The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has highlighted rice as a success story for its comprehensive evaluation of nitrate impacts on ground water. The link can be found here: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralvalley/water_issues/irrigated_lands/success_stories/ 

The culmination of nearly 2 years of work and an ongoing dialogue with the Regional Board, the rice team – Jacobs Engineering, Montgomery and Associates, Kahn Soares and Conway, and the CRC – undertook an in-depth technical assessment of rice field nitrate impacts on ground water quality. We looked at historical monitoring under rice fields, developed a crop model and projected impacts 20 years into the future. The result – rice has minimal discharge of nitrate beneath Sacramento Valley fields and no impact or de minimis impact on ground water quality when it comes to nitrate. 

Our detailed technical evaluation and discharge assessment was approved by the Regional Board. The result is that rice will be subject to far few regulations for nitrate discharge in areas with impacted wells, including requirement to provide immediate and long-term drinking water and plans to restore ground water quality over 30-50 years.