bureau of reclamation

Thank you, Senator Dianne Feinstein, for releasing a damning report of selenium treatment technology strategies, and for your leadership on the difficult drainage issues in the San Joaquin Valley, but we want you to ask tougher questions of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation about recent secret proposals for new selenium treatment technologies.

Read the full story including the letter here.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is brokering a deal to solve the drainage crisis in the Westlands Water District, has written the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation asking some questions about a recent U.S. Geological Survey report on the feasibility of proposed drainage solutions. Click here to read.

Is another selenium-poisoned wildlife disaster like that which occurred at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in Merced County in the 1980s going to occur again? READ AN ARTICLE HERE about the latest United States Geological Survey report which indicates more problems for western San Joaquin Valley agriculture. CLICK HERE for the USGS report.

Congress considers continuing irrigation of contaminated lands; C-WIN proposes ambitious plan to end water waste

Donald R. Glaser has been named the new Mid-Pacific regional director of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

The Bureau of Reclamation's Klamath Basin Area Office (KBAO), working in partnership with other Federal and Oregon State agencies, announces the availability of $2 million in Reclamation funds for the Klamath River Watershed Restoration Program in fiscal year (FY) 2008.

Felix Smith is the Kesterson whistleblower who filed a petition with the State Water Resources Control Board to halt the irrigation of high selenium soils on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. Both the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources filed responses to Smith's petition, which were posted earlier on this website. Now Smith has responded. His response is attached. CLICK HERE.

Felix Smith, the whistleblower on the bird deformities at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge back in the 1980s, has filed a complaint with the State Water Board over the continued irrigation of high selenium soils in the Western San Joaquin Valley. He wants the water board to declare irrigation of these tainted soils an unreasonable use of water under California law. He is joined in his complaint by the California Salmon and Steelhead Assocation. The Water Board has asked the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which supplies Northern California to federal irrigation districts farming the high selenium soils, to explain what is being done to solve the selenium crisis, now in its third decade. The Bureau of Reclamation recently replied to the Water Board's inquiry. See if you can spot the flaws in the Bureau of Reclamation's arguments that the problem is being solved. Here is the Bureau's response: CLICK HERE