[env-trinity] Tenacity on "unreasonable use"

[Mark Dowdle - TCRCD]

Opinion:
Lloyd G. Carter: A California water story of individual tenacity
Sacramento Bee - 4/25/08
By Lloyd G. Carter - Special to The Bee

You have to give 75-year-old Felix Smith of Carmichael credit for tenacity.



A quarter-century ago, Smith became the conscience of the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service when he blew the whistle on the selenium poisoning of the 
Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in western Merced County.



In the spring of 1983, Smith and another biologist discovered deformed bird 
embryos in nests at Kesterson, where 100-acre holding ponds were evaporating 
agricultural drainage water from the Westlands Water District. The drainage 
water contained selenium, a naturally occurring element in the soils of 
Westlands that was highly toxic to bird reproduction. Adult birds were dying 
by the thousands and some species had a complete reproductive failure.



James Watt, then U.S. secretary of interior, ordered news of the discovery 
suppressed while an official press release was prepared. Several months 
later, with the press release still supposedly being formulated, a 
frustrated Smith leaked the story to Deborah Blum, when she was a reporter 
for the Fresno Bee.



Within 18 months, the New York Times, the Washington Post and CBS' "60 
Minutes" all gave major coverage to the unfolding debacle, pitting a 
politically powerful federal irrigation district against environmentalists 
and adjacent Kesterson landowners, who had seen their cattle die.



In February 1985, the State Water Resources Control Board, responding to a 
complaint from Kesterson neighbors Jim and Karen Claus, ordered Kesterson 
cleaned up or closed. The following month, the Interior Department, its 
options dwindled, ordered Kesterson closed, an action that left the 
Westlands Water District without drainage, a problem that exists to this 
day.



After 34 years as a federal scientist, Smith retired in 1990, but not into 
quiet obscurity. In 1995, Smith, as a private citizen, filed a complaint 
with the water board contending irrigation of high selenium soils in the 
western Valley was an unreasonable use of water under state law. Smith 
warned that even though the Kesterson ponds had closed, selenium-loaded 
drainage from federal irrigation districts north of Westlands was still 
being funneled untreated into the lower San Joaquin River. Studies had 
revealed that levels of selenium as low as 2 to 5 parts per billion in the 
drainage water could impact fish reproduction. That's equivalent to one drop 
in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.



However, the water board ignored Smith, claiming work was being done on the 
drainage problem by state and federal agencies. In 2000, the water board 
dismissed Smith's complaint without taking action. Smith knew that funding a 
private lawsuit to force the water board to act was simply far more than he 
could afford.

Smith could have given up and gone fishing with his grandchildren. But in 
January this year, with the Delta fishery facing catastrophic collapse, he 
refiled his complaint.

In a Jan. 10 letter to water board Chairwoman Tam Doduc, Smith wrote, "Many 
of the impacts documented in my past letters/complaints continue today. In 
addition, there are other more ominous concerns and environmental impacts 
coming to the forefront."



This is a reference to the current Delta fishery crisis and the collapse of 
the salmon runs.



Last month, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the 
California Water Impact Network also filed a complaint with the water board 
again alleging unreasonable use of precious Delta water.



The sportfishing alliance and the water network, in an April 15 letter to 
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, also warned of the perils of irrigating 
soils loaded with selenium. Feinstein is attempting to broker a drainage 
"solution" with Westlands (and adjacent water districts) that would keep at 
least 300,000 acres of high-selenium soils in production.



Feinstein has drawn much criticism from California's environmental community 
for her closed-door, limited-access negotiations with Westlands growers, who 
claim they have a drainage solution (limited land retirement, recycling and 
sprinkler evaporation), a solution that environmental scientists say is 
highly problematic and almost certainly unworkable. Where the millions of 
tons of salts ultimately accumulated would go is still undetermined.



If Feinstein wants to learn something about drainage and selenium, she 
should sit down with Felix Smith. After a half-century in the water wars, he 
could give her an earful.#

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/888598.html