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Drainage Unplugged

The decades-long battle over responsibility for draining salty irrigation water from the western San Joaquin Valley entered a new phase in February when a federal appeals court ruled that the Department of the Interior must provide drainage - although not necessarily via the highly controversial San Luis Drain.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that under the San Luis Act, which authorized the San Luis Unit of the Central Valley Project, the Department has a duty to provide drainage service to the region. However, it added that "subsequent Congressional action has given discretion to the Department in creating and implementing a drainage solution."

The decision partially reverses a 1995 lower court decision requiring BurRec to seek discharge permits to allow completion of the drain, which was designed to empty into the Delta near Antioch. Construction has been suspended since 1975 due to concerns about the discharge's effects on Delta water quality, and the drain was closed altogether in 1986 after bird deformities at Kesterson Reservoir - which then served as the terminus of the drain - were attributed to selenium in drainage.

So what happens next? "It's not really clear what impact the decision will have," says BurRec's Mike Delamore. Although the ruling is regarded as at least a partial victory for the environment, Environmental Defense's Terry Young worries that people will read the decision as a mandate for a "big, government subsidized program," rather than seekinga solution that combines farmer actions, local actions and government involvement. "The drain plan is outdated. The way to solve the drainage problem is to look at all the options," she says.

Delamore says that's exactly what BurRec has been trying to do. "We've been actively pursuing other options all along," he says. But the court's ruling sends a clear message to get on with it. The decision concludes that "the time has come for the Department of Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation to bring the past two decades of studies, and the 50 million dollars expended pursuing an "in valley" drainage solution, to bear in meeting its duty to provide drainage under the San Luis Act."

Contact: Mike Delamore (559)487-5039

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