The State - News from Aug. 19, 1986

Westlands Water District directors voted to spend $6.5 million in the next four years to test two systems designed to solve the district’s drainage water disposal problems. The board approved prototypes of a selenium removal process and a deep-well injection system. Previously, the huge farming district on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley dumped the waste water in the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in Merced County. However, the district was forced by the federal government to stop that practice because the waste water polluted the refuge, killing and mutating birds and other wildlife.