[env-trinity] SF Chronicle February 16, 2007

[Byron Leydecker]

 <http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/> San Francisco Chronicle


CALIFORNIA


U.S.-valley plan on water issues


Glen Martin, Chronicle <mailto:glenmartin at sfchronicle.com>  Environment
Writer

Friday, February 16, 2007

The federal government would transfer ownership of one of California's
largest reservoirs to the state and local water agencies and require San
Joaquin Valley farmers to oversee the costly cleanup of toxic agricultural
drain water, under a draft plan released Thursday. 

Federal and regional water officials said their proposal could help settle
two of the state's most pressing water issues: Distribution of government
project water and the disposal of tainted farm runoff that has been blamed
for deformities and deaths of thousands of birds since the 1980s. 

The plan -- subject to extensive environmental review and congressional
approval before it could be adopted -- also would settle a lawsuit by valley
farmers alleging that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation failed to provide a
solution to the disposal of agricultural drain water contaminated with
selenium. 

Critics say the proposal would put control of a huge block of the state's
water in the hands of a few regional districts, threatening the equitable
flow of water during shortages. Some environmentalists and lawmakers were
wary of the transfer of the massive San Luis Reservoir to the state and six
water districts and putting cleanup plans in the hands of private
agricultural interests. 

"This is something you want to go over with a fine-tooth comb," said Rep.
George Miller, D-Martinez. "Here you have a major asset (the San Luis
Reservoir) that's under federal control and regulation for good reasons, and
you're opening it up to some degree of privatization. It looks like they're
trying to bootstrap simple water contracts into some other form of water
rights." 

Partners to the proposal say it could help solve conflicts over California's
water distribution woes and result in a drain-water solution. 

Farmers in drainage-impaired areas would receive less water than they do now
-- deliveries would be capped at 1 million acre-feet annually, instead of
the current cap of 1.4 million acre-feet. An acre-foot is equivalent to
326,000 gallons of water. 

"That would provide a new 400,000 acre-foot pot of water that could be used
for things other than irrigation, such as environmental flows (through the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta) or as a reserve in upstream reservoirs,"
said Jeff McCracken, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. 

Tom Birmingham, general manager of the Westlands Water District -- at
600,000 acres, it is the nation's largest irrigation district -- said the
proposal allows irrigators greater flexibility. 

The federal government would forgo $490 million from water contractors in
compensation for construction of the Central Valley Project, the vast system
of dams, canals and pipes that delivers water from the north to the south.
Birmingham said the money that water districts would otherwise have to pay
for the cost of water projects would go toward implementing a drainage
solution. 

He said the proposal does not promote privatization, because water districts
are public agencies, not private stakeholders. 

Environmentalists also questioned whether valley water districts will be
able to implement a satisfactory solution to the valley's drain water
problem. 

"The drainage cleanup cost estimates run as high as $3 billion," said Byron
Leydecker, chairman of Friends of the Trinity River, which has battled San
Joaquin farmers over transfers of Trinity River water. "They (the
irrigators) aren't going to pay that kind of money." 

Birmingham said the proposal focuses on an "in valley" drainage solution
that would dispose of the water by a variety of means, including reusing it
to irrigate crops and sprinkling it on gravel-topped beds to hasten
evaporation. He said the plan would not include evaporation ponds, which
have been opposed by environmentalists because they attract birds. 

Tom Stokely, a spokesman for the California Water Impact Network, a group
that favors retiring croplands high in selenium from agricultural
production, said he is leery of the proposal. 

"The good news is that this won't happen overnight," Stokely said. "It's
going to require full environmental review, federal legislation and action
by the state Water Resources Control Board. If the devil is in the details,
we'll find him." 

 

 

Byron Leydecker

Friends of Trinity River, Chair

California Trout,Inc., Advisor

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810 ph

415 383 9562 fx

 <mailto:bwl3 at comcast.net> bwl3 at comcast.net

 <mailto:bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org> bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org
(secondary)

http:// <http://www.fotr.org> www.fotr.org

http:// <http://www.caltrout.org> www.caltrout.org 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20070216/a6e7feff/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 1013 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20070216/a6e7feff/attachment.gif>