July 13, 2016 — The plan to buoy historically low salmon populations imperiled by California’s historic drought made for a contentious hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill. House Republicans accused federal agencies of depriving farmers of water while the Golden State’s reservoirs sit full.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Maine Fisheries Service teamed up for the drought proposal debated at this morning’s hearing of the House Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans.
Though recent El Nino storms have left the state’s largest reservoirs full, the contentious plan calls for less water to be pulled from California’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, to preserve cold-water supplies needed to keep the Sacramento River at or below 56 degrees this fall.
Warm water in the Sacramento River has contributed to devastatingly high mortality rates of juvenile winter run Chinook salmon over the last several years, but the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has complained that the plan could block federally contracted water deliveries without much warning.
Jeff Sutton, manager of the Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority in Northern California, told Congress the move would cripple harvests.
This year’s wet winter encouraged the planting of additional crops, Sutton said, with farmers expecting to receive their full-contracted water allotments for the first time in several years.