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Salmon are at the heart of tribal cultures up and down the West Coast—their diet, commerce, ceremonies, and spirituality. They appear in cave art of 10,000 or more years ago. Salmon are not just a way of life. They are life.
And in California, they may soon be extinct. Three quarters of the state’s salmonids, as salmon and trout are called, could be gone in a century if conditions don’t change. That’s according to a new scientific assessment released on May 16. Nearly half of all salmon species face extinction in 50 years if trends in the state stay the same.

The first step toward sustaining one of San Joaquin County’s most precious resources took nearly two years. And it may have been the easiest part of the journey. Still, local officials sound optimistic about their efforts to comply with the state’s new groundwater mandate,largely because the county’s diverse, sometimes feuding water agencies have agreed to at least sit down at the table and talk about it. “We’ve gotten this far,” San Joaquin County Supervisor Chuck Winn said last week, ahead of a major deadline at the end of this month.

Dan Morain suggests the proposed Delta tunnels offer a solution for managing California’s water in our changing climate. (“Brown sends a message on the Delta tunnels,” Insight, June 1).This argument misses the mark. The engineering report for the California WaterFix project indicates that the proposed new intakes at the town of Hood are being designed for 18 inches of sea level rise, yet the Delta Stewardship Council indicates that we should be planning for 55 inches of sea level rise. The $17 billion tunnels will likely become a stranded asset.

 

Returning open tidal exchange to diked lands is a primary goal of Delta restoration, driven by the 2008 Biological Opinion from USFWS. This document requires 8000 acres of tidal and subtidal habitat to be created. California EcoRestore is coordinating with state and federal agencies to restore at least 30,000 acres, much of which will be tidal or subtidal. Evidence from newly created tidal wetlands, however, does not support the basic concept behind these restoration actions: that dikes can be breached and then left alone, to create tidal habitat with high benefits to endangered fishes.

The plans to build a new reservoir near Maxwell have been a long time in coming. At this point, 30 agencies throughout the state are on the list to help pay for planning efforts and later receive a share of an estimated average yield of 500,000 acre-feet of water. The next step is to apply for partial funding through Proposition 1 funds, the statewide water bond approved in 2014. Within the $7.5 bond amount, $2.7 billion is set aside for water storage projects.