Updated water supply allocations announced last week would still drain upstream reservoirs in order to deliver 4.5 million acre-feet of water to the contractors of the federal Central Valley Project and State Water Project, devastating fish, and wildlife. This week, the fisheries biologists at the National Marine Fisheries Service projected that these planned operations are likely to result in lethal water temperatures that will kill 89% of endangered winter-run Chinook salmon below Shasta Dam this year. This mortality estimate is even worse than what was observed in 2014 and 2015 when salmon populations were devastated by warm water in their spawning grounds. But it doesn’t have to be this way if the State and Feds act now to increase reservoir storage and take other actions to reduce water temperatures that kill salmon and steelhead.
LINK (via: NRDC)
