Drought and Recession | Ecosystem Health | Jobs from the Delta | Water Allocations

California's Bay-Delta is the largest inland estuary in the Northern Hemisphere and the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas. Many of California's largest rivers flow into the Delta, making it a vital resource for fresh water throughout the state and home to hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, native fish, and migrating salmon.

ESC Staff on the Delta in 2008

Tragically, under the Bush Administration key scientific management decisions were politically manipulated to export water beyond the Delta's capabilities. As water exports increased to record levels, numerous fish populations declined to historic lows, requiring the closure of California's 150-year-old salmon fishery for the first time in 2008 and again in 2009. Unsustainable water exports, in combination with water pollution and other stressors, are driving salmon and other native fish to extinction.

Now a new threat has emerged as a few politicians and industrial agricultural businesses are looking to exploit the area's economic hardships to attack endangered species and their protections, while ignoring the true sources of the area's water shortages: three years of drought, combined with irrigators' junior water rights.

Learn more:

• Drought and recession are causing hardships in California's Central Valley
• Thousands of jobs depend on restoring the Bay-Delta's ecosystem
• Alternative sources of water have largely made up for reduced federal water supplies
• Protecting the Delta benefits much more than smelt
• 2008 ESC factsheet on political interference in the Delta's water management (pdf)

Scapegoating protections for salmon, smelt and other at-risk species in the California Bay Delta will not benefit farm workers, but will further the collapse of the region's vital ecosystem and all of the services it provides.

Investments in water recycling, groundwater recharge and cleanup, urban and agricultural water efficiency, and stormwater capture have the potential to yield more water each year than has ever been exported out of the Delta, with significant environmental benefits.

Learn More About the ESC's work to protect Salmon.