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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'>As many of you know, I don’t like my
name in print, but this one is worth it – just state the facts.
Land in the <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Western</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">San Joaquin</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Valley</st1:PlaceType>
irrigated with <st1:place w:st="on">Trinity River</st1:place> water can be
retired (and ultimately it must be - see USGS Open File Report <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'>00-416) for far less money than any one or
more of the current proposed unproved, uncertain “solutions.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=black face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><st1:PersonName w:st="on"><font size=3 color=black
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'>Byron Leydecker</span></font></st1:PersonName><font
color=black><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<h1 style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><b><font size=4 face=Tahoma><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>Selenium fix remains
elusive<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<h2 style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><b><font size=4 face=Tahoma><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>A solution to the problem
will be expensive and could spawn its own environmental issues.<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h2>
<h2 style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on"><b><font size=4 face=Tahoma><span lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma'>Sacramento</span></font></b></st1:City></st1:place><font
size=4 face=Tahoma><span lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
Bee – 11/30/06<o:p></o:p></span></font></h2>
<h3 style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><b><font size=4 face=Tahoma><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>By David Whitney - Bee <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Washington</st1:State></st1:place> Bureau<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><br>
Negotiations are under way to resolve one of the <st1:place w:st="on">Central
Valley</st1:place>'s messiest issues -- how to drain selenium-laced runoff
from hundreds of thousands of acres of federally irrigated land.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>The Bureau of Reclamation, irrigators and
other interested parties met for about a week earlier this month in <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:City></st1:place> in an effort to
reach agreement. More meetings are planned.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>"We've begun talking with irrigators to
come up with some sort of collaborative resolution that meets everybody's
needs, including the federal taxpayers, the water users and the
environment," bureau spokesman Jeff McCracken said Wednesday.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>Selenium is a naturally occurring mineral that
in the right amounts is essential to good health. But in vast areas of the <st1:place
w:st="on">Central Valley</st1:place>, farmlands are so rich with it and other
compounds that they must be flushed to remain productive. The result is huge
amounts of drain water that has such high concentrations of selenium that it is
toxic to fish and birds.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>The dangers were dramatically revealed in the
1980s after drain water had been directed to Kesterson Reservoir.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>Deformed waterfowl were found in 1983, and
releases there were halted in 1985. While there is some limited disposal into
the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">San Joaquin</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">River</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>, a permanent solution has remained
elusive.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>The drainage disaster spawned a federal
lawsuit. One consequence so far has been an order that the Bureau of
Reclamation must find a way to drain and dispose of the water that has
inundated tens of thousands of acres.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>Among the solutions on the table are bureau
proposals to retire 308,000 acres of highly productive agricultural land so
that it is no longer irrigated, or to pump the contaminated drain water into
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta or the <st1:place w:st="on">Pacific Ocean</st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>Other alternatives include treating it in the
Valley by constructing four large treatment plants with evaporation ponds as
big as 3,300 acres.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>None of the alternatives is environmentally
benign, and all are expensive and controversial.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>Pacific Ocean dumping would involve
construction of a pipeline through <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">San Luis Obispo</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">County</st1:PlaceType> and into <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Morro</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Bay</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>,
with the outfall just 10 miles south of the Monterey Bay National Marine
Sanctuary.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>Prospects for that alternative are not good. But
the mere threat has reinvigorated an effort to extend the boundaries of the
marine sanctuary so that ocean dumping would be barred in waters off the
county's famously spectacular coastline.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>Neither is the proposed dumping in the Delta
winning much support. One alternative would end with an outflow near the <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Carquinez</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Bridge</st1:PlaceType>,
another on <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Chipps</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Island</st1:PlaceType> near <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Antioch</st1:City></st1:place>.
The volume of effluent could be as much as 70,000 acre-feet a year.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>Westlands Water District spokeswoman Sarah
Woolf called ocean or Delta dumping "politically unviable."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>"Congress is unlikely to fund it,"
she said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>But environmentalists don't like other
alternatives that include four industrial-size plants using a process called
reverse osmosis to separate the waste, sending it to huge evaporations ponds to
dry for disposal.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><st1:PersonName w:st="on"><font
size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>Byron
Leydecker</span></font></st1:PersonName><font size=4><span lang=EN
style='font-size:14.0pt'>, chairman of Friends of the <st1:place w:st="on">Trinity
River</st1:place>, said the technology is untested and the evaporation ponds
amount to "mini-Kestersons."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>"From the point of view of rational human
beings, the answer is to retire much of that land," Leydecker said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>But ceasing the irrigation of valuable
cropland has met with resistance on Capitol Hill, and is opposed by Westlands,
the biggest irrigator in the talks. Retiring 308,000 acres would cut its land
base in half.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>Whatever is decided will have to go before
Congress for funding. The cheapest alternative is the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">San Luis Obispo</st1:City></st1:place> dumping at $589 million, and
other proposals range upwards of $700 million, although some think the costs
ultimately will soar past $1 billion.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>The bureau issued a final environmental impact
statement in May laying out its alternatives. But on Aug. 1 the agency
announced that it was suspending completion of a final decision because the
parties in the lawsuit had indicated they wanted to explore settlement.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>After a delay of more than three months, those
talks finally got under way two weeks ago. McCracken estimated that there were
about 40 people attending the sessions but could provide no other details
because of their confidentiality.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=EN style='font-size:14.0pt'>There is some time pressure, however. The
bureau has notified the court that it intends to move ahead with its own
solution by Feb. 15, assuming no other deal has been struck.#<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><st1:PersonName w:st="on"><i><font size=3 color=gray
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray;font-style:
italic'>Byron Leydecker</span></font></i></st1:PersonName><i><font color=gray><span
style='color:gray;font-style:italic'><o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><i><font size=3 color=gray face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray;font-style:italic'>Friends of <st1:place
w:st="on">Trinity River</st1:place>, Chair<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><i><font size=3 color=gray face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray;font-style:italic'>California Trout, Inc.,
Advisor<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><st1:address w:st="on"><st1:Street w:st="on"><i><font
size=3 color=gray face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;
color:gray;font-style:italic'>PO Box</span></font></i></st1:Street><i><font
color=gray><span style='color:gray;font-style:italic'> 2327</span></font></i></st1:address><i><font
color=gray><span style='color:gray;font-style:italic'><o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><i><font size=3 color=gray face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=ES-EC style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray;font-style:italic'>Mill Valley,
CA 94942-2327</span></font></i><span lang=ES-EC><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><i><font size=3 color=gray face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=ES-EC style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray;font-style:italic'>415 383 4810</span></font></i><span
lang=ES-EC><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><i><font size=3 color=gray face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=ES-EC style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray;font-style:italic'>415 383 9562
fax<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><i><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=ES-EC style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic'>bwl3@comcast.net<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><i><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=ES-EC style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic'>bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org</span></font></i><i><span
lang=ES-EC style='font-style:italic'> <font color=gray><span style='color:gray'>(secondary)<o:p></o:p></span></font></span></i></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><i><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
lang=ES-EC style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic'>http://www.fotr.org<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><i><font size=3 color=blue face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:blue;font-style:italic'>http://www.caltrout.org<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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