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<P class=body><SPAN class="headline entry-title">Proposal: Calif. farmers could
own water pipes </SPAN></P>
<P class=ap-story-p><SPAN class=byline>By <SPAN class="author vcard"><SPAN
class=fn>GARANCE BURKE </SPAN></SPAN></SPAN><BR><SPAN
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<P class=ap-story-p>FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- The federal government is considering
giving Central California farmers some massive water infrastructure to settle a
lawsuit over drainage problems that killed birds and left farmland too salty for
crops, according to a draft proposal obtained by The Associated Press.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>Shifting the cleanup cost to the private sector would save
the federal government about $2.2 billion, Bureau of Reclamation officials said
Wednesday.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>The complex deal could transfer the government's stake in
local pumps and drain pipes to some of the country's biggest farming operations,
according to a bureau letter detailing the legislative strategy for Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, D-Calif.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>In exchange, farmers in the sprawling Westlands Water
District and other nearby irrigators would retire at least 200,000 acres of
tainted farmland and bear the burden of cleaning up toxic runoff and thousands
of acres of polluted soil.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>Westlands representatives and environmentalists alike
blasted the proposal. One environmental group said the government's latest plan
would give away too many public facilities and wouldn't take enough cropland out
of production.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>"You can't irrigate this land without creating toxic
pollution, bottom line," said Tom Stokely, a water policy analyst with the
nonprofit California Water Impact Network. "Taxpayers shouldn't give up that
kind of public investment, especially because there is no insurance that the
plan will actually work."</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>Westlands is the nation's largest irrigation district and
includes giants of agribusiness, such as Harris Farms, one of California's
biggest farming operations, and Tanimura & Antle, the nation's top lettuce
grower. Despite this year's plentiful rains, the agricultural basin has been hit
hard by years of drought, as were workers in the region, where most of the
nation's fruits and vegetables are grown.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>"There is nothing in the proposal that would help them with
their drainage problem or to improve water reliability," said Westlands
spokeswoman Sarah Woolf. "We will probably be in court about this."</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>Westlands farmers and those who belong to nearby water
districts have been banned from disposing of agricultural runoff there since the
1980s, when millions of migratory birds were born deformed after nesting at
Kesterson Wildlife Refuge, where federal officials initially routed the
poisonous drainage.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>Irrigation runoff in the area carries concentrated levels of
selenium, a naturally occurring trace element that washes down from the volcanic
mountain range flanking the valley's western edge. 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.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>After the environmental disaster, the government scrapped
plans to build a huge drain to carry the runoff out to sea.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>Irrigators sued in the mid 1990s, claiming federal officials
reneged on their obligation to help them dispose of the tainted water.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>Officials have proposed numerous solutions as the case has
traveled through the courts. Decades later, the Bureau of Reclamation - which
runs a massive irrigation complex that makes farming possible in the arid
Central Valley - remains under a federal court order to dispose of the tainted
water.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>In 2007, the bureau announced a different $2.6 billion
cleanup plan, but the Interior Department now says that it is too expensive to
put into place.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>As part of the new legislative proposal, farmers could get a
break on paying back up to $470 million, which is their share of what it cost
the federal government to build the water delivery system.</P>
<P class=ap-story-p>The senator's spokesman did not immediately comment on the
proposal.</SPAN></P></DIV>
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