<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"><head><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml><o:OfficeDocumentSettings><o:AllowPNG/><o:PixelsPerInch>96</o:PixelsPerInch></o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--></head><body><div class="ydpccf99261yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px;"><div><div class="ydpccf99261signature" dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-27/salmon-sacramento-river-draining" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-27/salmon-sacramento-river-draining</a></div><div class="ydpccf99261signature"><div><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><div><div class="ydp9730b56ebreadcrumbs" style="margin-bottom: 10px;"><a class="ydp9730b56elink" href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; font-family: arial, helvetica neue, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; display: inline-block; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; padding: 2px 5px 0px; text-transform: uppercase; text-align: center; border-color: currentcolor; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; cursor: pointer;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">OPINION</a></div><h1 class="ydp9730b56eheadline" style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; font-family: times new roman, times, serif; font-weight: 500; font-style: normal; letter-spacing: -0.2px;">Op-Ed: Salmon is an indicator species for California’s water crisis. It’s not looking good<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span></h1><div class="ydp9730b56epage-wrapper" style="margin-top: 40px;"><div class="ydp9730b56epage-main-content"><div class="ydp9730b56epage-lead-media" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px;"><img class="ydp9730b56eimage" alt="Fishermen ply the waters of the Sacramento River near Redding in October. " src="https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/60c725b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4800x2988+0+0/resize/840x523!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F3d%2Fa2%2F571cc6d244ca845f8d9bac9ad1ef%2Fla-photos-1staff-637469-a-me-nocal-coronavirus-christian-churc021-ls.jpg" style="display: block; max-width: 800px; vertical-align: middle; border-style: none; width: 100%; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div class="ydp9730b56efigure-content" style="font-family: arial, helvetica neue, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 500; font-style: normal; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px;"><div class="ydp9730b56efigure-caption" style="display: inline;">Fishermen ply the waters of the Sacramento River near Redding in October. The winter-run Chinook salmon population has declined down to a few thousand fish that manage to run out of the San Francisco Bay and return to spawn below a dam near Redding.<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span><br><br></div><div class="ydp9730b56efigure-credit" style="display: inline; margin-left: 5px;">(Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)</div></div></div><div class="ydp9730b56ebyline" style="margin-bottom: 20px; max-width: 680px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><div class="ydp9730b56eauthors" style="margin-bottom: 12px; text-transform: uppercase; margin-right: 10px;"><div class="ydp9730b56eauthor-name" style="font-family: arial, helvetica neue, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 500; font-style: normal; display: inline; text-transform: uppercase;"><span class="ydp9730b56ebyline-prefix" style="text-transform: none;">By </span><span>JAMES POGUE</span></div></div><span class="ydp9730b56epublished-date-day">JUNE 27, 2021<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span></span><span class="ydp9730b56epublished-time">3:20 AM PT<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span></span><div class="ydp9730b56epage-actions" style="display: block;"><ul class="ydp9730b56eaction-bar-menu" style="margin: 0px; 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background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-image: none; background-size: auto; position: relative; z-index: 2; width: 100%; max-width: 400px; border-radius: 0px 0px 2px 2px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(224, 228, 233);" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="background-color:#ffffff;padding:16px 0 16px 12px;vertical-align:top;border-radius:0 0 0 2px"><img class="ydpe4cbd1ccard-object-1 ydpe4cbd1cyahoo-ignore-inline-image ydpe4cbd1cymail-preserve-class" src="https://s.yimg.com/nq/storm/assets/enhancrV2/23/logos/latimes.png" style="min-width:36px;margin-top:3px" height="36"></td><td style="vertical-align:middle;padding:12px 24px 16px 12px;width:99%;font-family:YahooSans, Helvetica Neue, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;border-radius:0 0 2px 0"><h2 class="ydpe4cbd1ccard-title" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px 0px 6px; font-family: YahooSans, Helvetica Neue, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(38, 40, 42); max-width: 314px;">Op-Ed: Salmon is an indicator species for California's water crisis. It...