<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif;font-size:10pt"><div>I thought that Jim's opinion piece was well written and accurate. Whether Westlands is directly discharging into the San Joaquin or whether the selenium is finding its way into the river through leaching is not the issue. The fact is, drainage from the Westlands is polluting the river, and what I have trouble understanding is how state and federal agencies can choose to keep ignoring, or downplaying the seriousness of the problem, especially given the USGS reports that came out in the 90's. The costs to the public are outrageous. My view of the situation is that the damages and losses far outweigh the benefits of farming on the westside. If they want to keep farming, it should not be done with subsidized water, which is a public resource. </div><div><br></div><div>It's not really
about farming, anyway, is it? Last I heard, Lemore Naval Air Base and LAMWD are Westlands WD biggest customers. </div><div><br></div><div>Emelia Berol</div><div>Arcata, California</div><div style="font-family:bookman old style, new york, times, serif;font-size:10pt"><br><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Jim Metropulos <jim.metropulos@sierraclub.org><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Ara Azhderian <ara.azhderian@sldmwa.org><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> FOTR List <fotr@mailman.dcn.org>; Trinity List <env-trinity@mailman.dcn.org><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Mon, October 4, 2010 10:30:22 AM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [env-trinity] Sac Bee 10 03 10<br></font><br>
Ara:<div><br></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;font-size:15px;"><br></span></div><div>We know that Westlands has plugged their drains. In theory the Grassland Drainers are the only ones discharging directly into the San Joaquin River via the San Luis Drain.</div><div><br></div><div>However, the Central Valley Regional Water Board staff testified that Westlands Water District selenium pollution, which is is not regulated by waste discharge requirements, is migrating to surrounding farms and to the San Joaquin River. Because there is no publicly available monitoring of the contaminated groundwater at Westlands or field edge monitoring, ones does not know for certain if Westlands is discharging <u>directly</u> in the San Joaquin River.</div><div><br></div><div>I can respect that you have a different opinion on this issue but what's sad is your knee-jerk characterization that the
op-ed is "obfuscating the facts."</div><div><br></div><div>Regardless, have a good day.</div><div><br></div><div><div style="word-wrap:break-word;"><div>Jim Metropulos</div><div>Sierra Club California</div><div><a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:jim.metropulos@sierraclub.org" target="_blank" href="mailto:jim.metropulos@sierraclub.org">jim.metropulos@sierraclub.org</a></div><div><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.twitter.com/SierraClubCA">www.twitter.com/SierraClubCA</a></div><div><br></div></div></div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;font-size:15px;">The Regional Board staff testified that Westlands Water District selenium pollution, which is not regulated by waste discharge requirements etc, is migrating to surrounding farms and to the San Joaquin River. Because there is no publicly available monitoring of the contaminated groundwater at Westlands or
field edge monitoring, one does not know for certain if Westlands is discharging </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;font-size:15px;"><b><u>directly</u></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;font-size:15px;"> into the San Joaquin River.</span> <br><div><div>On Oct 4, 2010, at 10:02 AM, Ara Azhderian wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse:separate;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;orphans:2;text-align:auto;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;font-size:medium;"><div lang="EN-US"><div class="WordSection1" style=""><div
style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><span style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);">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.</span></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><span style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><span style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);">Obfuscating the facts doesn’t benefit anyone. Sad.</span></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><span style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);">
</span></div><div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><span style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);">Ara Azhderian</span></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><span style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);">Water Policy Adminstrator</span></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><span style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);">San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority</span></div></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><span style="color:rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></div><div><div
style="border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none;border-left-style:none;border-color:initial;border-top-style:solid;border-top-color:rgb(181, 196, 223);border-top-width:1pt;padding-top:3pt;padding-right:0in;padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:0in;"><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma, sans-serif;">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us" target="_blank" href="mailto:env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline;">env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>[<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us"
target="_blank" href="mailto:env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline;">mailto:env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us</a>]<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>On Behalf Of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Byron Leydecker<br><b>Sent:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Monday, October 04, 2010 9:24 AM<br><b>To:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>FOTR List; Trinity List<br><b>Subject:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>[env-trinity] Sac Bee 10 03 10</span></div></div></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"> </div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family:Tahoma, sans-serif;">Irrigators may get new
free pass to pollute</span></b><b><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Tahoma, sans-serif;"></span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family:Tahoma, sans-serif;">Sacramento Bee-10/3/10</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family:Tahoma, sans-serif;">By Jim Metropulos</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-family:Tahoma, sans-serif;">Opinion</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family:serif;"> </span></div><div
style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family: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.</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family: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.</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family: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.</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div
style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family: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.</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;">For west-side irrigators, this is business as usual. And the state water board plans to keep it that way.</span></b></div><div
style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family: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.</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span
style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family: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."</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family: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.</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family: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.</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family: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.</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family: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.</span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;">These west-side irrigators need to wake up and follow the rules.</span></b></div><p style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"><i><span style="font-size:14pt;color:black;">Jim Metropulos represents the Sierra Club on statewide water and energy issues.</span></i></p><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div
style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"> </span></b></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;color:gray;">Byron Leydecker, JcT</span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"></span></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;color:gray;">Chair, Friends of Trinity River</span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:serif;"></span></div><div style="margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri, sans-serif;margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;color:gray;">PO Box 2327</span></i><span
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