Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
June 11, 2007
4. Water Quality -
Another water deal is sought
Feinstein spurs talks on tainted Valley irrigation drainage.
Sacramento
By Michael Doyle - Bee Washington
On Friday, directed by Feinstein, the state's key water players gathered around a table to start hashing out the drainage issue. One result could be the federal government handing over a big reservoir and many canals to the Valley farmers who rely upon them.
Or, the government might have to spend an estimated $2.6 billion to fix an irrigation mess that's been decades in the making.
"This is a big problem," Feinstein said Friday. "It's a big environmental problem, and we have to think about the future."
The problem this time is used irrigation water, tainted by selenium, that's mired beneath farmland on the Valley's west side. With nowhere else to go, the tainted water rises up to poison plant roots.
Without a drainage outlet, the selenium-tainted water accumulates -- most infamously, at the Kesterson Reservoir in
"There are compelling environmental reasons to address this," Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Atwater, noted Friday.
Cardoza and Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, were among a handful of House members participating in the two-hour, closed-door meeting held a few feet away from the Senate floor.
The Bush administration's top water official, Assistant Interior Secretary Mark Limbaugh, joined his
A new task force will examine the drainage issue further over the next month. Actual solutions could be a long time coming, but participants Friday seemed leery of further public conflict.
"I'm setting up a process ... to incorporate everybody," Feinstein said.
One proposed solution is to retire nearly 200,000 acres of west side farmland and build a system to collect, treat and reuse irrigation flows. The $2.6 billion price tag shocks lawmakers.
"It's going to be next to impossible to get," said Limbaugh, who oversees the Bureau of Reclamation.
As an alternative, the Bureau of Reclamation has suggested transferring the San Luis Reservoir and associated canals and pumping plants to the Westlands and San Luis water districts. The government would forgive the districts' $489.6 million construction debt, and the drainage problem would then become the districts' to solve.
"It's a very interesting proposal," Feinstein said, "and it has a number of issues to work through."
The scope of those issues -- or "challenges," as Costa called them -- is reflected in an 18-page critique prepared by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Skeptics consider the proposal a giveaway of federal assets that will not solve the underlying problem, and the NRDC letter called the proposal both "extraordinarily complex" and "extremely vague."
"It will be taxpayer dollars used to untangle the drainage mess," added Lloyd Carter, director of the California Water Impact Network. "The process should be an open one."
Feinstein, though, said, "We're going to take the time it requires to do this right."
Feinstein has played a similar role in two other big
For several years, Feinstein led negotiations to secure future water supplies and restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The extended negotiations culminated in the so-called Cal-Fed legislation signed by President Bush in 2004.
Feinstein also leaned on farmers and environmentalists to settle their differences over restoring the
The San Joaquin River bill remains stuck in part because of unresolved questions of how to pay for the estimated $500 million federal share.#
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/213048.html
No comments:
Post a Comment