Agency Offers Final Selenium Cleanup Plan for Kesterson Refuge

In the face of criticism from environmental groups concerned with the survival of threatened species, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on Monday released its final plan for cleaning up the selenium-contaminated Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge near Los Banos.

While acknowledging that the plan may pose an added risk to fish and wildlife in the area, the federal agency stood by its earlier proposal to try the least expensive potential solution. The approach--flooding areas contaminated by years of agricultural drainage with fresh water--can be carried out for as little as $3 million, the agency estimated.

In contrast, digging up contaminated soil, dumping it in a vast mound on the site and covering it to prevent leakage would cost as much as $42 million. The Bureau of Reclamation plan calls for testing the flooding procedure and turning to more expensive cleanup only if other methods fail.

The proposal was sent to the state Water Resources Control Board, which ordered the cleanup in 1985 and is expected to decide in February or March of next year whether the federal agency’s plan is acceptable.

Selenium is a naturally occurring chemical that in low doses is essential to life. But at higher levels it has caused deformities and death in fish and waterfowl found at Kesterson. Irrigation practices by growers in the Westland Water District sent selenium-contaminated water to the 12 ponds that make up the Kesterson reservoir. In June, the U.S. Department of Interior closed the reservoir to all agricultural drainage.

Kesterson is a nesting place for millions of waterfowl that migrate up and down the West Coast. It is also a home for the endangered San Joaquin kit fox as well as the threatened tricolored blackbird, according to Susan Hoffman, the Bureau of Reclamation’s Kesterson program manager.

David Houston, the Bureau of Reclamation’s regional director, told reporters that careful monitoring of the environment and steps taken to provide safe habitats for wildlife will allow his agency to begin with the least expensive cleanup procedures and move to more costly action if they prove necessary.

But representatives of environmental groups continued to be highly critical of the bureau’s proposal.

“They seem to have taken the cheapest way out,” said Terry Young, a scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund. “If they are lucky it will also be environmentally rational, but there is no guarantee that it is going to work out.”

“We don’t really think this is a cleanup plan,” said Laura King, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Covering the most heavily contaminated of the Kesterson Reservoir’s ponds with fresh water is likely to keep most of the selenium in the sludge at the bottom, King and others agreed. But they contended that tiny organisms that live in the sediment will absorb the chemical, and fish and waterfowl that feed on these organisms will continue to be exposed to toxic levels of selenium.

Considered Reasonable

But federal officials countered that their plan is reasonable and may set a standard for how to handle agricultural drainage problems throughout the West.

“We feel we have left all the doors open and have not closed any of them,” Hoffman said. The unconventional approaches could have relevance to drainage problems throughout the Central Valley and throughout the West, she said.

That prospect is of special concern to environmentalists. “If the bureau sets a precedent here by taking the least expensive route and it doesn’t really constitute a cleanup, it is simply going to encourage other people to create mini-Kestersons in the future,” said the Environmental Defense Fund’s Young.

Officials of the Westlands Water District, which may share in the cost of the Kesterson cleanup, saw the government’s proposal as reasonable. The Bureau of Reclamation is trying to find the most economical way to handle the environmental problems at Kesterson, said Westlands’ chief operating officer, William R. Johnston, “and certainly, we want to see them do that.”

‘Greater Risks’

In a letter sent to the Water Resources Control Board, Houston agreed that taking the more economical approach at Kesterson could result “in greater risks of environmental harm.” However, he pointed to efforts to offset the potential damage--including the development of a new pond as a wildlife habitat and continued monitoring of animal and plant life at the refuge.