"FRESNO, Calif. —  The federal government has settled a decades-old lawsuit with the nation's largest irrigation district, which has agreed in a tentative deal to clean up contaminated water in California's fertile Central Valley.

Westlands Water District will clean up water tainted by salt that has accumulated in soil from years of irrigation, general manager Thomas Birmingham said Tuesday. Federal officials have failed for more than half a century to do the work that the district will undertake, he said.

The Department of the Interior estimated the cleanup to cost $3.5 billion, based on a project the government had proposed several years ago but never completed."

Scott Smith reports for the Associated Press September 16, 2015. [2]