The ongoing California drought has pitted wild salmon against farmers in a fight for water. While growers of almonds, one of the state’s biggest and most lucrative crops, enjoy booming production and skyrocketing sales to China, the fish, it seems, might be left high and dry this summer—and maybe even dead.
The problem is, most of Trinity Lake’s water has been promised by government water managers to other users, including cities and industry.
On Tuesday, members of Klamath basin tribal groups testified unannounced to the State Water Resources Control Board regular meeting in Sacramento.
Tribal people question the fairness of a system by which crops hundreds of miles away depend on their river water at the expense of Chinook salmon.
“It’s not our fault they have orchards to water in the desert, and it’s not the fish’s fault, either,” Hillman says. “We shouldn’t have to pay for that.”
While the BOR technically has not allotted any water to farmers this year due to drought, producers in the valley whose supplies have been cut may still purchase water from others who didn’t experience cutbacks. Others may tap into the state’s shrinking groundwater reservoirs. One way or another, most fruit orchards receive the water they need each year.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/08/21/46157/california-drought-has-wild-salmon-competing-with/