This week various Sacramento River Basin water suppliers were compelled to intervene in a federal court lawsuit filed by the State of California against the federal agencies that recently adopted the federal Biological Opinions (2019 BiOps) regarding the coordinated long-term operations of the Central Valley Project (CVP) and the State Water Project (SWP). Many of … Continue reading “A Time for Forward Progress: A Return to the Solution Table”

The Northern California Water Association, working with our Pacific Flyway habitat partners, has developed a new summary document outlining the water and infrastructure funding needed for each of the Central Valley refuges to maximize their habitat values for fish and wildlife. The summary was developed with input from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, … Continue reading “Maximizing the Habitat Values for our Central Valley Wildlife Refuges”

By Lewis Bair, General Manager, Reclamation District 108 How critical are Sacramento Valley floodplains for a vibrant fishery? A California Fish and Game Bulletin from 1930 gives us a clue. The report documents the Sacramento River commercial salmon catch declining from 6 million pounds in 1918 to less than 1 million pounds by 1927. The … Continue reading “Too Big to Dream? A Landscape Scale Approach to Re-envision our Floodplains in the Sacramento Valley for Multiple Benefits”

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW)–working closely with water suppliers in the Sacramento River Basin–have submitted a list of early implementation “no regrets” salmon recovery projects to the California Natural Resources Agency. As the projects show, the water leaders in Northern California are committed to advance Voluntary Agreements … Continue reading “Early Implementation “No Regrets” Projects Submitted to Advance Voluntary Agreements and Recovery Planning”