Tuesday March 12, 2024
Daily Kos —
The many millions of fish, including endangered salmon and steelhead, that have perished in the state and federal water project facilities in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in recent years is just one in the long list of horrors that expose the tenuousness of the “green” California myth.
On March 6, a coalition of environmental and fishing groups reiterated their request that a federal court modify federal agencies’ proposed interim plan for operating the federal Central Valley Project (CVP), in coordination with the State Water Project (SWP), to protect fish species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and California Endangered Species Act (CESA).
That coalition includes the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the Golden State Salmon Association, The Bay Institute, Defenders of Wildlife, and Natural Resources Defense Council. Coinciding with that filing has been a surge of protected Central Valley steelhead dying at the projects’ water pumps, called by many anglers and environmentalists the “Death Pumps” or “Pumps of Death.”