going to be taken lightly throughout the rest of the state.”

The project’s applicants had asked to continue the item to allow for more time to address the commissioners’ concerns regarding alternative frost protection measures, including wind turbines and possible impact on native grasslands. 

However, the commissioners split 2-2 on the delay request, effectively denying it.

The proposal has been making its way through the planning process for more than four years, and the Planning Commission’s denial can be appealed to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.