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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/11/21/161223/07">http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/11/21/161223/07</A></FONT></DIV>
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<H2 class=dgHeadline>Further Down the Drain</H2>
<H3 class=dgSubtitle>Posted by <A
href="http://gristmill.grist.org/user/Lloyd%20Carter"><FONT color=#336699>Lloyd
Carter</FONT></A> at 5:12 PM on 21 Nov 2005 </H3></I>
<P>The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation wants to bet up to $1 billion of your tax
dollars that its latest proposals to carry toxic waste waters away from the
nation's largest federal irrigation project will not result in another
ecological disaster like the selenium poisoning of the Kesterson National
Wildlife Refuge more than 20 years ago.
<P>The Bureau is putting the final touches on an environmental impact statement
(EIS) due Feb. 1, 2006 in which it will announce support for one of three
possible drainage solutions: Delta Disposal, Central Coast disposal, or building
drainage treatment facilities and evaporation ponds within the San Joaquin
Valley with varying levels of land retirement.
<P>Opponents say the Bureau's science is flawed, threatens fisheries and birds,
and that construction and operation costs are likely to become astronomical for
keeping just a few hundred growers in business irrigating a desert. </P></DIV>
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<P>The final EIS comes in response to a ruling by the federal Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeal five years ago requiring the Bureau to provide drainage for the
730,000-acre San Luis Unit of the Central Valley Project, first approved by
Congress in 1960. The mammoth Westlands Water District, at 604,000 acres, is not
only the largest federal irrigation in the San Luis Unit but the largest in the
nation. It has between 400 and 600 growers. A few small water districts to the
north of Westlands are also in the San Luis Unit.
<P>Westlands is also currently negotiating a new 25-year water delivery contract
for 1.15 million acre-feet of water a year (an acre-foot is 325,851 gallons)
even though major land retirement of marginal lands in the San Luis Unit should,
theoretically, drastically reduce water needs in the gargantuan 942-square mile
district.
<P>Completion of the San Luis Drain to the Delta bogged down nearly 25 years ago
when it was discovered drainwater flowing from the Westlands was riddled with
the trace element selenium. Selenium-laced drainage funneled 82 miles to
evaporation ponds at the Kesterson marsh in the early 1980s triggered a fish die
off and deformities in embryos of ducks and shorebirds. The Kesterson ponds were
ordered closed in 1985 and Westlands growers have been scrambling ever since to
keep their mineral-laden desert lands from salting up.
<P>Environmentalists say the three proposed dumping sites: (1) the east end of
the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary, (2) the Pacific Ocean near Morro Bay or,
(3) thousands of acres of bird-attracting evaporation ponds within the western
San Joaquin Valley, are all fraught with peril and could poison drinking
supplies or harm fisheries in the Bay-Delta or on the Central Coast.
<P>Here are the three options:
<P>1. Bay-Delta disposal: This has been the preferred alternative for half a
century. Since the 1960s, Bay Area interests have fiercely opposed any efforts
to complete a drainage canal to the southeast end of the Delta at Chipps Island,
with the wastes to be flushed out through Suisun Bay and San Francisco Bay to
the Golden Gate. Bureau officials argue the drainage could be treated, safely
diluted and flushed to the Pacific despite a 2000 report by U.S. Geological
Survey scientists Theresa Presser and Sam Luoma which warned the
selenium-tainted West Side drainage poses a major risk to Delta fish and bird
reproduction, including the possibility of extinction of fish species from
contamination of their food chain.
<P>Selenium was the trace element dissolved in ag drainage that poisoned the
Kesterson food chain in the early 1980s, leading to a fish and bird die-off at
the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in western Merced County 80 miles
southeast of San Francisco.
<P>John Kopchik of the Contra Costa County Water Agency warned Congress in July
that San Luis drainage funneled to the Delta could contaminate drinking water
supplies now flowing to 22 million Californians.
<P>The Delta drainage disposal option could cost near $700 million and take $36
million a year to operate and maintain. This would be a very tough sell in
Congress.
<P>2. Central Coast disposal near Morro Bay: This $600 million project
(preliminary cost estimate) would involve 211 miles of buried pipeline with
three tunnels through the Coast Range and 23 pumping plants and sumps. A drain
pipe would run 1.4 miles into the sea off Point Estero 200 feet deep and be
located 10 miles south of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Bureau
officials like this option because selenium standards for ocean water are much
higher than the fresh water standard for the Delta.
<P>Critics point out the pipelines must pass over the San Andreas Fault and
could rupture in an earthquake. Coastal dumping could also pollute the coastal
food chain causing a fish die-off. Annual operation and maintenance costs for
ocean disposal would be nearly $34 million a year. The odds of this proposal in
Congress are also considered slim.
<P>3. In-Valley disposal: This plan would keep the drainage water in the San
Joaquin and involves various levels of land retirement, selenium removal plants,
reverse osmosis treatment to remove other salts and disposal in over 5,000 acres
of evaporation ponds. Critics say this plan would cost over $900 million to
implement, (much of that for land retirement), unproven selenium treatment
technology and creates the same perils for birds and wildlife that Kesterson
did.
<P>All the drainage proposals involve retiring at least 44,000 acres of salted
up farmland in addition to the nearly 40,000 acres taken out of production as a
result of grower lawsuits in recent years.
<P>The cost of partially constructing the San Luis Drain, Kesterson closure and
cleanup costs, and post-Kesterson drainage studies have already exceeded an
estimated $200 million in taxpayer dollars. The original drainage ditch proposed
by the Bureau in 1955 had a price tag of $7.3 billion.
<P>Critics, including Friends of the Trinity River and major national
environmental groups, say the Bureau's EIS failed to consider retiring all the
marginal lands, perhaps 300,000 acres or more, in order to reduce the need for
drainage at all.
<P>When the EIS is completed, it will be presented to the Federal District Court
in Fresno by mid-2006. Any drainage plan selected must still gain the approval
of the State Water Resources Control Board and funding must be gained from
Congress. </P></DIV><!-- poll box -->
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