By Dan Bacher In comments to the press at the “Water 2.0 event” sponsored by the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) this January, Governor Jerry Brown claimed building the Delta Tunnels under the California Water Fix project is “absolutely necessary” for the “future” of California. Delta and fish advocates strongly disagree with the Governor’s claim. Delta […]
By Dan Bacher (Rancho Cordova) The number of steelhead showing now at Nimbus Fish Hatchery is greatly improved from last season, in spite of continuing low releases of 500 cfs from Nimbus Dam into the lower American River. This year is much different from last season, when a total of only 154 steelhead were trapped […]
By Dan Bacher As Governor Jerry Brown resumes his campaign to build the salmon-killing Delta Tunnels after spending a week green washing his image in Paris at the Climate Summit, Congress is doing its best in Washington D.C. to eviscerate protections for Central Valley and Trinity/Klamath River salmon and steelhead. HR 2898, an agribusiness-backed “drought relief” bill that […]
By Credo Action Late last year the FDA quietly took a major step toward approving the “frankenfish,” AquaBounty’s genetically modified salmon. Its approval would be a radical move by the FDA – the first genetically modified animal ever to enter our food supply. It’s no wonder the FDA posted its final review, clearing the way for […]
As you have probably heard by now, HR 1837, which has acquired the nickname The Salmon Extinction Bill has passed the House of Representatives. This water grab amounts to a bailout for corporate welfare bums at great expense to fish, the environment and the people of the Delta. How bad is the bill? Spectacularly aweful: Barbara […]
California Governor Jerry Brown and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on December 19 reaffirmed their “strong mutual resolve” to moving forward with the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build a peripheral canal, in spite of strong opposition by Delta advocates. They also “reinforced their joint commitment to effective action to achieve the dual goals of […]
For the first time ever, scientists have uncovered the presence of infectious salmon anemia, a deadly virus that has devastated farmed fish in Chile, in wild salmon populations on the West Coast. This news arrived at a time when the Obama administration is fast-tracking the approval of genetically engineered Atlantic salmon, promoting environmental destructive corporate […]
Two Delta legislators, Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis) and Assemblyman Bill Berryhill (R-Ceres), have introduced legislation to ensure that the imperiled Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is protected from potential conveyance projects to export water to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness and southern California. Wolk’s legislation, coauthored by Berryhill, establishes specific criteria and assurances that will enable the […]
For years, agribusiness in California has tried to paint any conservation efforts as “fish vs people”. Now, they’re trying to pit different groups of fishermen against each other to further fragment opposition to unrestricted water use for big farms. In an apparent attempt to pit river salmon enthusiasts against reservoir kokanee and trout anglers, California’s […]
Do Californians have an inherent right to waste water? Not according to a report by Delta Watermaster Craig Wilson, to be presented today to the State Water Resources Control Board. The highly-anticipated proposal suggests that a particularly contentious area of California water law, the California Constitution’s “Reasonable and Beneficial Use Doctrine,” be applied more broadly. […]
‘No single project or human activity has caused depletion of the salmon runs or the near-extinction of the … orca, or the general degradation of the marine environment of Puget Sound. Yet every project has the potential to incrementally increase the burden upon the species and the Sound.’
According to this year’s report, Americans consumed a total of 4.908 billion pounds of seafood in 2007, slightly less than the 4.944 billion pounds in 2006. The average American ate 16.3 pounds of fish and shellfish in 2007, a one percent decline from the 2006 consumption figures of 16.5 pounds. But what most concerns scientists is the growth in imported farm-raised seafood coupled with declines global fishstocks.
I was appalled and shocked to read that President Bush is proposing to take $70 million from the $180 million salmon disaster relief funds included in the farm bill to pay for the census. My family is supported by commercial fishing, and following a poor dungeness crab season, fisherman along the West Coast are really […]
My family is supported by commercial fishing (dungeness crab and king salmon), which is kind of ironic since I am a vegetarian. For the second time in recent years, there will be no salmon season in California. Last year’s season lasted only four days, and the year before that was a complete closure due to […]