The Wall Street Journal recently published this feature on the consequences, for farmers, municipalities, and salmon, of the historically low levels of water in Lake Shasta, in far northern California.
With salmon getting highest priority because of federal court mandates, the rest of Shasta’s water is being divided up according to a tiered system of rights based on contracts with the federal government signed decades ago by various stakeholders.
Near the bottom are farmers 400 miles south in the southern Central Valley and the people who live in those communities. Next up are municipal and industrial users, with the exception of water for public safety and health. The most senior water-rights holders include farmers at the northern end of the Central Valley, some of whose contracts date to the late 19th century.
Other water uses are affected, as well. Hydropower from the Shasta Dam power plant has been cut in half this year due to reduced allocations to farmers.
Federal officials are taking drastic actions to fulfill a legal mandate to safeguard winter-run Chinook salmon, a threatened species and cultural touchstone for tribes like the Winnemem Wintu. “If the salmon go away, we feel the Winnemem will follow,” said Rick Wilson, tribal dance captain.
Salmon need cold water to spawn, and usually enough is available at the bottom of the lake to send downriver. But with lower, warmer waters this year, giant chillers had to be brought in to cool lake water that was delivered to a salmon hatchery located at the base of the 602-foot dam, Mr. Bader said.
Some of the most-senior water rights belong to the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District. Until this year it had never received less than 75% of its federal water, which farmers use primarily for rice.
Last spring, the Bureau of Reclamation coordinated with Glenn-Colusa and other senior irrigators to reduce their water supply to 18%. “We would not have had enough cold water for salmon if we had not cut the rice farmers,” Mr. Bader said.
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