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Conservation groups oppose San Luis Drainage Resolution Act

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 6, 2008 at 8:36 am

From Dan Bacher at IndyBay.org:

Bill Jennings, chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and Carolee Krieger, President of the California Water Impact Network, on Friday sent a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein blasting the Proposed San Luis Drainage Resolution Act and Settlement Process.

“We unconditionally object to the process and the proposed legislation,” their letter states. “The proposal will in no way be sustainable, cost effective, environmentally responsible or successful. It is guaranteed to fail and cost the taxpayers literally hundreds of millions of dollars. The proposal will also enrich a small number of landowners within the San Luis Unit by giving them a perpetual water contract that they can then market to urban areas at an incredible profit, once these untested drainage solutions inevitably fail.”

The letter then says that the solution to the drainage problem of lands on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley is “massive land retirement in the Western San Joaquin Valley.”

This proposal occurs at a time when Central Valley salmon populations and California Delta fish, including delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass, threadfin shad and other species, are in an unprecedented state of collapse.

Two of the key factors behind the fishery collapses are increases in water exports out of the Delta and declining water quality. The land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, laced with selenium and other toxic salts, should have never been irrigated because of the massive drainage problem.

“This drainwater contains extraordinarily elevated concentrations of selenium, boron, chromium, molybdenum, and extremely high concentrations of various salts that disrupt the normal ionic balance of the aquatic system,” according to a 1997 report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Read more on this story from IndyBay.org, which includes a copy of the letter sent to Senator Feinstein, by clicking here.

April 6, 2008 · Filed Under Central Valley Project, Westlands Water District

Comments

One Response to “Conservation groups oppose San Luis Drainage Resolution Act”

brthomas on April 9th, 2008 2:58 pm

More than just the conservation groups are opposing the selenium-poisoned agriculture of the western San Joaquin valley. The Los Angeles Times, Fresno Bee and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility are all on the record opposing the continued irrigation of these toxic, polluted soils in the western San Joaquin valley. When irrigation of this poisoned land is ended suddenly there will be lots of water available for everybody else in southern California.

California Delta water crisis can be solved by exporting less water to southern California.

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