Blog: Water wasted to the sea?
If we farmed the Central Valley or managed water supplies for San Francisco, San Jose, or Los Angeles, we might think that freshwater flowing from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers through the Delta to San Francisco Bay is “wasted” because it ends up in the Pacific Ocean as an unused resource. However, different perspectives emerge as we follow the downstream movement of river water through the Delta and into San Francisco Bay. If we were Delta farmers or administered Contra Costa County’s water supply, we would value how high flows reduce salt intrusion (Jassby et al. 1995) and protect water quality for drinking, growing crops, and meeting other customer needs. If we were responsible for protecting at-risk species, we would value river water that flows through the Delta to the Bay and ocean because it stimulates migration and spawning of native Chinook salmon, Delta Smelt, Longfin Smelt, and Sacramento Splittail …