Boutris Willfogel on state water board's upcoming selenium punt

 
9-30-10
LloydGCarter: Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood
October Surprise from the Selenium Slackers at the State Water Board?

Don't count on the Board doing the right thing
By Boutris Wittfogel
http://www.lloydgcarter.com/
      The State Water Resources Control  Board is on the cusp of rubber stamping another decade of doing nothing to curb selenium pollution  in the San Joaquin Valley.  This should not be a surprise to anyone familiar with the water business.  It's a familiar story; agricultural interests control much of state government, including water board politicians, who are loathe to do anything that might rock the agriculture boat.  So I'm not here to dissect the politics or interpret how things came to be at the Regional Water Board or the State Water Board.
     If you are not familiar with selenium, it is a trace element embedded in the soils of the western San Joaquin Valley. It is a micronutrient and deficiencies of it can cause problems in human, mammals and fish.  But if you get a little more selenium than nutritionally necessary it can cause sickness, embryo deformities and death in humans and other critters down the food chain. Remember the 21 polo horses that died in August of 2009 and made national headlines? They got  too much selenium in their "vitamin" dose.
    Remember the Kesterson National Refuge in Central California.  It was the place where the Westlands Water District dumped its selenium-laden farm drainage water that had been leached from the ancient seabed soils of the western San Joaquin Valley by flood irrigation practices.  All the fish in the 1,280 acres of Kesterson evaporation ponds and then there was a massive bird die-off and grotesque deformities in bird hatchlings.
    The State Water Board, averse to so much bad press, decided to close the Kesterson death ponds and told federal irrigation districts to the north of the Westlands that they needed to start thinking about a better place to dump their own selenium-laced drainwater than the lower San Joaquin River.  The river drainers said "give us a little time and we'll solve the drainage pollution problem."  Now fast forward 25 years.  Since 1985, when the Kesterson ponds were closed, the so-called "Grassland" drainers have had a quarter of a century - courtesy of an exemption from pollution laws by the State Water Board - to solve the problem.  Should be able to solve the problem with a quarter of a century to fix things, right?  Wrong.  The Grasslands now want another 10 years to keep dumping their poisonous drainage in the lower river.
   The Water Board has sent out a notice for agenda item 5 for its October 5 meeting in which it will probably give the Grasslands polluters yet another free pass for a decade.  But as you may know, those Water Board notices can sometimes be hard to decode.
   So today, I offer a translation of bureaucratese in the item 5 notice for the October 5 Water Board meeting. Each number below is followed by a portion of some of the bureaucratese and my translation:  
  1.    CONSIDERATION OF A RESOLUTION APPROVING AMENDMENTS TO THE WATER QUALITY CONTROL PLAN FOR THE SACRAMENTO RIVER AND SAN JOAQUIN RIVER BASINS FOR THE CONTROL OF SELENIUM IN THE LOWER SAN JOAQUIN RIVER BASIN (This is from the heading for agenda item 5) 
Translation:  RUBBER STAMP THE REGIONAL BOARD'S DECISION TO CHANGE THE RULES TO ADD MORE TIME TO THE CLOCK BEFORE POLLUTERS HAVE TO PAY REAL $$ TO DEAL WITH THEIR SELENIUM POLLUTION IN THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY.  The 'all capitals' really give the rubber stamp a nice authoritative emphasis.  
 2.    modify the existing compliance schedule .. to allow agricultural subsurface drainage discharges (also referred to as tile drainage) to the Lower San Joaquin River to continue through December 31, 2019.
Translation:  Change the clock to add more time.  Sometimes football refs meet to discuss the real time left on the clock and sometimes they add a few seconds to make things right.  This is sort of like that, except here we have the State Water Board agreeing to the Regional Board's idea to add a decade or so to the game clock ... giving one team a clear advantage. 
 3.    the Central Valley Water Board included a compliance time schedule establishing October 1, 2010 as the effective date of the prohibition of discharge to Mud Slough.
Translation:  Stop dumping selenium by Friday, OR ELSE!  [Reminds me of a mom admonishing a child to clean their room, finger wagging, OR ELSE!]
 4.    the Central Valley Water Board has been notified that the project will be unable to fully manage all agricultural subsurface drainage to meet the water quality objective for Mud Slough and the San Joaquin River above the Merced River by 1 October 2010
Translation:  Make us!  [kid throws a temper tantrum.] 
 5.    The dischargers state that they have made a great deal of progress improving water quality in wetland supply channels and Salt Slough as well as reducing overall selenium loads but have been unable to complete all planned drainage control actions in the Grasslands Bypass Project within the timeframe established by the 1996 Basin Plan amendment.
Translation:  But mom I tried really really hard.
6.    When the 1996 amendment was adopted, there was some uncertainty over the length of time that would be needed to develop a project capable of managing all subsurface agricultural drainage produced in the area.
Translation:  Remember when you tried to make me clean my room in 1996, remember mom?  remember??
7.    The Basin Plan amendments serve an administrative need, granting more time to complete the drainage control project without changing selenium control program goals, priorities or water quality objectives.
Translation:  [mom caves in]  Oh, I remember now.  Ok, you don't have to clean your room we will have to change the law first in order to legally kick the can down the road. 
8.    The two main reasons progress has been delayed are the difficulty of finding effective drainage treatment options and the loss of previously awarded State Grant Funds.
Translation:  The gimmicks we tried over the last twenty years didn't work, and the taxpayer is tired of covering our butts.  Gimmicks aren't as much fun on our own dime.
9.    The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Delta-Mendota Water Authority signed an updated Use Agreement in December 2009 ... with oversight tasks being shared by multi-agency cooperators serving on the Data Collection and Reporting Team (day-to-day monitoring and reporting issues), the Technical and Policy Review Team (addressing the technical aspects of compliance issues), and the Drainage Oversight Committee (advised by the Technical and Policy Review Team).
Translation: A series of unaccountable committees will spread the blame around later and provide a convenient excuse for next time.
10.  The amendments will allow discharges from the Grasslands Bypass Project area to continue to impact Mud Slough (north) and the San Joaquin River between the Mud Slough discharge and the confluence with the Merced River for up to an additional nine years, three months.
Translation: Ten more years to pollute the river with selenium, ten more years until we have this discussion again.
11. The discharge of agricultural subsurface drainage water to Mud Slough (north) and the
San Joaquin River from the Mud Slough confluence to the Merced River is prohibited after December 31, 2019 unless water quality objectives for selenium are being met.
Translation: A deft use of the word "prohibit" whilst doing exactly the opposite.  
12. The amendments establish an interim performance goal during the compliance extension timeline. The interim performance goal for selenium of 15 ?g/L monthly mean is expected to be achieved by December 31, 2015.
Translation: We added some unenforceable fluff to keep critics at bay.  
13. Grasslands Bypass Project dischargers have included this as a goal for progress toward meeting the 5 ?g/L (4-day average) objective by December 31, 2019 when the extension would expire.
Translation: See you again in ten years.
There you have it, the architecture of a State Water Board rubber stamp revealed. The State Water Board is not powerless in this.  They do have the authority, and the responsibility, to tell the child "No.  Go Clean up your room, this time I mean it!"  But if history is any guide, bet on the pollution of the lower river continuing unabated.