#californiadelta — Public Fediverse posts

The feds agree that the Bay's imperiled #WhiteSturgeon are endangered -- but are refusing to protect them under the Endangered Species Act:

"The biggest threat to the White Sturgeon’s survival is neglect from the very agencies that are required to protect them," as Baykeeper science director @jarosenfield put it.

https://baykeeper.org/press_release/feds-determine-that-san-francisco-bays-white-sturgeon-is-an-endangered-species-but-refuse-to-protect-them/ @RestoreTheDelta

#fish #fishing #sturgeon #sfbay #sanfranciscobay #bayarea #californiadelta #californiawater #cawater

"The smelt used to be among the most common fish species in the delta," said @jarosenfield, a fish biologist and science director of San Francisco Baykeeper. "Now, it's almost impossible to find them."

The restoration effort, he said, is admirable but inadequate: "It's like building a very nice playground in a neighborhood you’ve allowed to burn down."

https://www.hcn.org/issues/58-7/can-restoration-save-the-delta-smelt/

@HighCountryNew

#cawater #californiawater #water #cadelta #californiadelta #deltasmelt #fish #endangeredSpecies #californiafish

Native fish populations, including Chinook Salmon, Central Valley Steelhead, and Green and White Sturgeon are declining at an alarming rate—meanwhile, state regulators have failed to act.

So we're taking legal action to hold the State Water Board accountable: https://baykeeper.org/press_release/baykeeper-pursues-appeal-against-water-board-amid-extinction-crisis/

#fish #baydelta #baydeltaplan #endangeredSpecies #cawater #californiadelta

"The voluntary agreements are an extinction plan," as our lead scientist
@jarosenfield describes the state's new Bay Delta Plan.

Endangered species will continue to plummet, more fisheries will shutter, and Tribes & Delta communities will continue to suffer with worse water quality.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/bay-delta-water-21325171.php

#cawater #californiawater #baydelta #baydeltaplan #endangeredSpecies #endangeredspeciesact #cadelta #californiadelta #fish #extinction

California strongly objects to Trump’s plan to pump more Delta water south
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-12-03/california-opposes-trump-water-pumping-plan

#westwater #californiadelta #water #californiawater

On water, Newsom is out of time and making his riskiest move as governor
https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/05/23/philp-on-water-newsom-is-out-of-time-and-making-his-riskiest-move-as-governor/

"The only real alternative to modernizing the State Water Project is to phase it out over decades, along with the federal Central Valley Project, and stop moving water from where it falls to where civilizations and farming exist.

Good luck with that."

#cawater #californiadelta

"What the governor calls barriers, we call laws," Baykeeper science director @jarosenfield says of Newsom's statement about removing "barriers" to his disastrous (& unpopular) Delta Tunnel plan

https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2025/05/california-lawmakers-governor-plan-to-streamline-delta-tunnel/ #deltatunnel #californiadelta #cawater @CALMatters

There's a lot of misinformation out there about #CAwater. Want to understand what's *actually* going on?

We highly recommend watching RIVER'S END: CALIFORNIA'S LATEST WATER WAR, which is now available for streaming 💧

The film features some of California's top water experts, including @petergleick and our own science director @jarosenfield

Learn more: riversendfilm.com

#riversend #californiawater #sfbay #cadelta #californiadelta #fish #waterwars

As Baykeeper attorney Eric Buescher & @RestoreTheDelta director Barbara Barrigan-Parilla write, water agencies should ditch the costly ill-conceived #DeltaTunnel and instead focus on addressing the many other challenges facing the State Water Project, including: "expired water rights, sinking aqueducts, properly maintaining Delta levees, an ecosystem in crisis, and more than a century of ignoring or exploiting Tribes and environmental justice communities, all of which are critical to a thriving Delta, state, and sustainable water management system for all Californians." https://mavensnotebook.com/2025/01/07/guest-commentary-tunneling-through-trouble-missteps-mismanagement-and-the-costly-pursuit-of-the-delta-conveyance-project/ #cawater #californiawater #cadelta #californiadelta #environmentaljustice

