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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>WOW… you would think that
someone with such a position would be at least partially aware of the
facts. For example, Westlands doesn’t discharge any drainage.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Obfuscating the facts doesn’t
benefit anyone. Sad.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Ara Azhderian<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Water Policy Adminstrator<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>San Luis & Delta-Mendota
Water Authority<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us
[mailto:env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Byron
Leydecker<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, October 04, 2010 9:24 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> FOTR List; Trinity List<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [env-trinity] Sac Bee 10 03 10<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Irrigators
may get new free pass to pollute</span></b><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;
font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Sacramento
Bee-10/3/10<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>By Jim
Metropulos<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Opinion<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Longtime
residents of California may recall those 1984 pictures of birds with twisted
beaks, deformed heads and the limp, dead chicks. These birds died by the
hundreds in Kesterson Wildlife Refuge near Los Banos – one of the state's
worst wildlife disasters. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>In
the decades that followed, state water officials have looked the other way and
refused to enforce the state's tough discharge selenium standards. Kesterson
Reservoir became a wake-up call. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>But
no one at the State Water Resources Control Board woke up. Toxic,
selenium-contaminated agricultural drainage water still flows through the west
side of the San Joaquin Valley and into the San Joaquin River. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>And
the State Water Resources Control Board is about to approve another 10-year
waiver for its selenium discharge standards. That means another 10 years of
toxic water headed toward the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta – and our
drinking water. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>For
west-side irrigators, this is business as usual. And the state water board
plans to keep it that way. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Some
may view this as a blast from the past. In Kesterson, follow-up studies
documented that selenium-laced runoff from Westlands Water District lands and
other west-side irrigators produced the selenium wastewater that caused the
Kesterson disaster. Now, the state water board is about to allow one of the
state's biggest drainage polluters to keep loading selenium into our waterways.
<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Of
course, the west-side irrigators will tell you things have changed. They may
quote their new slogan: "Dilution is Grasslands' and Westlands Water
District's solution." <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>But
these giant west-side agricultural powerhouses' "solution" falls far
short of fixing the problem. Selenium builds up in the bodies of plants and
animals. So while the levels of selenium vary with dilution, this toxin builds
up in the food chain and has caused bird deformities, reproduction problems and
death in wildlife. It can even threaten human health and is known to cause
symptoms as varied as hair loss, nervous-system effects, and digestive harm. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Let's
follow the water. Bearing levels of selenium high enough to deform wildlife and
threaten drinking water, the drainage swirls past signs posted along Mud Slough
and parts of the San Joaquin River. The signs warn would-be anglers not to eat
fish caught in the toxic brew, to prevent potential birth defects. Seeping its
toxic cargo into groundwater all the way, the water finally flows to the Merced
River and empties into the Delta. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Westlands
and the other west-side irrigators are simply too politically powerful.
Westlands and these other irrigators are some of the state's foremost
proponents of a proposed peripheral canal. The federal government has
documented that the continued use of federally subsidized irrigation for about
400,000 acres of selenium-rich soils along the west side of the valley are
causing the selenium contamination of groundwater and surface waters spreading
out from Westlands Water District and the other west-side irrigators.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>For
years, these polluters have received a free pass as they dumped toxic selenium
into our drinking water, and harmed our fisheries and the Pacific Flyway. The
State Water Resources Control Board should deny approval of the proposed
amendment to the San Joaquin Basin Plan that would give Westlands and these
water users another decade to avoid enforcement of selenium water-quality
standards and aquatic life protections. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>These
west-side irrigators need to wake up and follow the rules. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><i><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>Jim Metropulos represents the
Sierra Club on statewide water and energy issues.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Byron
Leydecker, JcT</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Chair, Friends
of Trinity River</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>PO Box 2327</span></i><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Mill Valley, CA
94942-2327</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 383 4810
land/fax</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 519 4810
mobile</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="mailto:bwl3@comcast.net">bwl3@comcast.net</a></span></i></b><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="mailto:bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org">bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org</a> </span></i></b><i><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>(secondary)</span></i><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="http://fotr.org/">http://www.fotr.org</a> </span></i></b><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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