The State - News from Sept. 5, 1986

Two months after the Westlands Water District finished plugging drains to keep selenium-tainted water away from Kesterson Reservoir, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation filed a final environmental impact statement on the project. The report says plugging the drains may cause a “decline in crop selection and productivity resulting from rising ground water and increasing soil salinity.” That has been the main worry of Mendota-area farmers who say plugging the San Luis Drain eventually will cause agricultural runoff water to rise to the surface in low-lying areas, ruining some farm land. But Westlands plugged all of its 113 collector drains anyway by June 30, the deadline in a compromise the district reached with the Interior Department to quit polluting Kesterson. Sending drain water to Kesterson in western Merced County had become an issue because selenium leached from the soil was blamed for bird deaths and deformities.