BACKGROUND 



This report is one of a series which presents the findings 

 of intensive interagency investigations of practical means 

 to control the nitrate concentration in subsurface agricul- 

 tural wastewater prior to its discharge into other water. 

 The primairy participants in the program are the Water 

 Quality Office of the Environmental Protection Agency, the 

 United States Bureau of Reclamation, and the California 

 Department of Water Resources, but several other agencies 

 also are cooperating in the program. These three agencies 

 initiated the program because they are responsible for 

 providing a system for disposing of subsurface agricultural 

 wastewater from the San Joaquin Valley of California and 

 protecting water quality in California's water bodies. 

 Other agencies cooperated in the program by providing 

 particular knowledge pertaining to specific parts of the 

 overall task. 



The need to ultimately provide subsurface drainage for large 

 areas of agricultural land in the western and southern San 

 Joaquin Valley has been recognized for some time. In 195^^ 

 the Bureau of Reclamation included a drain in its feasibility 

 report of the San Luis Unit. In 1957. the California Depart- 

 ment of Water Resources initiated an investigation to assess 

 the extent of salinity and high ground water problems and to 

 develop plans for drainage and export facilities. The Burns- 

 Porter Act, in i960, authorized San Joaquin Valley drainage 

 facilities as a part of the state water facilities. 



The authorizing legislation for the San Luis Unit of the 

 Bureau of Reclamation's Central Valley Project, Public Law 

 86-^88, passed in June i960, included drainage facilities 

 to serve project lands. This Act required that the Secretary 

 of Interior either provide for constructing the San Luis 

 Drain to the Delta or receive satisfactory assurance that 

 the State of California would provide a master drain for 

 the San Joaquin Valley that would adequately serve the San 

 Luis Unit . 



Investigations by the Bureau of Reclamation and the Depart- 

 ment of Water Resources revealed that serious drainage 

 problems already exist and that areas requiring subsurface 

 drainage would probably exceed one million acres by the year 

 2020. Disposal of the drainage into the Sacratmento-San 

 Joaquin Delta near Antioch, California, was found to be the 

 least costly alternative plan. 



