AP On If California Farmers Will Benefit Over Fish As New/Old Potus Takes Over

About six weeks away from when Donald Trump starts his second term as President, much of California’s Central Valley will have its attention on how much water diversion will benefit the region’s farming community, possibly at the expense of the Delta’s anadromous fish species. Trump pushed for more water allocation to farms during his first term.

Here’s the Associated Press on how it might shake out:

In recent years, California farmers said federal water allocations have been more limited than they feel is necessary after two years of ample rain boosted the state’s reservoirs. The state previously grappled with a years long drought that in 2022 saw the driest January-to-March period in at least a century, with scientists saying weather whiplash will likely become more common as the planet warms.

That is a big concern of environmentalists and commercial fishermen, who want to see less water diverted to agriculture and more flowing to the delta. Salmon fishing has been banned off the California coast for the past two years because of dwindling stocks, and critics say Trump’s prior decisions moving water away from salmon-spawning areas are to blame.

“They delivered all the cold water behind Shasta Dam. It literally cooked the baby salmon before they were hatched,” said Barry Nelson, policy advisor to the Golden State Salmon Association, a nonprofit focused on restoring California salmon. “Math is a brutal master, and we’ve hit physical limits on the amount of water we can take from the Bay delta, and the sign of that is the collapse of the ecosystem.”