• Adaptively Managing Extinction

    In the never-ending saga of calling a skunk an adorable striped kitten, the proponents of the Voluntary Agreements released, on August 16, 2024, their latest defense of the scheme to undermine the flows needed for San Francisco Bay and the Delta to once again thrive.  A flood of water agencies, headed by the California Department…

  • Newsom’s 2023 California Water Plan: Supplying Imaginary Water to Meet an Insatiable Demand

    On April 2, 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom announced the release of the 2023 update of the California Water Plan (Water Plan). Governor Newsom announced the Water Plan at a press conference held at Phillips Station in the high Sierra, just after this year’s snowpack was measured there at 113 percent of average. At the press…

  • Newsom “Strategy” Condemns Central Valley Salmon to “Hotter, Drier Future”

    The “California Salmon Strategy” announced January 30, 2024 by the Newsom Administration is a tour de force of avoidance and deflection. It blows right past the single largest issue facing California’s salmon: inadequate flows into and through the Bay-Delta Estuary. The Newsom administration has been, and continues to be, on the wrong side of Delta…

  • How A Lack of Regulatory Oversight Dried Up the Merced River – The State Water Board Needs to Protect Merced River Flows Now

    Merced River, Yosemite Valley, Oct. 2022 / Dead Lower Merced River  Aug. 2022 The Merced River, the iconic wild and scenic river flowing out of Yosemite National Park, died in the summer of 2022 upstream of its confluence with the San Joaquin River.  The river was completely dewatered from July 7 to October 7. It…

  • CSPA Submits Comments on Proposed Bay-Delta Plan Update

    On Friday, January 19, 2024, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and AquAlliance submitted comments on the State Water Resources Control Board’s (State Board’s) proposed changes to the Bay-Delta Plan. The State Board proposed these changes in a Draft Staff Report (Report) released on September 28, 2023. The stated objective of the Plan update is to provide…