The State - News from Aug. 14, 1989

An exotic water weed called hydrilla is threatening the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta waterway, worried officials said. Madera County Agricultural Commissioner Don Cripes said hydrilla has clogged inland water passages in the east and south since it was discovered in Florida in the early 1960s. And now it has been found in Eastman Lake and the Chowchilla Rivers, near Raymond in Madera County, southwest of Yosemite. Project Manager Nate Dechoretz of the state Department of Food and Agriculture said that if hydrilla gets into the San Joaquin River and from there into the Delta it would be “a total disaster.”