Wild Bird Eggs In San Joaquin Valley Showing High Selenium Levels From Farm Runoff - LA Times

[hatrack]

A dozen wild bird eggs plucked from nests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley show how easily things can go awry when trying to clean up the region's tainted farm drainage.

The eggs, collected last year in fields that are part of a treatment project, contained the same lethal levels of selenium that poisoned migrating waterfowl more than two decades ago at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge near Los Banos. The 2005 egg contamination was the worst detected in five years of monitoring at the project, which recycles selenium-laced agricultural drain water by using it to irrigate crops.

The results, reported to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation this summer, come at a time when the agency is considering greatly expanding such reuse areas as part of a massive proposed drainage program on the valley's west side. The high selenium levels reinforce the concerns of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has warned that the bureau's drainage plans could endanger thousands of Central Valley waterfowl. "They have to be extremely careful; that water is so potent, they can't make any mistakes," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Joseph Skorupa. "If they make a mistake, they'll have dead birds."

The tainted eggs come from the Grasslands project, which has otherwise been a success in reducing the flow of selenium-spiked water into the San Joaquin River, where it could do environmental damage. The project takes drainage from fields south of Los Banos and uses it to irrigate crops that can tolerate the soil salts that accumulate in drain water.

EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-selenium23dec23,1,4960119.story

[NMDemDist2]

1. this is an ongoing problem there that first cropped up 20+ years ago

glad to see they have alleviated it somewhat at least