Earlier today local, state, and federal officials gathered to celebrate the coming completion of the Knights Landing Outfall Gate (KLOG) Fish Barrier project—a $2.5 million project, the first of several in the lower Sacramento Valley to ensure safe salmon passage.

Drought is hard work—there are no simple solutions…If anyone tells you there is a simple solution in the water arena, immediately assume they do not know anything about water. Typically the simple solutions are offered to accommodate one beneficial purpose at the expense of another.

With the drought in California, a small group of academics are saying the water rights system in California does not work during drought periods. In fact, the water rights system has worked in California over the past several years and has provided a stable foundation for managing water for cities, farms, wildlife refuges and fish. Rather than focusing on the water rights system, which works, California should instead continue to focus energy on improving its water management system for the benefit of all these beneficial purposes.

A recent article in Comstock’s magazine brought into focus many of the water management tradeoffs that have emerged in the Sacramento Valley over the past decade. In Hiding in the Shallows, Alastair Bland explores the changing agricultural landscape, particularly the conversion of traditional irrigation, such as flood, to drip and micro-jet irrigation.