</h2><p class="ydpe4cbd1ccard-description" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; color: rgb(151, 155, 167);">The failure of state officials to stand up to agribusiness to save this fish is a grim signal for the long-term ...</p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></ul></div></div><div class="ydp9730b56epage-article-container" style="max-width: 680px; margin: 0px auto;"><div class="ydp9730b56epage-article-body"><div class="ydp9730b56erich-text-article-body"><div class="ydp9730b56erich-text-article-body-content ydp9730b56erich-text-body" style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 30px;">In mid-June, California’s State Water Resources Control Board<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span><a class="ydp9730b56elink" href="https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/drought/sacramento_river/docs/2021/6-10-21_final_tmp_response.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; background-color: transparent;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">wrote a tragic letter</a>. The board, which has significant powers under California’s Constitution to manage water for the benefit of California’s people and ecosystems, wrote that it would approve a plan for water releases out of Lake Shasta that risk destroying the Sacramento River’s iconic winter-run Chinook salmon population forever.</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">The winter-run Chinook population has already declined by 99%, down to a few thousand fish that manage to run out of the San Francisco Bay and return to spawn below a dam near Redding. Baby salmon need cold water to hatch from their eggs and grow until they’re ready to migrate to the ocean. But in this drought year, the Federal Bureau of Reclamation has proposed<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span><a class="ydp9730b56elink" href="https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/drought/sacramento_river/docs/2021/NRDCprotest.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; background-color: transparent;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">drawing down the levels</a><span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span>in Lake Shasta — California’s largest reservoir — to deliver water to irrigators in the Central Valley, allowing the diminished reservoir to heat up over the summer to temperatures that when released into the river “could increase the risk of extinction significantly,” as the board’s own letter put it.</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">The board, whose members are appointed by the governor, could have modified the plan. Even keeping a small fraction of the water sent for irrigation to be released later could have a dramatic impact on the survival rates of young salmon hatching later in the summer. But holding back water to save fish would have set up a conflict with powerful business interests in the Central Valley.</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">The board seems to have been more willing to risk the extinction of a salmon run than they were to risk angering landowners and lobbyists. To save even some of the Sacramento River’s salmon population, in a year where pumping water to farms has resulted in dangerously low water flows, California has had to resort to hauling millions of young fish raised in state-run hatcheries via tanker trucks to the Golden Gate. But trucking fish is a desperate measure, one that conceals a larger crisis that is likely to make the fate of fish into one of the key political issues of California’s drought-stricken future.</p><div class="ydp9730b56eenhancement" data-align-center="" style="width: 680px; clear: both; margin: 30px 0px;"><div class="ydp9730b56egoogle-dfp-ad-wrapper" data-min-height="270" data-ad-rendered="true" style="text-align: center; min-height: 298px;"><div class="ydp9730b56egoogle-dfp-ad-caption" style="font-family: arial, helvetica neue, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 500; font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 5px; text-transform: uppercase;">ADVERTISEMENT</div></div></div><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">“The salmon for us are the indicators of how healthy our world is,”<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span><a class="ydp9730b56elink" href="https://earthjustice.org/features/the-california-drought" style="text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; background-color: transparent;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">said Caleen Sisk</a>, leader of the Winnemem Wintu tribe, which has fished for salmon in the Sacramento river watershed for thousands of years.