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Daniel Weintraub: River restoration project offers a sprinkling of hope

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 26, 2009 at 7:41 am

From the Sacramento Bee:

When the chinook salmon come back to the San Joaquin River, it will be a miracle. But the wonder of the river’s restoration won’t be in the biology involved, which is well established. Or the engineering needed to bring the river back to life. Most of what is required has been done before.

It’s the politics that make this project so remarkable.

Few issues in California, or anywhere in the West, cause as much bitter division as water. Yet in the foothills east of Fresno and the flatlands stretching toward the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the warring parties have finally put down their arms and are working together on a project that should benefit the environment, the fishing industry and the local economy. Even the farmers at the heart of it all have signed on to the deal, though many of them still wish they could remain set in their ways.

Thanks to recent changes in federal law and a commitment of federal money to the project, the San Joaquin River restoration, debated for nearly 20 years, is about to begin in earnest. The first water for the newly re-created river will flow through Friant Dam in October, if all goes according to plan, and it will then flow into parts of the river that have been dry for decades. Within a few years, thousands of salmon should be swimming upstream through what is now a parched valley landscape.

Read more from Daniel Weintraub’s column in the Sacramento Bee by clicking here.

April 26, 2009 · Filed Under San Joaquin River Restoration

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