[env-trinity] Plan to drain tainted farm water triggers worries

[Tom Stokely]

      http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/11675106.htm
               
     Posted on Wed, May. 18, 2005 
                           
                 
           


      Plan to drain tainted farm water triggers worries

      By JULIANA BARBASSA

      Associated Press


      LOS BANOS WILDLIFE AREA - A federal plan to drain mineral-laden irrigation water from farms includes a proposal similar to one that caused an environmental disaster more than two decades ago, leading to bird deformities and deaths.

      Environmentalists fear that leaving the tainted water to accumulate in evaporation ponds, even if it's treated to reduce most of the toxic minerals, could lead to problems similar to what happened in the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge in the 1980s, when entire colonies of birds died and many were born with missing limbs.

      ''It's insanity,'' said environmentalist Lloyd Carter, who wrote about Kesterson as a reporter for the Fresno Bee in the 1980s and now works for the California attorney general's Fresno office. ''We've tried that before, and it was a disaster.''

      The contaminated ponds in Kesterson were finally covered up with dirt in 1986, and birds have flocked back to the region, a stopover point for birds migrating along the Pacific flyway.

      But the federal officials who run the Central Valley Project, a massive irrigation complex that makes farming possible in the arid western half of the Central Valley, remain under court order to find a way to dispose of the tainted water. And forming new evaporation ponds is one of several options outlined in a draft environmental impact report to be released this month by the Bureau of Reclamation.

      Another option in the draft report is taking poorly drained land out of farming, but that would rob some farmers of their livelihoods and is strongly opposed by the agriculture industry. The report also suggests pumping out the contaminated water, either into the ocean just south of Big Sur, or into the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, where millions of Californians get their drinking water.

      The report won't be issued until later this month, followed by a 60-day public comment period. But alternatives it envisions are generally described in a document on the agency's Web site, said Mike Delamore, chief of the bureau's San Joaquin Drainage Division.

      What to do with the water is one of the most vexing dilemmas in the Central Valley. Farming here depends on irrigation, but the clay underlying much of the farmland in the west side of the valley keeps excess water from draining away. The leftover water, heavy with salts and minerals, damages crops and eventually renders land infertile if left in the fields. As it drains, the water also pick up pesticides and other chemicals -- but it's selenium, and its effects on bird reproduction, that worry most biologists.

      Few realized selenium was toxic when agricultural water was first pumped into Kesterson, which is part of the 26,609-acre San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, about 80 miles northwest of Fresno.

      As the water evaporated, the selenium reached 350 parts per billion -- enough to turn what had been a vibrant wildlife refuge into an quiet, foul-smelling bog where thousands of birds died, said Gary Zahm, a retired federal wildlife biologist who managed the refuge at the time.

      ''The birds were feeding their young insects that had hatched in the reservoir,'' Zahm said, remembering baby birds born with three eyes, no legs, or crooked beaks. ''It was like feeding them poison pills.''

      The bureau now proposes to treat the water until no more than 10 parts per billion of selenium remains before pouring it into ponds, and then to periodically ''scrape'' the ponds of salts and minerals, Delamore said.

      The evaporation units would be in remote agricultural land, not near wildlife refuges, but they would be within the Central Valley. That's just where the Pacific flyway -- the route migrating birds take when traveling from North to South America -- narrows down like the waist on an hourglass, pinched in by the mountains and the coastal range.

      And research shows concentrations as low as 2 parts per billion harm bird reproduction, according to Joe Skorupa, the biologist in charge of researching selenium's effect on birds for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in California between 1986 and 2003.

      ''There's always a better alternative than evaporation ponds,'' said Skorupa, who now works at agency headquarters in Washington, D.C. ''It's a matter of having the imagination and taking the time.''

      The Westlands Water District, the largest agency delivering federal irrigation water to farms, has been working with farmers to take 108,000 acres land out of production with the help of a federal buyout to ease the area's perennial water shortage, and to take some of the most poorly drained land out of production.

      Environmentalists and others in California's fast-growing midsection like the idea of freeing up the water that has been poured onto soils that may eventually be too salty to farm. But farmers don't take easily to proposals of giving up their land.

      ''Farmers have been very resistant to looking at abandoning their livelihood and their lifestyle to solve political and social problems,'' said Westlands spokesman Tupper Hull.

      Some farmers elsewhere in the valley have tried their own short-term solutions, which include small evaporation ponds. The presence of selenium forces them to harass birds to keep them away from the water.

      ''There are no easy answers, but there are probably combinations of solutions that will allow for sustainable agriculture on the west side,'' said Hull.

      The bureau doesn't officially favor one option over the others, Delamore said, but few observers believe the public would accept dumping the drainage water into the delta or the ocean.

      Officially, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials aren't choosing one option over the others, but said they'd ''prefer to avoid creating a problem rather than have to mitigate once it's created,'' said Al Donner, an assistant field supervisor in the agency's Sacramento office.

      Any injuries to migratory birds would likely show up in the Los Banos Wildlife Area, a state refuge just north of the proposed evaporation pond sites and a few miles from Kesterson.

      Biologists like Eileen Edmunds, with the California Department of Fish and Game, are watching closely over the birds' well-being. Gently, she reaches into a small cloth bag and closes her hand around a song sparrow frantically flapping her wings.

      Nestled in her fist, the plump, rusty brown bird settles down and submits to a check of her wingspan, weight, and general health -- all to be recorded in a database.

      Then, with a little tag placed around its ankle, the sparrow flies away.

      ------

      On the Net:

      Bureau of Reclamation drainage plan documents: http://www.usbr.gov/mp/sccao/sld/index.html

      Los Banos Wildlife Area: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/lands/wa/region4/losbanos.html
     
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