Analysis of Policy Options for the Control of Agricultural Pollution in California’s San Joaquin River Basin

Abstract

California’s San Joaquin Valley contains one of the nation’s richest areas of agricultural production. The Valley is situated in the southern part of the State, between California’s Coastal Range to the west and the Sierra Nevada Range to the east. The San Joaquin River drains the area, flowing northward and emptying into the San Francisco Bay. Parent materials for the region s westside soils are deep layers of marine sediments, hence these soils contain a significant amount of soluble salts and trace elements, including selenium, molybdenum, boron, arsenic, and chromium. On the east side of the valley, relatively coarse alluvial soils have been deposited from the uplifted Sierra Nevada range. These soils are relatively free of the salts and trace elements that characterize the west slope soils.

Weinberg is an economist with the Resources and Technology Division, Economic Research Service, USDA. Kling and Wilen are Associate and Full Professors of Agricultural Economics, University of California, Davis. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of USDA. The authors wish to thank Dennis Wichelns for earlier contributions and Jay Shogren and Cliff Russell for very helpful comments on the manuscript. We acknowledge the support of the Gianinni Foundation, USDA Cooperative State Research Service, and the University of California, Davis, Public Service Research and Dissemination Program, without attributing the results or opinions to these agencies.