As far back as 1883 California was aware of salt issues in San Joaquin Valley groundwater. The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board is still grappling with this today.
The state eventually built the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, creating a system of waterways that collected more salt from various rivers, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and runoff from farms and roads, depositing it in the valley. Several salinity management efforts have ensued over the years, such as the Grasslands Bypass Project in 1998.
Yet a recent report from the water board’s CV-SALTS program notes a “critical need for a means to resolve the long-term drainage, salt accumulation and salt transport problem.” The challenge is so great, resolving it would require “major resources on a similar scale to California’s water development projects.”
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The report describes such measures as vital to “preserving the valley’s world-class irrigated agriculture system and to sustain the communities that rely on the robust agricultural sector.”
The problem is growing as state and federal agencies reduce water allocations and water districts conserve use.
“There is an increased urgency with the thought that there will be less surface water supplies available,” regional board executive officer Patrick Pulupa told the State Water Resources Control Board at a hearing this month.
That means less water to drain the salt load and more salinity accumulating in the groundwater.
