Tucked into California's remote northwest corner, the Smith River winds through Del Norte County, a sparsely populated stretch of redwood country near the Oregon border. Celebrated by conservationists as the state's wildest river, 25 miles of undammed, crystalline water cut through ancient forests and rugged coastal mountains before meeting the Pacific near Crescent City.
Down on the river's lower plain, though, the wilderness gives way to farmland. Here, a handful of growers produce nearly all of America's Easter lily bulbs, which are then shipped off to greenhouses across the country. The iconic plant is the most famous export from Del Norte County -- yet state scientists say decades of pesticide use by these growers have contaminated the tributaries that flow through those fields, threatening fish, wildlife and nearby residents.
The plant has a long history in the area. Before World War II, nearly all Lilium longiflorum -- better known as the Easter lily -- plants were imported from Japan. When trade with the island nation was cut off during the war, growers along a 15-mile stretch between Brookings, Oregon, and the unincorporated area of Smith River began cultivating their own. The area's valleys, sheltered from cold north winds and moderated by the Pacific, proved ideal: Long, cool summers, warm earth and mild air produced bulbs of exceptional size and quality.
Rob Miller, owner of Dahlstrom & Watt Bulb Farm in the community of Smith River, said there were 900 members of the region's Easter Lily Association at its peak. "Today, there are three growers. Total."
As the industry shrank, its footprint concentrated. Today, the Easter lily industry covers just 197 acres on the Smith River Plain, Del Norte County Agricultural Commissioner Justin Riggs told SFGATE in an email. In 2025, the crop generated about $7 million in gross sales, making it the county's third-most valuable agricultural product.
But prosperity came with a hidden cost. The same mild climate that made the lilies thrive also allowed decades of pesticide-intensive farming to seep into the surrounding watershed. At an Oct. 8 meeting of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, state regulators and scientists presented findings showing that the tributaries running through the Smith River Plain are contaminated with agricultural runoff from the lily fields -- pollution linked to harm in both wildlife and human health.
A staff report presented by the North Coast Region Water Board at the Oct. 8 meeting said runoff from the lily fields carries a chemical mixture through the Smith River Plain: diuron, imidacloprid, ethoprop and copper.
All four are toxic to aquatic life. Diuron is a probable carcinogen that kills algae and invertebrates, which make up the base of the river's food web. Imidacloprid, a neurotoxic insecticide, threatens aquatic insects and the fish that feed on them. Ethoprop is another carcinogen, highly toxic to fish, and copper, detected in about 40 percent of downstream samples, can poison salmon even at trace levels.
During the meeting, California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Katie Rian called the Smith River "a stronghold for salmon and steelhead," home to 39 fish species.
NOAA Fisheries scientist Marisa Parish Hanson told the board that the small tributaries winding through the lily fields are "highly productive" for coho salmon and "really important for the physiological changes" young fish undergo as they mature, with more than half of the river's juveniles passing through those waters.
Rian explained that dissolved copper harms fish by "impairing or destroying neurons" in the olfactory system and lateral line, disrupting how salmon sense and navigate their surroundings. The damage, she said, happens within minutes and can linger for weeks -- or even permanently.
Rian called diuron the "most commonly detected synthetic pesticide," which she said can "impede or impair primary productivity and impact riparian habitat." Ethoprop and imidacloprid overlap with copper, dulling fish reflexes and escape responses. The combination of these chemicals, Rian warned, results in "synergistic toxicity," meaning harmful effects "far greater than what you would expect if you had a simple solution of just one chemical."
The staff report also noted that in April 2025, the Water Board tested nine private wells within the lily-growing area. Pesticides were found in six, almost all used on lilies. About three-quarters of those detections were trace amounts, and none exceeded state or federal drinking-water standards.
Still, one woman who spoke during public comment on Oct. 8 described how she said chemical releases from the lily industry had affected her family's health. Kyla Castagnaro, a Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation citizen, told the board she and her 3-month-old son have lived since 2022 in the Dat-naa-svt Village Project, a Tolowa housing community located near the banks of the Smith River and Delilah Creek -- one of the tributaries where state scientists detected measurable contamination.
"Since moving here, my health has rapidly collapsed," Castagnaro said. "Within a year, I needed surgery for endometriosis."
She described living in constant pain: "Every morning I wake up in pain," she said. "My body's stiff, inflamed and burning. My skin itches constantly, my sinuses are swollen shut and I can barely think or breathe."
Castagnaro said she has also suffered cognitive decline: "My memory has declined to the point that I've paid rent and bills twice because I forgot that I already did it."
Outside her home, she continued, "The dust from the lily fields coats everything -- our cars, our porches, our children's toys." When she hoses it down, the "sticky, reddish-brown film ... foams up," leaving an "oily residue in the street."
Before her son can play outside, she said, everything must be cleaned, or he risks breaking out in "painful rashes that cover his whole body. His cheeks flush red, his eyes glaze over, and he becomes hot, feverish and completely dysregulated." On particularly "heavy spray days," she added, "he is not even himself. He's unreachable."
