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It is my burden and my tragedy that I do indeed understand what Trump is trying to say here. Behold, the unholy mishmash of California water policy, salmon, agriculture, and of course the unfortunate delta smelt. A THREAD: https://twitter.com/KateNocera/status/1314552999595986944
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, on the north side of San Francisco Bay used to teem with wildlife & fish. Now it is mostly agriculture and industry, with only a tiny fraction of wetland remaining. But the issue here is the water. https://www.kcet.org/redefine/a-brief-history-of-californias-bay-delta
The Delta supplies water to two major projects: the California State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Water from the Delta goes to 25 million people and 4.5 million acres of irrigated farmland. https://www.watereducation.org/topic-bay-delta
This is a HUGE amount of water. According to @PPICWater: "From 2000 to 2015, on average 33 percent of the water that would otherwise have flowed through the Delta was consumed upstream, 17 percent was exported, and 5 percent was used by farmers in the Delta."
That's a diversion of a whopping 55% - more than half! - of the water that would have otherwise flowed into San Francisco Bay.
https://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_1016JM5R.pdf
https://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_1016JM5R.pdf
The other 45% of the Bay-Delta water that flows into San Francisco Bay (and eventually the ocean) is EQUALLY important to both the economy and the environment.
The outflow from the Bay:
Prevents saltwater intrusion up into the Delta - obviously if you suck out all the freshwater, the salty Bay water will flow in!
Supports endangered salmon and steelhead runs up the rivers - which also support the coastal economy & tribes.
Prevents saltwater intrusion up into the Delta - obviously if you suck out all the freshwater, the salty Bay water will flow in!Supports endangered salmon and steelhead runs up the rivers - which also support the coastal economy & tribes.
Provides habitat for endangered species that only live in the Delta - like the poor little delta smelt. The delta smelt is a tiny fish that keeps getting sucked up & macerated by the giant pumps that suck out Delta water. It's really endangered now. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/22/delta-smelt-fish-trump-california-aoe
This balance - between the water pumped out of the Delta and the water left in - is at the heart of the controversy. It is too often framed, as in this @nytimes story, as "Tomatoes vs. Salmon." But that is absolutely the wrong way of looking at it. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/science/troubled-delta-system-is-californias-water-battleground.html
The fight over the water in Bay-Delta is really a fight over the future of California. Fires are ravaging the forests that create these rivers, the snowpack that feeds the rivers is dwindling, and the cities are baking. To continue on in the status quo is untenable.
As with so much right now, California is at an inflection point. The cheapest, best solution to endless & worsening water wars is conservation and water recycling - not yet more technology. https://infogram.com/copy-will-tech-help-1hnq41zp3kqd63z
So of course, Trump is stepping in to make everything worse. Instead of looking at the whole system, his 2019 plan would drive endangered fish to extinction for very minimal benefits to agriculture. https://calmatters.org/environment/2019/10/trump-plan-could-bring-growers-more-water-but-will-it-harm-californias-rare-salmon/
In Trump's limited, toxic, & incurious way, that's what he was talking about last night. He was trying to say that CA should pump more & more water out of the Delta, & damn the consequences to Delta farms, fishermen, tribes, recreation & coastal towns. https://twitter.com/geneweingarten/status/1314551501281529857
This is a genuinely difficult issue. California agriculture (hilariously called "specialty crops" which means food people directly eat) feeds the nation. https://slate.com/technology/2013/07/california-grows-all-of-our-fruits-and-vegetables-what-would-we-eat-without-the-state.html
But we are in a climate emergency and cannot continue the way we've been going. We need a better way - and this President & this Administration has made it clear they aren't interested in finding it. /fin
