SACRAMENTO, California — State and federal water managers started on Tuesday to pump more water to cities and farmers instead of keeping it in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Bay Delta for a protected fish.
The decision follows pressure from water users and growing scientific research they’ve paid for showing that keeping lots of water flowing through the delta in the fall has done little to help declining populations of the endangered delta smelt.
The operations of the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project, which jointly deliver water to millions of Californians and thousands of acres of farmland, are a perpetual political football, contested by both environmentalists and farmers and subject to bickering and lawsuits between Gov. Gavin Newsom and former President Donald Trump.
The Newsom and Biden administration are in the middle of renegotiating the long-term plans for the projects to supplant Trump-era rules that sent more water to farmers — but environmental groups have called the Newsom alternative “Trump-lite” and complained it won’t stop fish from going extinct.
