An AP News article details the Trump administration’s newly announced plan to divert more water to California’s Central Valley, following through on an earlier executive order aimed at increasing agricultural water deliveries. The Bureau of Reclamation says the updated operations plan for the massive Central Valley project will take effect Friday.
California officials and environmental groups immediately condemned the move, warning it could jeopardize water supplies for millions of residents and accelerate the collapse of salmon and other endangered species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s office called the decision “putting politics over people,” while Delta advocates cautioned that increased pumping would kill more Delta smelt and juvenile salmon, degrade water quality, and promote harmful algae blooms with severe ecological and economic consequences.
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, underscored the stakes: “When you destroy water quality and divorce it from land, you are also destroying property values. Nobody wants to live near a fetid, polluted backwater swamp.”
Vance Staplin, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, is urging Newsom “to file a lawsuit to challenge this unlawful federal move.”
Read the full article here.