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Time seeping out for drainage debacle? State regulators give 90 days to act on half-century old environmental problem

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 10, 2008 at 6:10 am

From the California Progress Report:

Fifty years after the Westlands Water District began irrigating drainage-impaired lands in the San Joaquin Valley, causing massive accumulation of toxic selenium and other salts in the soils and drainage water, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (Board) has taken action to address the ongoing pollution problem. In a letter last week, the Board gave the water district 90 days to file for a waste discharge permit and present a plan for cleaning up the soils that have been building up salts and toxins for decades.

While federal officials knew that providing water to Westlands from the Delta and Northern California would aggravate the naturally occurring salt-loading problems on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, the Federal Bureau of Reclamation pushed forward with the irrigation project. As a result, the Westlands area is one of the largest, most heavily subsidized, and profitable agribusiness regions in the world as well as one of California’s worst environmental legacies.

Read more from the California Progress Report by clicking here.

November 10, 2008 · Filed Under Agriculture, Westlands Water District

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