California Doesn’t Have to Choose Between Salmon and Water
By Thad Bettner, Executive Director at Sacramento River Settlement Contractors
For decades, Californians have been told that water policy is a zero-sum game: if salmon win, farmers lose; if farms win, fish disappear. That narrative has dominated public debate, fueled lawsuits, hardened positions, and distracted us from a more important truth.
The Sacramento River is proving that this choice is false where much is happening using one of our landowner’s mottos of: “It’s about the fix and not the fight” and embracing partnerships and not division.
Healthy salmon populations and reliable water supplies are not competing goals. They are shared outcomes that depend on the same thing: a river system that functions better than it does today.
Winter-run Chinook salmon remain one of California’s most endangered species. Their recovery remains challenging in a watershed altered by levees and dams, changing climate conditions, aging infrastructure, and increasing pressure on limited water supplies. Yet despite billions of dollars spent and decades of regulatory efforts requiring more flows, salmon populations continue to face significant risks while water users face growing uncertainty. We spent the last 20 years responding in court to activist claims that would devastate our Valley, spending many millions of dollars, with no benefit to fish. We have also invested a billion dollars screening diversions on the Sacramento River. These projects are important to water security in the region; yet the salmon have not recovered based on this investment. We also know that temperature and flow to protect winter-run salmon has come at the expense of severely impacting and killing fall-run salmon, leading to an unfortunate species vs species battle.
The lesson should be clear. Regulations and litigation cannot recover salmon. Likewise, water operations alone cannot solve California’s environmental challenges. Recovery requires something more difficult but ultimately more effective: new investment in outdated infrastructure, improved monitoring, and updating science — all which need to be done through collaboration and partnerships.
That is the direction partners on the Sacramento River are pursuing.
Fishermen, farmers, water managers, researchers, and conservation organizations are increasingly working together on practical solutions that focus on measurable biological outcomes. These efforts include restoring spawning and rearing habitat, improving juvenile salmon survival during migration, reconnecting floodplains, refining hatchery practices, reducing predation risks, and developing better scientific tools to understand what actions actually produce results.
This work matters because salmon recovery is ultimately a numbers game. Success depends on increasing survival at multiple stages of the salmon life cycle. Better habitat, improved migration conditions, healthier floodplains, and more effective hatchery management all contribute to that goal. More importantly, these actions can be evaluated, measured, and improved over time.
At the same time, California must confront an uncomfortable reality. Changing weather patterns are increasing the likelihood of floods and prolonged droughts that threaten both water reliability and salmon survival. During recent droughts, hatchery programs helped prevent catastrophic declines in winter-run populations. Those efforts were important, but they are not a long-term substitute for resilient habitat and proactive planning. We need a comprehensive strategy that combines habitat restoration, scientific innovation, infrastructure modernization, and adaptive management. It also needs the political will to move projects from planning documents to implementation.
That means investing in watershed-scale solutions. It means modernizing aging infrastructure that supports both water deliveries and fish survival. It means accelerating restoration projects that have demonstrated biological benefits. It means supporting collaborative partnerships that bring together interests that have traditionally been at odds. And it means implementing actions and agreements that will recover winter-run salmon and lead to delisting under the Endangered Species Act.
The Sacramento River watershed remains one of California’s most valuable natural resources. It supports communities, agriculture, fisheries, wildlife, and ecosystems that extend far beyond the river itself. Protecting that resource requires moving beyond outdated debates and focusing on what works.
The benefits of the Sacramento River are not confined to the region through which it flows. Water originating in the Sacramento watershed helps provide supply reliability for communities and farms across California, while salmon and other fish born in its waters migrate along hundreds of miles of coastline, from Santa Barbara to Oregon. In many ways, the Sacramento River serves as California’s aorta, carrying the lifeblood that sustains people, economies, and ecosystems far beyond its banks.
Yet because its contributions are so constant and far-reaching, they often go unnoticed or are poorly understood. The Sacramento River quietly performs the hard work that keeps the larger system functioning. Most people rarely think about it, until it no longer works. Only then do we fully appreciate how essential it has always been.
The future of California water policy should not be defined by conflict between fish and farms. It should be defined by a commitment to science, accountability, and shared responsibility.
We know more today than we did a generation ago. We have better tools, better data, and stronger partnerships. What remains is the willingness to act.
California’s salmon deserve that effort. So do the communities, businesses, and families that depend on a reliable water future.
The choice before us is not salmon or water.
It’s whether we are willing to build a future that sustains both.
It’s about the fix not the fight.
