A fourth-generation San Joaquin County farmer this week announced plans to run as a Republican in the 2010 race for the 11th Congressional District.

Brad Goehring, 44, owner of a winegrape vineyard in Clements, will vie for the seat held by U.S. Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, who in 2006 unseated Tracy Republican Richard Pombo.

Goehring declared his candidacy on the same day that two Republican members of the nonpartisan San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors said they were endorsing McNerney. It also came shortly after fellow Republican Jon Del Arroz, a 26-year-old businessman from Danville, kicked off a campaign for the same seat.

A lifelong farmer, Goehring grew up in Lodi and has considered running for office for about a year now. He said he aims to defend business, property and agricultural rights.

Though he’s a relative unknown outside the valley, San Joaquin County includes more than half of the district’s voters. The rest are spread across Contra Costa, Santa Clara and Alameda counties.

There’s about an even split between registered Republicans and Democrats districtwide — though in Tracy, Democrats hold the lead by a slim margin.

McNerney won re-election in 2008 against Stockton Republican Dean Andal, a trustee of the Lincoln Unified School District who said he’s bowed out of politics for now and has no plans to run for office next year.

Goehring has been in the news in years past for defending farmers’ water rights. He traveled to Washington, D.C., in early 2008 to speak against an amendment to a federal water pollution control act. The bill, which never became law, would have given the government more control over bodies of water by revising the definition to include sloughs and seasonal wetlands.

In 2004, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which enforces the Clean Water Act, issued a cease-and-desist order against Goehring for tilling a grazing pasture to plant a vineyard, something the corps said he couldn’t do without a permit. The agency accused him of violating federal regulations by disturbing what it considered protected wetlands.

Goehring used the order as an example of how regulators have “misinterpreted and misimplemented” water laws, according to a November 2007 article in the California Farm Bureau Federation newsletter.

“One of the things that’s led Brad into running for Congress is the Clean Water Act,” agreed David Creager, Goehring’s campaign manager. “It’s such an inflexible piece of legislation.”

Carl Fogliani, who owns Fogliani Strategies, is Goehring’s campaign consultant. Fogliani was campaign manager for Pombo during his final and unsuccessful run for re-election.

Goehring lives in Clements with his wife of 12 years, Kirstin Goehring, and their three children, according to a biography on his Web site. He attended San Joaquin Delta College before earning his degree in business administration at California State University, Chico. After college, he returned to northern San Joaquin County in 1989 and has since owned and operated Goehring Vineyards Inc.

He serves as a board member of the Lodi Woodbridge Winegrape Commission and the California Association of Winegrape Growers. He recently stepped down as director for the San Joaquin County Farm Bureau to run for Congress.