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EPA Memo states Westlands deal packed full of problems

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 30, 2007 at 8:06 am

Here’s an article written by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility that is posted on Yuba.Net:

A multi-billion dollar Bureau of Reclamation plan to address mounting irrigation-induced pollution in California’s Central Valley is packed with economic, environmental and technical problems, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency memo released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Rather than retire the land producing the drainage contamination, Reclamation is pushing an expensive scheme for agribusiness to assume control and continue irrigation.

One danger is a repeat of an ecological disaster from the early 1980s that went by the name Kesterson. Tens of thousands of grotesquely deformed and dead birds littered the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge, poisoned by selenium and other toxics that accumulated in irrigation drainage water from the Westlands Water District, the nation’s largest and most influential irrigator. In 1985, the Bureau of Reclamation closed the drainage conduits to Kesterson, and Westlands pledged to solve the drainage problem. Twenty years later, that solution still appears elusive.

Reclamation’s latest plan relies upon untested technology and an unprecedented privatization of federal water power. In exchange for the San Luis Contractors (which includes Westlands) finally addressing drainage problems, Reclamation proposes increasing water deliveries, forgiving Central Valley debt repayment worth tens of billions of dollars over the next 60 years, and ceding the contractors control of public water facilities.

To read the full text of the story from Yuba.Net, which includes a link to the EPA memo, click here.

The same story is also in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, and adds this:

The Aug. 21 memo written by EPA Regional Administrator Carolyn Yale, expresses reservations about the feasibility of management, treatment and disposal of the contaminants by agricultural interests without government assistance and oversight. “We are concerned about the possibility of implementing a drainage plan which allows continued generation of high volumes of contaminated drainage without the assurance of effective and economic treatment and disposal,” states the memo, which was addressed to Frederico Barajas, the regional director for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It urges the bureau to implement extensive monitoring of the cleanup program and testing of drainage water.

The U.S. government has calculated it would cost $2.6 billion to clean up the mess. Westlands officials believe they can do it for less than $1 billion, according to government sources.

To read the full text of the story from the San Francisco Chronicle, click here.

August 30, 2007 · Filed Under Westlands Water District

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