Senator Feinstein trying to develop a new water arrangement to deal with irrigation run off.
Another water deal is sought
Feinstein spurs talks on tainted Valley irrigation drainage.
By Michael Doyle - Bee Washington Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, June 9, 2007
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein is trying to broker another ambitious California water deal, this time involving San Joaquin Valley irrigation drainage.
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 Merced County, where thousands of birds died or were born deformed in the 1980s. A Fresno-based federal judge has already ruled that the federal government is responsible for finding a solution because the government never built a promised drainage system.
