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Inside the Agencies
MOTHER LIQUOR
The Estuary has a big dose of mother liquor to swallow and local officials are now examining the best way to spoon it out. Mother liquor, an old-fashioned term for bittern, refers to what's left behind after sodium chloride has been removed from bay water to make table salt. And the dose in question amounts to 440 million gallons.
The bittern lies in a 315-acre salt pond, one of 10,000 acres of North Bay ponds purchased from Cargill Inc. by a consortium of public agencies this January and destined for wetland restoration. Most of the $10 million purchase price came from Shell Oil's settlement on the 1988 Martinez spill. "Progress for wildlife usually comes in small steps," says Cal Fish & Game's Boyd Gibbons, "but this is an opportunity to restore habitat in a vast area."
But before restoration can take place, the bittern and other accumulated salts need to be diluted and discharged - without harming fish and wildlife. Gibbons' agency, as caretakers of the new property, is busy working out ways to do this.
Disposal options include discharge to San Pablo Bay or the Napa River, or railcar transport to a land disposal site. According to the S.F. Regional Board, studies so far indicate that discharge to the river or bay would be environmentally acceptable if the bittern is diluted 100:1. It will take up to 44 billion gallons of fresh water to do this, according to Fish & Game's Mike Rugg, water which would come from either existing rights to the Napa River or the local sewage treatment plant.
Dilution methods vary from a direct infusion of water to an incremental addition involving the reversal of the entire salt production system. In this scenario, the bittern would be slowly diluted with river water as it moves backwards through the salt crystallization ponds toward San Pablo Bay.
"It took 30 years to accumulate, and it could take just as long to turn around," says Rugg. "But I know we can do it."
Environmentalists are worried about the impacts of dispersing the bittern into the site's many deep water ponds - ponds frequented by canvasbacks and scaup. "These birds are already subject to a lot of other stresses like selenium," says the Audubon Society's Barbara Salzman.
While keeping the bittern out of the ponds and discharging it into the Napa River could help waterfowl, it could harm migratory bass, trout and shrimp. "We don't want to make a saline barrier for fishes so they don't recognize home water," says Rugg. Some fish also actually live in the salt ponds. Rugg says his agency's overall objective is to find a disposal method that protects all the existing beneficial uses of the ponds. Contact: Mike Rugg (707)944-5523
STATE SPANNER IN BASE CLOSURE WORKS
Officials recently discovered that large parcels of Alameda Naval Air Station, Mare Island Naval Shipyard and Hunter's Point may revert to state control once the federal government leaves. "The issue is whether the state's sovereign interest in the land survives its use by the federal government," says Jane Sekelsky of the State Lands Commission, which is currently reviewing the original pacts that dedicated state-owned lands to the federal bases. The pacts may show that any landfill area on the bases that was once a tidal or submerged part of San Francisco Bay must be returned to state control. Sekelsky says the state would then hold this land subject to the public trust, which means the land could only be used for water-borne commerce, navigation, fisheries, water recreation, open space or other similar purposes. Clearly, these uses conflict with many of the others - housing, educational facilities, nonprofit institutions, businesses - proposed for civilian conversion. The only way out may be a land exchange, whereby state lands would be swapped for other lands suitable for public trust uses of the same or greater value. Contact: Jane Sekelsky (916)445-1012
MINING WATER
Like the Babylonian king Nebuchadrezzar who turned to Daniel when he couldn't get what he wanted from his top soothsayers, the state's Department of Water Resources has turned from hydrologists to geologists in the search for new water to solve Delta environmental and Los Angeles drinking water supply problems. Department geologists are now looking into water mines - accessed by high-tech wells in Sutter and Sacramento County - as a way get 70,000 extra acre feet of water during drought years.
It was concern about possible damage to groundwater reserves and basins from the mining that propelled geologists to the forefront of the water search says the department's John Fielden. "I am reasonably optimistic this can be done but it may begin with a smaller scale test program," says Fielden.
The test program, at this point, is a proposal to install about 15 wells for the South Sutter Water District. An expanded program would include test wells in two other water districts - the Natomas Central Mutual Water Company and Pleasant Grove-Verona Mutual Water Company. Combined, the wells should mine about 40,000 acre feet of groundwater for surface use, says Fielden.
Another 30,000 acre feet may be tapped on Yolo's Conaway Ranch (the biggest individual contributor to the state's 1991 water bank). Still more might come from Kern County's underground reserves. Fielden says Northern California projects would probably be used for Delta problems, and Southern California projects for urban drinking water.
In the past, similar proposals by state geologists infuriated Butte Sink farmers, who saw the wells as a kind of Trojan horse, but local managers say attitudes have changed. "With the politics that currently exist, it's impossible to build dams," says Natomas' Peter Hughes. "This plan would enable us to develop a bubble of water underground that could benefit us and the state during a drought." Contact: John Fielden (916)653-9495
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