</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">Salmon and their steelhead cousins were once a living link between California’s mountains and the coast, carrying nutrients up from the ocean, which helped to keep watersheds healthy and lush, for the benefit of the entire ecosystem. Now Southern California’s steelhead are almost entirely gone, and our salmon populations are collapsing with astonishing speed. But these diminished salmon runs still have a major impact, and can even benefit farmers. As much as<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span><a class="ydp9730b56elink" href="https://websites.pmc.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/EART_229/10-0219%20Marine-Terrestrial%20Coupling/Mertz%20&%20Moyle%2006%20EcAp%2016-999.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; background-color: transparent;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">25% of foliar nitrogen</a><span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span>in crops near salmon rivers can be traced to marine sources.</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">“When salmon spend years in the ocean, they are bringing all these nutrients and actually fertilizing the land,” Doug Obegi, a water specialist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told me. “And that transfer of nutrients has been shown to be hugely beneficial for forests, but also for vineyards, and for a number of crops.”</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">This understanding of the key role of fish in our landscape is now widely shared. It’s an understanding that’s making sea-run fish into an unlikely major issue in our politics — from the Klamath River basin in the far north, where ranchers are threatening violent resistance to efforts to save salmon by cutting back irrigation water use, to Los Angeles County, where an effort to restore native fish to the Arroyo Seco has touched off a “water war” between activists and the Pasadena Department of Water and Power.</p><div class="ydp9730b56eenhancement" data-align-center="" style="width: 680px; clear: both; margin: 30px 0px;"><div id="ydp9730b56enativo_1"><div class="ydp9730b56entv-moap ydp9730b56entv1081112-440085-83793 ydp9730b56enoskim" id="ydp9730b56entv1081112-440085-83793" data-confiant-id="CONFIANT_AD_SUFFIX_2069" style="width: 680px; background-color: rgb(242, 242, 242); position: relative; border-color: rgb(214, 214, 214); border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; padding: 5px; margin: 20px 0px; display: table;"><div class="ydp9730b56entv-img" style="width: 250px; vertical-align: middle; display: table-cell;"><a href="https://www.latimes.com/paid-posts/?prx_t=FbcGAFz5NAGH8QA&prx_ro=s&ntv_acpl=1081112&ntv_acsc=0&ntv_oc=134&ntv_gsscm=820*19;814*10;&ntv_fr" title="Avoiding Extended Blackouts During the Long, Hot Wildfire Season Will Require Innovation. The Good News—A Solution is Ready." style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; background-color: transparent;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img alt="Avoiding Extended Blackouts During the Long, Hot Wildfire Season..." class="ydp9730b56entv-image-wrapper" src="https://ntvcld-a.akamaihd.net/image/upload/w_600,h_338,c_fill,g_auto:text,f_auto,fl_lossy,e_sharpen:70/assets/EE8B997040AF46A88E4B389DFE70F11A.png" style="display: block; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; border-style: none;" data-inlineimagemanipulating="true" data-id="1624804488048"></a></div><div class="ydp9730b56entv-entry" style="vertical-align: middle; display: table-cell; padding-left: 15px;"><div class="ydp9730b56entv-disclaimer" style="text-transform: uppercase; padding: 5px 5px 4px; background-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); display: inline-block; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px;"><a href="https://www.latimes.com/paid-posts/?prx_t=FbcGAFz5NAGH8QA&prx_ro=s&ntv_acpl=1081112&ntv_acsc=0&ntv_oc=134&ntv_gsscm=820*19;814*10;&ntv_fr" title="Avoiding Extended Blackouts During the Long, Hot Wildfire Season Will Require Innovation. The Good News—A Solution is Ready." style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">PAID CONTENT</a></div><h2 class="ydp9730b56entv-title" style="margin: 5px 0px; font-size: 20px; line-height: 22px;"><a class="ydp9730b56entv-headline ydp9730b56entv_link1081112-440085 ydp9730b56entv-headline-anchor" href="https://www.latimes.com/paid-posts/?prx_t=FbcGAFz5NAGH8QA&prx_ro=s&ntv_acpl=1081112&ntv_acsc=0&ntv_oc=134&ntv_gsscm=820*19;814*10;&ntv_fr" title="Avoiding Extended Blackouts During the Long, Hot Wildfire Season Will Require Innovation. The Good News—A Solution is Ready." style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: transparent;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Avoiding Extended Blackouts During the Long, Hot Wildfire Season...