Friday February 20, 2026
Maven’s Notebook —
In 2021, California suffered a severe drought and the hottest summer then on record. Water was beyond scarce. It was brutal for the fish, farmers and others who depend on flows in the San Francisco Bay-Delta watershed, a system that spans hundreds of miles from mountain headwaters to the confluence of California’s two longest rivers, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin.
But that year also saw the beginnings of a new National Academies study to help California’s imperiled salmon, smelt and sturgeon survive people’s relentless water diversions from the Bay-Delta system.