State plans to retire half of water district's farms
Contra Costa Times – 6/10/06
By Mike Taugher, staff writer

Up to half the farms in the nation's largest irrigation district would be taken out of production to prevent tainted runoff from polluting the Delta and ocean under a tentative plan released Friday.
 
By retiring hundreds of thousands of acres in the Westlands Water District, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation hopes to end decades of controversy over how to drain the district's farms along Interstate 5.

Originally, Westlands runoff was to be drained into the Delta near Antioch, but that plan was scrubbed after bird deformities due to selenium buildup in the water were discovered in 1983 at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge near Los Banos.
 
In an environmental impact report released Friday, the reclamation bureau says it now favors retiring 300,000 acres of the 600,000-acre district, either by purchasing the farms outright or securing non-irrigation promises from landowners. The cost to buy out the farmers is tentatively estimated at $725 million.
 
A final decision is at least a month away, and bureau officials said there could be changes to the plan. But even the second best option calls for retiring 200,000 acres of farmland, making it clear that the government intends to fallow large portions of the district and abandon plans to build a drain to the Delta or the ocean.
 
Westlands general manager Tom Birmingham had no comment Friday, but district spokeswoman Sarah Woolf said the Westlands District is in general opposed to land retirement on such a large scale.
 
"We disagree with the size of that type of retirement," Woolf said.
 
Although Westlands in 2000 said it would consider retiring 200,000 acres, Woolf said the district no longer believes it necessary to retire that much land. About 90,000 acres have already been retired. That land can be grazed or dryland farmed but not irrigated. It could also be developed for housing or other uses.
 
Environmentalists, meanwhile, welcomed the analysis.
 
"The government is finally admitting after decades of delay that almost half the land in Westlands is too toxic for farming," said Hamilton Candee, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
 
Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, a longtime opponent of the San Luis Drain, also welcomed the study.
 
"Finally, it looks like the Bureau of Reclamation may have been forced to do the right thing and take the impaired farmland out of commission," Miller said in a written statement. "This means less water will be contaminated in the first place, and it should mean more water available for river restoration and water quality improvements for the rest of the state."
 
Westlands is hindered by a layer of clay beneath the surface that prevents water from draining deep. The result is a high water table and an occasionally toxic buildup of salt near the surface.
 
Farmers in the district get their water from a federal water project and have insisted that in addition to providing irrigation, the government also has an obligation to drain the land. The courts have agreed, and in 2000 the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the bureau to provide drainage while leaving the door open to land retirement as a solution.
 
The report released Friday says the most economical option for the public is to retire the northern portion of the district, which runs generally along the east side of I-5 between an area just south of Los Banos all the way to Kettleman City, a stretch of 90 miles.
 
The less problematic portions of the district would continue to receive irrigation water, and the runoff from those farms would be recycled, treated and disposed in evaporation ponds within the San Joaquin Valley.
 
The nearing resolution of the Westlands drainage problems comes as the water district continues negotiations with the federal government on a 25-year renewal of its water contract. Its existing contract is due to expire next year.
 
Westlands has in the past favored land retirement as a way not only to address the district's drainage problems, but also to improve water supplies to the remainder of the district by applying the same amount of water to less land. Westlands farms, which average about 900 acres each, grow a variety of crops, including cotton, vegetables, grains, nuts and grapes.
 
But environmentalists say the district's water contract should be reduced along with the overall size of the district.
 
"This drainage study demonstrates that the new proposed Westlands water contract is nothing but a sweetheart deal for a few hundred corporate farms," said Candee, the NRDC lawyer.
 
Bureau spokesman Jeff McCracken said the amount of water that will be contained in the contract renewal is still the subject of negotiations.
 
Any decision the bureau makes on land retirement, runoff treatment or even drain construction will have to be funded by Congress, McCracken said.