Document Details
Retiring Poisoned Lands in the Western San Joaquin Valley: A C-WIN Policy Brief
California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) | January 1st, 2012
It is the policy of the California Water Impact Network to:
•Retire poisoned lands from irrigation so that pollution from naturally high levels of contaminants such as salt, selenium, boron, mercury, arsenic and molybdenum is ended.
•End wasteful and unreasonable uses of water as mandated under the California Constitution.
•Slow or stop the spread of contamination to drinking water supplies, aquifers and aquatic food webs (including those with anadromous fish) where it now occurs, thereby protecting human and public health.
•Redirect as much as 4 million acre-feet of fresh water freed from retired lands to other beneficial uses within the Central Valley watershed, including fish and wildlife refuges, Delta ecosystem restoration and instream flows, and drought-period municipal uses.
•Require that solutions for retiring the poisoned lands from irrigation result in either no net change or an actual net decrease in energy consumption associated with use of those lands.
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