Tens of thousands of squiggling salmon fattening up on bugs and other nutrients on flooded cropland in the Sacramento Valley could soon provide a solution to the long-running dispute over who should get the bulk of California’s diminishing supply of water: farms or fish.
Researchers from UC Davis flooded rice paddies on a 1,700-acre Yolo County farm, and converted the fields into wetland fish habitat, much like the vast marshlands that once covered the state’s inland valleys during the winter. The idea is to give young chinook salmon a spot where they can rest and feed as they migrate through the Yolo Bypass and into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It is a strategy that Asian countries have long used between planting seasons.
The three-year experiment has resulted in a dramatic increase in the size and survival of migrating juvenile salmon every winter, according to the researchers, the state Department of Water Resources, and the fisheries conservation groups Cal Trout and Trout Unlimited.
The study, known as the Nigiri Project, offers the most compelling evidence yet that it is possible to develop a water-delivery system in California that benefits both fish and farms.
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Ray-of-hope-in-fish-vs-farms-5336353.php
