Roughly 100,000 acres of farmland along the Fresno-Merced county line have been moved one step closer to being allowed to continue discharging toxic runoff into the San Joaquin River until 2019, according to a Dec. 22 decision by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
The discharge had been scheduled to cease this year.
The San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority -- whose members farm 100,000 acres in south Merced County -- was given a green light by federal authorities to slowly draw down toxic discharges over a decade instead of stopping immediately. This is according to a Bureau of Reclamation's decision of record on the project's environmental impact study.
The agreement was reached, according to the decision, to "allow the Grassland Area Farmers time to acquire funds and develop feasible drain water treatment technology to meet water quality objectives by Dec. 31, 2019."
But there's still one hurdle to overcome before the agreement can be set in stone. The State Water Quality Control Board's basin management plan has to incorporate the Bureau of Reclamation's record of decision for it to be completed.
Whatever happens, not everyone is convinced the area's farmers will be able to actually meet their obligations by 2019.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency noted in the record of decision that it was "concerned" the requisite water cleanup processing facility wouldn't be in place by 2019. The agency also said it wasn't convinced there's technology that can clean the water.
Some environmentalists harbored similar concerns.
Bill Jennings, president of the California Sportfishing Alliance, acknowledged the important strides made by the area's farmers in reducing their toxic discharges, but the amount of selenium in the San Joaquin is still high enough to kill aquatic life.
In the long run, there may be no alternative but to retire some land in that area of the state, he argued.
More than 1,300 pounds of toxin-laden water flowed into the San Joaquin River from the project in 2008. The selenium-laced water comes from farmland south of Los Banos via the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, a major stopover for birds migrating to and from Canada.
"The goal of the project is to not have any discharge of selenium from this area," said Joseph McGahan with the San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority. "We have reduced the discharge of selenium by 85 percent."
Since the area where the toxic water comes from was opened for farming by the Bureau of Land Reclamation in 1968, naturally occurring selenium, boron and salt have been leaching out of the soil into the water table below.
Because high levels of those substances can be toxic to crops as well as wildlife, the groundwater beneath crop land must be pumped down so it doesn't injure crops, according to McGahan.
The only problem is that the groundwater must then be sent somewhere. Originally, much of it was sent to a series of evaporation ponds in the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in Merced. By the late '70s, mostly saline agriculture drainage was being pumped into the Kesterson Reservoir, according to a report by the U.S. Geological Survey.
But after a widely publicized biological disaster from selenium buildup at Kesterson -- where many birds and fish died -- the reservoir's use as a dumping ground ended. In 1987, the reservoir was declared toxic, drained and finally capped off, according to the USGS.
In 1985, the San Joaquin Valley Drainage Program was founded to try to solve the problem. Since 1995 agricultural drainage water has been channeled north through the San Luis Refuge and into the San Joaquin River -- instead of flowing into one fixed locale.
Since the mid-'90s the quantity of toxic water has dropped, said McGahan.
While the quantity of wastewater has been reduced, according to a 2007 study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there are still ill effects.
For now, though, south Merced County farmers have nine years to clean up those ill effects.
Reporter Jonah Owen Lamb can be reached at (209) 385-2484 or jlamb@mercedsun-star.com.
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