</a></h2><div class="ydp9730b56entv-author" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;">By<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.latimes.com/paid-posts/?prx_t=FbcGAFz5NAGH8QA&prx_ro=s&ntv_acpl=1081112&ntv_acsc=0&ntv_oc=134&ntv_gsscm=820*19;814*10;&ntv_fr" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: transparent;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">CARL GUARDINO, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS AND POLICY, BLOOM ENERGY</a></div><p style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px; margin: 5px 0px !important;">According to CALFIRE, 2020 was the largest wildfire season in California’s modern history, with 4.1 million acres set ablaze. Now, in 2021, we are in the middle of the third driest year on record with water restrictions likely to come later this...</p></div></div></div><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">“If you have a healthy ecosystem it helps everybody, not just the fishing industry and the fish,” Felicia Marcus, a former chair of the water resources board, told me. A state that manages its watersheds to help fish is also a state that’s working to make its ecosystems livable and pleasant for people too.</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">But politically powerful agricultural interests and real estate investors have for decades now been the main beneficiaries of our water policies. Gov. Gavin Newsom has carried on that tradition, most obviously when, under frantic lobbying from agribusiness interests, he<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span><a class="ydp9730b56elink" href="https://calmatters.org/commentary/2019/09/senate-bill-1-veto/" style="text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; background-color: transparent;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">vetoed SB. 1,</a><span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span>a law specifically aimed at rescuing species threatened by Central Valley pumping from Trump administration rollbacks in environmental protections. These weakened protections helped to create the crisis the salmon are facing today.</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">Lake Shasta is the centerpiece of a system that this year will pump almost 4.5 million acre-feet — the equivalent of California’s entire allotment of water from the Colorado River — out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin river system, draining desperately needed fresh water from tributaries, the Sacramento Delta, and the San Francisco Bay. Most of this water, pumped at great expense, will go to large agribusinesses in the Central Valley, which are often owned by out-of-state entities growing water-intensive commodity crops.</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">These agribusinesses have huge lobbying power, both in Washington and in Sacramento. Stewart and Lynda Resnick, the Beverly Hills-based planter billionaires, for example,<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span><a class="ydp9730b56elink" href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/03/26/big-ag-billionaires-donate-250000-to-newsoms-campaign-against-recall/" style="text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; background-color: transparent;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">have donated more than $350,000 to Gov. Newsom since 2018.</a></p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">For too long, water issues in California have been framed as “farmers vs. fish,” a choice between saving endangered fish species and saving jobs in California’s agricultural sector, which<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span><a class="ydp9730b56elink" href="https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/" style="text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; background-color: transparent;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">consumes 80% of water deliveries</a><span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span>and produces about<span class="ydp9730b56eApple-converted-space"> </span><a class="ydp9730b56elink enhancr_card_5086101868" href="https://economic-impact-of-ag.uada.edu/california/" style="text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; background-color: transparent;" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">3% of the state’s gross domestic product</a>. But this false choice obscures the fact that water deliveries to rich farmers have all but destroyed California’s well-regulated salmon fishing industry, which until recently provided well-paying jobs on over 30,000 boats plying the waters of Northern California. And it obscures the fact that farmers in areas like the Sacramento Delta need natural freshwater flows, to flush out rising salinity in the water table caused by infiltrating seawater from the San Francisco Bay, among myriad other reasons.