Monday October 28, 2024
Los Angeles Times —
The Biden and Newsom administrations will soon adopt new rules for California’s major water delivery systems that will determine how much water may be pumped from rivers while providing protections for imperiled fish species.
But California environmental groups, while supportive of efforts to rewrite the rules, are criticizing the proposed changes and warning that the resulting plans would fail to protect fish species that are declining toward extinction in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay.
As the preferred proposal is laid out in a federal draft environmental review, the new rules “would make things worse,” said Jon Rosenfield, science director for the group San Francisco Baykeeper.
“We are deeply concerned that six endangered species in the Bay Delta are on the verge of extinction or headed in that direction,” Rosenfield said.