Lawmakers Move to Keep Toxics Out of S.F. Bay and Delta

Northern and Southern California legislators moved Wednesday to declare San Francisco Bay and the ecologically fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta off limits as dump sites for toxic, contaminated waters of the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge.

The lawmakers announced their plan one day after the state Water Resources Control Board ordered the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to shut down polluted Kesterson Reservoir or develop a program within three years to clean up the 1,280-acre site in Merced County.

Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge is on the receiving end of the San Luis Drain, a federal project that collects runoff agricultural water from the western side of the San Joaquin Valley. The area has become contaminated with various poisons, including selenium, that have been blamed for deaths and birth defects among waterfowl.

“Kesterson is not a wildlife refuge,” said Sen. Milton Marks (R-San Francisco). “It is a wildlife death chamber. It is a dump for toxic agricultural wastes from the San Luis Drain and it must be cleaned up.”

At a press conference, Marks, Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblymen Gray Davis (D-Los Angeles) and Robert J. Campbell (D-Richmond) voiced concern that the delta and San Francisco Bay might be targeted by the bureau to receive polluted Kesterson water.

Threat to Southern California

California Water Project water for the Southland is collected in the delta, where it is pumped into the California Aqueduct and routed south. Davis and Rosenthal expressed fear that if Kesterson water flows into the delta, Southern Californians would be threatened with unsafe drinking water.

The legislation announced Wednesday would prohibit “any discharge” from a San Joaquin Valley drain into San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, the delta, Suisun Bay or the Carquinez Straits. Current law already declares Monterey Bay off limits to such discharges.

Marks said he believes that existing statutes that prohibit certain pollutants in the delta and San Francisco Bay do not apply to the kind of heavy metal contaminants present at Kesterson.

The legislative proposals carried a hefty number of co-authors, mostly Democrats, from both the north and south. No San Joaquin Valley lawmaker signed on, however. Opposition is expected to spring from agricultural interests in the valley and elsewhere.

The legislators conceded that their program proposes no solution for the ultimate cleanup and disposal of Kesterson wastes, but that it would bring added pressure on the bureau and San Joaquin Valley farm interests to quickly devise a solution without transferring the problem to another area of the state.

Various options have been advanced to cleanse Kesterson, but they envision the expenditure of billions of dollars during a period of federal budget austerity. The lawmakers fear that extending the San Luis Drain so that its contents pour into the delta and San Francisco Bay would be the least costly and most expedient way for the bureau to proceed.

In the past, California and the U.S. government have collided in court over which has the final say on water issues. Marks said he believes that in the Kesterson case, action by state agencies and state legislation will prevail.