President Donald Trump’s vow to put “people over fish” in Southern California by shifting water to the region’s farmers could deal a new blow to struggling commercial, sport and tribal fishermen who have coped for years with decimated salmon populations.
On the cusp of the anticipated third annual closure for salmon fishing in California — with an official decision due out next month from the Pacific Fishery Management Council — many are raising concerns that Trump’s vow to divert more water from the San Francisco Bay Delta and its watershed could further cripple their industry.
Trump has long focused his ire on the almost extinct delta smelt, a 3-inch-long fish that lives in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and has been recognized for decades under both the Endangered Species Act and the California Endangered Species Act. He has often, incorrectly, asserted that flows to support the fish require water to be released “wastefully into the Pacific Ocean.”
While Trump’s jabs are aimed at the tiny smelt, the efforts he regularly ridicules are also beneficial to other fish — which, unlike the smelt, have a significant economic potential — that spent at least a portion of their lives in the same waters.