</p><div><br></div><div id="ydp8fefc0baenhancr_card_5086101868" class="ydp8fefc0bayahoo-link-enhancr-card ydp8fefc0baymail-preserve-class ydp8fefc0baymail-preserve-style" style="max-width:400px;font-family:YahooSans, Helvetica Neue, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" data-url="https://economic-impact-of-ag.uada.edu/california/" data-type="YENHANCER" data-size="MEDIUM" contenteditable="false"><a href="https://economic-impact-of-ag.uada.edu/california/" style="text-decoration-line: none !important; text-decoration-style: solid !important; text-decoration-color: currentcolor !important; color: rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;" class="ydp8fefc0bayahoo-enhancr-cardlink" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><table class="ydp8fefc0bacard-wrapper ydp8fefc0bayahoo-ignore-table" style="max-width:400px" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td width="400"><table class="ydp8fefc0bacard ydp8fefc0bayahoo-ignore-table" style="max-width:400px;border-width:1px;border-style:solid;border-color:rgb(224, 228, 233);border-radius:2px" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td class="ydp8fefc0bacard-primary-image-cell" style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: cover; position: relative; border-radius: 2px 2px 0px 0px; min-height: 175px;" valign="top" height="175" bgcolor="#000000" background="https://s.yimg.com/lo/api/res/1.2/7rpwZ5Ni68ZgQTJPUOS.vQ--~A/Zmk9ZmlsbDt3PTQwMDtoPTIwMDthcHBpZD1pZXh0cmFjdA--/https://economic-impact-of-ag.uada.edu/files/2021/02/CA2021-FactSheet-NAMI-Reports_2016-320x412.png.cf.jpg"><!--[if gte mso 9]><v:rect fill="true" stroke="false" style="width:396px;height:175px;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;"><v:fill type="frame" color="#000000" src="https://s.yimg.com/lo/api/res/1.2/7rpwZ5Ni68ZgQTJPUOS.vQ--~A/Zmk9ZmlsbDt3PTQwMDtoPTIwMDthcHBpZD1pZXh0cmFjdA--/https://economic-impact-of-ag.uada.edu/files/2021/02/CA2021-FactSheet-NAMI-Reports_2016-320x412.png.cf.jpg"/></v:rect><![endif]--><table class="ydp8fefc0bacard-overlay-container-table ydp8fefc0bayahoo-ignore-table" style="width:100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td class="ydp8fefc0bacard-overlay-cell" style="background-color: transparent; border-radius: 2px 2px 0px 0px; min-height: 175px;" valign="top" bgcolor="transparent" background="https://s.yimg.com/cv/ae/nq/storm/assets/enhancrV21/1/enhancr_gradient-400x175.png"><!--[if gte mso 9]><v:rect fill="true" stroke="false" style="width:396px;height:175px;position:absolute;top:-18px;left:0;"><v:fill type="pattern" color="#000000" src="https://s.yimg.com/cv/ae/nq/storm/assets/enhancrV21/1/enhancr_gradient-400x175.png"/><v:textbox inset="0,0,20px,0"><![endif]--><table class="ydp8fefc0bayahoo-ignore-table" style="width: 100%; min-height: 175px;" height="175" border="0"><tbody><tr><td class="ydp8fefc0bacard-richInfo2" style="text-align:left;padding:15px 0 0 15px;vertical-align:top"></td><td class="ydp8fefc0bacard-actions" style="text-align:right;padding:15px 15px 0 0;vertical-align:top"><div class="ydp8fefc0bacard-share-container"></div></td></tr></tbody></table><!--[if gte mso 9]></v:textbox></v:rect><![endif]--></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td><table class="ydp8fefc0bacard-info ydp8fefc0bayahoo-ignore-table" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-image: none; background-size: auto; position: relative; z-index: 2; width: 100%; max-width: 400px; border-radius: 0px 0px 2px 2px; border-top: 1px solid rgb(224, 228, 233);" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" align="center"><tbody><tr><td style="background-color:#ffffff;padding:16px 0 16px 12px;vertical-align:top;border-radius:0 0 0 2px"></td><td style="vertical-align:middle;padding:12px 24px 16px 12px;width:99%;font-family:YahooSans, Helvetica Neue, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;border-radius:0 0 2px 0"><h2 class="ydp8fefc0bacard-title" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px 0px 6px; font-family: YahooSans, Helvetica Neue, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(38, 40, 42); max-width: 314px;">California | The Economic Contributions and Impacts of U.S. Food, Fiber,...</h2><p class="ydp8fefc0bacard-description" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; color: rgb(151, 155, 167);"></p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">The winter-run Chinook are the most immediate victims of this system, which has turned the salmon into a new kind of key indicator species. The failure of California officials to stand up to power and money to save this fish is a grim signal for the future of ecosystem health and fair water policies in this state.</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">“If we actually managed the whole system we could probably get a lot more good out of the same drop of water,” Marcus told me.</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px;">The water resources board still has a window to act to hold back some water and prevent some of the worst effects of warming in the reservoir. This would help salmon in the Sacramento River and store water for the long-term drought security of all Californians. It should move to do so immediately.</p><p style="margin: 30px 0px 0px;"><i>James Pogue, a journalist, is the author of “Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West.”</i><br></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>