She recalled trying to start a garden, but, "Within a week, my hands were covered in blistering, oozing, bleeding hives that burned. I had to abandon it."
Castagnaro concluded, "I should not have to leave my homeland to protect my child. I should not have to choose between our heritage and our health."
Her experience echoes findings in a 2016 community health assessment by the Siskiyou Land Conservancy, which has long raised alarms about pesticide use on the Smith River Plain.
"Eye problems occur 5 times more frequently after moving to Smith River," the report stated. "Other conditions with higher frequencies include skin rashes, chronic cough, infections, headaches, neurological disorders, cancer, and many other conditions."
Researchers found elevated reports of "itchy, swollen" eyes, "recurrent rashes, chronic coughing," and "frequent headaches or migraines," among other problems.
While the report stopped short of linking pesticide exposure to illnesses of residents, it concluded that "the results raise significant concerns and require attention and action from public agencies."
SFGATE reached out to Del Norte County Public Health officials in an attempt to corroborate these findings but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
For the Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation, whose ancestral homeland centers on the Smith River, the lily fields are not just farmland. They represent a barrier between the people and a sacred river.
Tribal Council Treasurer Jaytuk Steinruck described his tribe as "Salmon people" for whom the Smith River is "the center of our world." He said at the meeting that since the lily industry's effects on the waters of the estuary, "We don't really swim in that water."
Sheryl Suudaachu Steinruck said working in the lily fields was once a family rite of passage. "I started working at lily bulbs when I was 12 years old ... my mom did it, her sisters did it." She connected her family's cancer diagnoses to those years: "When they sprayed those lily bulb fields, we got to breathe it all."
Marva Sii~xuutesna Jones, the Nation's culture and language division manager, told the board, "Without water, we don't have life." For the Tolowa Dee-ni', she said, the Smith River sustains far more than the body -- it anchors ceremony and identity. "It represents renewal, purification, it represents ceremony, it represents spirituality ... It's our training grounds for our people."
The hearing laid bare a deeper divide. One side spoke of ceremony and stewardship; the other, of payroll and survival. Both trace their lives to the same river.
Rob Miller has been growing Easter lilies in the Smith River Plains since 1966, when his father bought into an existing farm. Over those decades Miller watched as the industry shrank. "Many people worked in the lilies when they were younger," he said. Today, during the height of harvest, his farm employs about 120 people. "We have significant payrolls."
In a county that was projected to gain only about 200 new jobs through 2028 -- and where casinos like Elk Valley and Lucky 7 employ roughly the same number -- that seasonal surge makes Miller's operation one of Del Norte's larger private employers, according to data from the California Department of Transportation's 2023 County-Level Economic Forecast.
Despite that legacy, Miller said the recent Water Board meetings made clear that the community has turned its back on the farms. "Not a single solitary soul in that room cares whether anybody works in the lily industry," he told SFGATE.
He rejected the perception of growers as polluters. "From 2015 until today, there have been significant changes in the cultural practices [in the way] that we plant lilies," he said. "We've changed the setbacks. We've increased vegetative barriers. We've changed row angles. We've changed runoff." Those changes, he said, affected his business's bottom line.
During the Water Board hearings, Miller chose not to speak. "You'd have been booed out of the room," he told SFGATE later. He dismissed much of what he'd heard that night. "Personal testimony is not science," he said. Then, he doubled down: "Hysteria is not science."
The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board is now drafting new rules to reduce chemical runoff from the lily farms and protect the Smith River. The plan would require growers to expand existing practices -- planting buffer vegetation, rotating crops and building small basins to catch runoff -- while also monitoring groundwater and testing nearby wells for pesticides and nitrates.
Riggs credited local producers for the steps already taken. "The County encourages all mitigation measures taken by the bulb growers," he said. "Some of the measures they have taken include filter strips, riparian buffer zones, modifying row orientation, rotational planting, and other methods."
Miller said the industry is trying to adapt. "We're not interested in sending stuff down the creeks and creating problems," he told SFGATE. "From the time we began to learn there was an issue, we've changed. We've made improvements."
Greg King of the Siskiyou Land Conservancy said the time for reform has come. "We support farmers," he told SFGATE. "We don't want to crush them." But he also posed a challenge to the industry: "Don't you want to protect your neighbors? Don't you think it's time to change your practices?"
Under the current timeline, the Water Board expects to release a draft of the General Order by spring 2026, followed by a 45-day public comment period. A final vote could come as early as summer 2026, setting in motion the region's first binding water-quality requirements for the lily industry.
The state's plan seeks a middle ground: to let growers adapt while forcing new accountability to protect California's last wild river.
Addressing the board, Jaytuk Steinruck of the Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation made the stakes clear: "It's now your responsibility too, along with ours, to make sure and protect the quality of our water."