Golden State Salmon Association Urges Action Opposing Controversial Water Allocation Bill
The following press release is courtesy of the Golden State Salmon Association:
We are calling on all West Coast fishing industry businesses, associations and organizations to sign-on to a joint letter by Golden State Salmon Association, American Sportfishing Association and Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations opposing H.R. 215 – a one-sided, salmon-killing Central Valley water re-allocation bill that will destroy our fishery and tens of thousands of fishing jobs in California and Oregon.
The deadline to join is end of day on September 12, 2023. This is a critical opportunity to rally the fishing industry and show Washington D.C. we are a force that cannot be ignored.
Who We Need: Fishing industry businesses (fishing guides, tackle manufacturers and retailers, fish brokers, marinas, fishing guide business owners, etc.), fishing organizations and trade associations, port associations, and commercial and recreational fishing owners and operators
Read the Letter: Click here to read the joint letter opposing HR 215
Deadline: September 12, 2023
How to Sign-on Your Fishing Industry Business or Organization: Once you have authorization from your association, organization, group, or business, have your representative email the following information to Scott Artis, Executive Director of Golden State Salmon Association (scott@goldenstatesalmon.org)
- Name of your fishing association, organization or business
- The name and title of the authorized signer on its behalf
- (Your F/V name if you are signing on as an individual vessel owner/operator)
- A copy of your organizational or business logo for the header of the final letter
Please share and help us protect salmon, fishing jobs, coastal communities and our ecosystems that rely on this fishery.
Additional Information
We can’t let politicians beholden to industrial agricultural lobbyists broker backroom water deals and legislate, under the cover of night, terrible policies that determine the fate of our salmon, families, and jobs without hearing directly from those impacted most by these decisions!
H.R. 215 is a direct attack on existing California Central Valley salmon protections, which would:
- Legislatively lock-in 2019 Biological Opinions that led to the collapse of salmon runs in recent years and allowed the Bureau of Reclamation to drain all of the cold water from the Shasta reservoir, leaving only hot water to be released in the fall spawning season, which literally cooks salmon eggs downstream before they can even hatch.
- Override state law to allow the salmon-killing proposed Shasta Dam raise. The proposed dam raise will starve salmon of the high spring flows they need to survive their migration to the ocean – subjecting Central Valley salmon to even more low flow conditions that have hammered salmon runs in recent years.
- Mandate unsustainable water deliveries for a few politically connected industrial agricultural water users, regardless of the impacts those deliveries could have on salmon or how much rainfall is actually available.