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inage Program I~ r~ ~ iQ I The IDP report says Kern County will have about 100,000 acres which will need drainage by 1985, But if the drain is built by the federal government with the state participating in the southern portion, state water contractors will have to pay significantly more than federal water contractors, According to Stu Pyle, , Manager of the Kern County Water Agency, "The cost of a master drain is very expensive, and we do not want to enter into contracts which add more expense to water users down here," He agrees with theIDP interim plan to rely on local collection and ponding of the salty water in the Kern County area for the next 20 years and says, "There is a problem, but we feel it should be handled locally and doesn't require a drain to the Delta. Again our people do not want to underwrite costs for future construction," Pyle says several thousand acres are now used for drainage ponds, and this could rise eventually to 25,000 acres of non-productive land, "We're not talking about taking top-notch land out of production in Kern Co," Environmentalists at Odds Dr. Karen Tsao of the Environmental Defense Fund says her group recognizes the problem but is against the drain as proposed in the IDP report. "It's not a question of yes or no on the drain, It's a question of finding the least cost alternatives and ones that are environmentally sound," She says the effects on the Delta have not been fully considered nor adequately modeled, She takes issue with the IDP report, saying projected effluent is assumed to grow rapidly while the report doesn't give figures on how the effluent load delivered to the Delta was derived. If the efflu- ent load is determined on the amount of farmland go- inginto production, she says, "DWR's estimates vary greatly, over five times, between the least and the largest amounts of land they think will go into pro- duction in the San Joaquin Valley by the year 2020," The Environmental Defense Fund is dissatisfied with Assemblyman Thurman's standards law, Tsao says, because the law focuses attention exclusively on the drain as proposed and avoids consideration of alterna- tives, Dan Chapin, Chairman of the California Waterfowl Association, served as Vice Chairman of the Inter- agency Drainage Committee's Public Advisory Com- mittee. Chapin points out two alternative methods of solving the salt buildup problem in the valley, The first, he says, is by collecting the drainage water in evaporation ponds and transporting the resulting solid salt to its final disposition point. The second is by constructing the drain to convey the brine to its ulti- mate destination, "Either alternative could provide important waterfowl benefits, but the drain concept offers much greater opportunity to establish addition- al productive marshes, "Therefore, its potential bene- fits for the ducks are clearly better," Chapin says, He also feels that the terminus of a drain can be located where it will not have an adverse impact on the impor- tant wetlands of the Suisun Marsh, Notingthat the salinity of the drain water varies from 5 to 15 parts per thousand (sea water is 35 parts per thousand), Chapin points out, "A drain discharge to Suisun Bay as far west as Benicia would actually be fresher than the 15 to 25 parts per thousand water prevalent there, Conversely, a discharge at Antioch could severely de- grade the quality of water found in that area," How- ever, he has reservations about a Chipps Island dis- charge location. "While the mathematical model used to identify that site was the best available at the time, it had some serious limitations." Chapin claims. "For- tunately, the Bureau of Reclamation studies required by the SWRCB before they issue a drain permit will have to address that point specifically," The state DFG supports a comprehensive valley drain as proposed in Thurman's standards law. Dick Daniel, Staff Biologist of DFG says, "It (the valley drain) recognizes the opportunity to utilize drainage water for the development and maintenance of marsh habitat-a highly productive and valuable habitat type which has been greatly diminished in the state." Daniel says the Thurman act reiterates and strengthens existing environmental safeguards of discharge to the Delta while at the same time providing the opportunity to accomplish something for agriculture and achieve added benefit for people through the restoration of valley marshland, Daniel notes, "We believe the tech- nolOgy exists to make the drain safe for the environ- ment, but if future data shows the effluent to be harmful to the Delta or Bay, DFG would be opposed, to the drain discharge," The eventual construction of a valley-wide drain is seen by Lou Beck, DWR's Chief of the San Joaquin District, who says he believes state water contractors will be forced to sign contracts agreeing to pay for the drain, But he says this won't happen for years until the situation worsens or a semi-disaster occurs, "I'm convinced," Beck says, "The Bureau will build the northern extension to the Delta by 1986, Once that's done, the state could come in as early as the 1990's'''. 11