DELTA
Blues
The battle over water has been fought to a standstill,
but there’s hope that science and technology will
make voluntary agreements by all sides possible
BY Eric Johnson
The state had been wrestling with the problem for 15
years, and there were hopes it was about to get pinned to the mat. A
decade and a half of meetings, lawyerly and political negotiations,
and massive public input had led the State Water Resources Control
Board to the brink of a momentous decision: California must leave
a lot more water in its rivers and streams in order to save the Sacra-
mento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay.
Steve Rothert, California director of the nonprofit American
Rivers, has spent the past five years working on the issue and says
board action was urgent. “Most scientists would agree that nearly
all the key indices of ecosystem and native fishery health are in
decline — in many cases, at catastrophic levels,” he says. “And
there are 8,000 water-rights holders, a $47 billion per year agricul-
tural industry, and 25 million people who rely on water that f lows
into and through the Delta.”
May 2020 | comstocksmag.com
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