tool name

Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009

Mike Wade: Grasslands water project deserves extension

Public-private partnerships are a cost-effective way to bring about improvements that have far-reaching benefits.

That is exactly the case with a project on Merced County's Westside that has reduced agricultural runoff to the San Joaquin River, improved wildlife habitat and helped keep more than 97,000 acres in farm production.

But that partnership is at risk of collapsing because of the temporary economic downturn California is experiencing.

A delay in transmitting already-approved finances to fund the Grassland Bypass Project has resulted in a request for a 10-year extension.

The Grassland Bypass Project has already reduced drainage water runoff from 57,000 acre-feet in the mid 1990s to only 16,000 acre-feet in 2008, and rejecting the permit extension would imperil the accomplishments already achieved.

Farmers in the 97,000 acres covered by the project have contributed a third of the costs for the program while state and federal sources make up the rest. Additional time is needed to acquire funds and develop feasible drain water treatment technology.

Delays in bond funding and other governmental accounting procedures have also reduced the speed of the money flow that has already been approved.

Project officials point to the accomplishments of increasing wildlife safeguards as well as the reduced drainage flows as reasons for approving the extension that is awaiting action from the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Failure to grant the extension would represent an investment loss that already totals more than $100 million.

Drainage water from the area was never shipped to Kesterson Reservoir, the site of an environmental calamity in the 1980s.

Although the water qualities are similar, Kesterson was in effect an evaporation basin while the water from the Grassland Bypass Project is a flowing system. The real beneficiaries of the Grassland Bypass Project are the private, state and federal wetlands in the area.

Because of the farmers' commitment to bypass water out of the wetland areas and to eliminate drainage to the San Joaquin River, this water no longer affects the wetland areas.

Approval of the extension would allow project operators to reach their goal of reducing the drainage water from reaching the river. As in past years, the year-to-year operation of the drainage program will be overseen by state and federal regulators.

The eventual goal of the program is to reduce annual drainage to somewhere between 150-600 pounds of selenium discharge into the river.

In comparison, during the first year of an approved extension, allowable drainage amounts will vary from 1,650 pounds to 4,480 pounds depending on the water year type.

In wetter years more drainage is allowed because the additional river flows effectively dilute the discharge to safe limits. The Grassland Bypass Project currently exceeds its initial drainage reduction goals and expects to continue that success over the life of the project

Most important is the pending approval to continue a project that has already demonstrated results in reduced drainage flows and improved wildlife conditions.

Simply because economic conditions impacted the rate of funding available for the project in recent years is no cause to halt the project and throw away the public-private investment in improving one of California's most important waterways.

The Grasslands Bypass Project deserves the 10-year extension.

Mike Wade is executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition.