drought

Op-Ed: Mismanagement pushes salmon toward extinction

Tom Philp, PRESS DEMOCRAT

For California water managers, the Sierra snowpack has always been like money in the bank. With steady kisses of spring sun, snowmelt reliably flows ever downward until reaching the state’s vast network of reservoirs downstream.

But in the spring of 2021, in what turned out to be the second year of a scorching three-year drought, something happened to a meager snowpack. Much of it unexpectedly vanished into the sky or ground. Summer, as it now tends to do, had arrived early.

Faced with a cruel choice of who gets the limited water and who goes without, human decisions designated the remnants of California’s once-massive salmon population as the losers. The operators of the state’s largest reservoir, behind Shasta Dam, had already begun to honor contracts that guarantee farmers a lot of water, come drought or deluge. That meant less water in the Sacramento River to keep its inhabitants alive.

When adult salmon returned from the Pacific Ocean that winter, they swam upstream to below the dam where they would traditionally spawn. But the low flow in the river was lethally hot. Nearly all the salmon eggs failed to produce offspring.

The tragic loss of these salmon is one of too many examples of how California keeps harming an iconic fish species it is supposed to protect. A drought is a setback for salmon in the best of times. Here is how the last one could not have been worse, thanks to human mistakes.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/11/10/philp-from-droughts-to-human-errors-california-salmon-near-extinction/

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Op-Ed: Diversion won’t guarantee a healthy Russian River

Don McEnhill and Ed Burdett, PRESS DEMOCRAT

When PG&E announced that it would remove Scott and Cape Horn dams on the Eel River as part of the Potter Valley hydroelectric project decommissioning, it put a continuing water diversion to the Russian River in question.

A Press Democrat editorial praised Eel and Russian River stakeholders coming together to endorse the possibility of a new fish friendly diversion from the Eel River (“Progress toward water security,” March 27), and we at Russian Riverkeeper concur. However, a continued diversion from the Eel River is not a solution in and of itself when it comes to ensuring long-term water reliability in the upper Russian River watershed. A continued diversion will not solve all the region’s water issues.

Russian Riverkeeper, a Healdsburg-based nonprofit organization founded in 1993 to ensure that river water is drinkable, swimmable, fishable and equitably shared, is supportive of the effort to create a wintertime diversion that allows salmon and Pacific lamprey in the Eel River maximum recovery potential, while still making surplus flows available to the Russian.
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The Russian River in Monte Rio on Feb. 5. (BETH SCHLANKER / The Press Democrat)
Close to Home: Saving rainwater for sunny days to come

At the same time, we don’t advocate putting all our eggs in one basket by solely relying on a diversion from another river.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/opinion/russian-eel-river-salmon-dams/

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Op-Ed: Saving rainwater for sunny days to come

Grant Davis, PRESS DEMOCRAT

The current water year, which began Oct. 1, has been wetter than usual, with the Russian River watershed accumulating 119% of the yearly average rainfall, totaling 49.38 inches since October.

In the past, we might have celebrated our good fortune and watched lake levels rise only to watch much of it sent downriver to the Pacific Ocean as reservoirs reached an inflexible upper threshold. Today, we get to continue enjoying that ample rainfall long after summer sunshine arrives.
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Grant Davis

With almost a decade of data under its belt, the Russian River Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations program has been making great strides by demonstrating the viability of this strategy to operate reservoirs more effectively using modern technology and forecasting.

This year, we expect the new method to ensure an additional 19,000 acre-feet of water in the Lake Sonoma reservoir heading into the summer, just as it did last year, thanks to our ability to leverage weather forecasting techniques and adapt how we manage our reservoirs. Add to that another 9,000 acre-feet stored in Lake Mendocino. An acre-foot equates to 325,851 gallons.

That 28,000 acre-feet represents a substantial savings, or almost 65% of Sonoma Water’s annual demand, given that the agency is projecting its three-year average annual water sales to be just under 43,000 acre-feet.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/opinion/sonoma-drought-water-dam-storage/

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California’s ocean salmon fishing season closed for second year in a row

Susan Wood, NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL

California’s commercial and recreational ocean salmon fishing season is set to be closed for the second consecutive year, another blow to the state’s beleaguered industry suffering from the combined fallout of drought, climate disruption and deteriorating ocean conditions.

Already, a new request is underway for yet another federal disaster declaration to help alleviate some of the wide economic damage from the closure, affecting not just the fleet but many associated businesses that depend on the fishery, one of the state’s most lucrative.

The Pacific Fisheries Management Council, which manages and monitors West Coast salmon stocks in the ocean, endorsed the option on Wednesday of a full closure through the end of the year, mirroring recommendations made to close the fisheries in 2023.

Many fishermen, already resigned to a severely limited season if any at all due to depleted stocks, had backed the full closure.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/north-bay/californias-salmon-fishing-season-closed-for-second-year-in-a-row/

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Sonoma County Board of Supervisors approves temporary halt in new wells

Emma Murphy, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Supervisor James Gore, whose north county district includes some of the county’s most prolific wine grape growing areas, voted against the moratorium.

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors has imposed a six-month halt in all new wells countywide, a far-reaching move likely to impact residential and commercial property owners seeking to tap groundwater amid a historic drought.

The immediate drilling moratorium, which offers only a narrow exemption for emergency water needs, is meant to give the county more time to draw up a new set of well regulations aimed to safeguard surface and subsurface flows in the county’s major watersheds.

A 2021 lawsuit by the environmental group California Coastkeeper Alliance spurred the work toward new regulations, and the Board of Supervisors was scheduled to vote on the new rules Tuesday.

Instead, after hours of deliberation over a proposed well ordinance that would have established new requirements reflecting updated state policy for well permit applicants, the board voted 4-1 to impose a moratorium, seeking to buy time for additional work.

Supervisors cited concerns including the potential impact the ordinance would have on agricultural users, and potential legal ramifications connected to California’s environmental quality laws. The new regulations could affect any wells countywide that come under a new application or are up for renewal.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/sonoma-county-board-of-supervises-approves-temporary-halt-in-new-wells/

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Water crisis slams tomatoes

Kim Chipman, WASHINGTON POST

Tomatoes are getting squeezed.

California leads the world in production of processing tomatoes – the variety that gets canned and used in commercial kitchens to make some of the most popular foods. The problem is the worst drought in 1,200 years is forcing farmers to grapple with a water crisis that’s undermining the crop, threatening to further push up prices from salsa to spaghetti sauce.

“We desperately need rain,” Mike Montna, head of the California Tomato Growers Association, said in an interview. “We are getting to a point where we don’t have inventory left to keep fulfilling the market demand.”

Lack of water is shrinking production in a region responsible for a quarter of the world’s output, which is having an impact on prices of tomato-based products. Gains in tomato sauce and ketchup are outpacing the rise in U.S. food inflation, which is at its highest in 43 years, with drought and higher agricultural inputs to blame. With California climate-change forecasts calling for hotter and drier conditions, the outlook for farmers is uncertain.

“It’s real tough to grow a tomato crop right now,” Montna said. “On one side you have the drought impacting costs because you don’t have enough water to grow all your acres, and then you have the farm inflation side of it with fuel and fertilizer costs shooting up.”

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/business/spaghetti-sauce-is-under-threat-as-water-crisis-slams-tomatoes/

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California Coastkeeper Alliance lawsuit challenges the County of Sonoma to protect public trust resources

California Coastkeeper Alliance

Today, California Coastkeeper Alliance filed a lawsuit in Superior Court to compel the County of Sonoma to consider and mitigate impacts to public trust resources caused by groundwater extraction in the Russian River watershed. As the Russian River watershed faces a drought emergency, California Coastkeeper Alliance is working to hold Sonoma County accountable to protect public trust resources and prevent over pumping of its waterways. Everyone will need to do their part to ensure the Russian River maintains sufficient flows through this drought, and that includes restricting groundwater pumping as surface water pumping rights are curtailed.

“Over-pumping groundwater has had and continues to cause significant, harmful effects on the flow of the Russian River and its tributaries,” says Sean Bothwell, Executive Director of California Coastkeeper Alliance. “The current drought only makes this problem worse and restricting surface diversions alone merely drives more groundwater pumping. Groundwater connected to surface waters must also be managed, so we can endure the current drought crisis and be more resilient for future drought extremes. Responsibly regulating groundwater use protects other water users, as well as fish and wildlife”

The Russian River, its tributaries, and the aquatic life that depends on their flows, such as endangered Coho salmon, are protected by the public trust doctrine under the California state constitution. Large, self-sustaining populations of Coho salmon once occupied rivers and streams within the Russian River watershed, but insufficient streamflow has negatively affected the recovery of local salmon populations.
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