Briny Burden

Peril for the San Joaquin

Cradled between the Sierra Nevada on the east and the Diablo Range on the west, California's San Joaquin Valley is a farmer's paradise spread across an earthly 8.5 million acres. Its fertile soil yields tomatoes, sugar beets, grapes, hay, cotton and, usually, heavenly revenues (1977 total: $4.76 billion). Yet most of the valley gets less than 10 in. of rainfall a year; farmers import nearly 60% of their water. Now the water that has helped create the paradise is threatening to ruin it.

The danger is salt. Found in even the best irrigation water, salt is usually left behind as crops soak up moisture through their roots, and the residue filters into the underground water table. But in the San Joaquin Valley, shallow layers of impermeable clay act as a natural obstacle, and brackish water has been backing up, already rising to within 5 ft. of the surface over some 400,000 acres. Adding to this mineral buildup is more salt left by evaporation. Crop losses have reached an estimated $32 million a year. If the accumulation is left unchecked, the valley could turn into a wasteland of salt flats.

Some San Joaquin farmers have coped by switching to corn, barley and other salt-tolerant crops, but this is a stopgap measure. Explains William Cerutti, 58, who tried growing walnut trees on his 700 acres: "The roots got down and they started getting to the salt. The tips start drying up, and within two or three years the trees keel over, completely dead."

According to a new 140-page federal-state study, the only real solution is better drainage. An 82-mile-long system known as the San Luis Drain already exists in the valley. The study suggests using it as the basis of an even larger network. Underground drain pipes would carry salty water from individual farms to larger collection drains, which in turn would link up to a main 10-ft.-deep concrete viaduct. From its starting point, near Bakersfield, the viaduct would convey the salty water 290 miles away to Suisun Bay.

Cost of the massive project: $750 million, to be shared almost equally by the state and federal governments. But California would buck its bill back to the farmers by charging them $15 per acre-foot of drainage water and $1.30 per acre-foot for incoming irrigation water. That, they fear, would drain them of cash. Says Cerutti: "It would ruin me." Adds Tulare County Farmer Stan Barnes: "It's the unknown, hidden costs that worry me."

Environmentalists too are worried about the unknown, particularly about the effect of heavily saline discharges into inland California waters. Recently, they forced a 15-mile rerouting of the proposed viaduct at an extra cost of $60 million. Says the Sierra Club's Peter Zars: "Our primary concern has been the amount of residual fertilizers and pesticides that would be discharged." Yet almost everyone agrees something must be done to save the San Joaquin. Warns State Conservation Department Director Priscilla Grew: "If we want to have long-term agriculture in the valley, we have to address the problem now."

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