State officials have failed to stop destructive #InvasiveSpecies from spreading to the Bay-Delta despite laws on the books designed to do so: “We had the highest standards in the world, but they were never actually enforced because the state couldn’t come up with a set of technologies to implement them,” as our attorney Ben Eichenberg explained to CalMatters https://calmatters.org/environment/2024/11/california-mussels-enforcement-ballast-water-ships/ @CALMatters #cadelta #californiadelta #sfbay #sanfranciscobay #waterpollution #ballastpollution #ballastwater

We and are our partners are pushing back against the #DeltaTunnel project, which -- among many other issues -- leaves out Tribes and environmental justice communities.

Read more from Maven's Notebook:
https://mavensnotebook.com/2024/11/10/notebook-feature-numerous-appeals-filed-for-dwrs-consistency-determination-for-the-delta-conveyance-project-geotechnical-activities/ @RestoreTheDelta #cawater #californiawater #deltatunnels #californiadelta

"All these species that we think of as being endangered and on the precipice of disappearing, we've forgotten that they used to be abundant,” as our science director @jarosenfield said.

The slow change in what society--& regulators--expect of the natural world is a silent killer of the Bay-Delta ecosystem 😔

https://mavensnotebook.com/2024/09/30/notebook-feature-here-today-forgotten-tomorrow-how-shifting-baselines-transform-nature-and-challenge-restoration/

@RestoreTheDelta #KlamathRiver #baydelta #sanfranciscobay #californiadelta #cawater #fish #wildlife #endangeredspecies

The #DeltaTunnel would divert vast quantities of water from the Bay-Delta estuary to industrial agricultural operations—as well as to large cities outside of the #SanFranciscoBayDelta watershed.

The health of the Bay-Delta, its wildlife, and its residents depend on fresh water flowing from Central Valley tributary rivers into the Bay.

That's why we're joining a coalition of Tribal and environmental allies to take legal action: https://baykeeper.org/press_release/environmental-and-tribal-organizations-sue-stop-delta-tunnel-project #cawater #californiawater #californiadelta

Last week, the state released its environmental impact report for the ill-conceived multi-billion-dollar #DeltaTunnel project.

The tunnel would divert excessive amounts of water from #SFBay and make matters worse for the #fish & communities that depend on this ecosystem.

Learn more: https://baykeeper.org/press_release/baykeeper-statement-state-releases-environmental-report-delta-tunnel #cawater #delta #californiadelta #sanfranciscobay

Anything happening in the upper watershed affects the Delta & Bay—and cars contain lead, mercury, and other pollutants:
"Cars just don't belong in our waters and that's the bottom line," as Baykeeper executive director Sejal Choksi-Chugh put it. https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/cars-just-dont-belong-in-our-waters-removing-vehicles-from-sacramento-river-raises-concerns/
#BayDelta #waterpollution #cadelta #californiadelta

The proposed voluntary agreements assume that more habitat = more 🐟🐟🐟 — but fish need healthy river flows first & foremost:
"They're trading 'habitat' for flow, but this doesn't have a basis in science," as our science director
@jarosenfield says in the latest edition of Estuary News: https://archive.estuarynews.org/va-agreement-highlights-habitat-questions/ #water #cawater #californiawater #fish #endangeredspecies #californiadelta #sanfranciscobay #baydelta

"If the governor won't adhere to the state regulations in what is clearly a wet year, when will he?"

The Mercury News/East Bay Times Editorial Board calls out Newsom for taking a page out of Trump's playbook & caving to #BigAg at the cost of the Delta ecosystem: https://mercurynews.com/2023/03/01/editorial-when-it-comes-to-water-newsom-is-hardly-an-environmentalist/ #cawater #californiawater #californiadelta #gavinnewsom