… The fish Delta smelt plays a pivotal role in California’s perennial water wars. Its shaky survival status has triggered orders to shut down the pumps near Tracy that send water into the California Aqueduct and the Delta-Mendota Canal at crucial points in Delta smelts’ life cycle in the spring. When the pumps are running, the Delta smelt get sucked in and killed. The Delta smelt has also benefitted from massive releases of stored water to send more fresh water into the Delta in a bid to help them. Those releases have been criticized by farmers in the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley who argue the water is simply going out to sea and not being diverted for human uses especial during drought periods. … The health of the ecological system and the need for water that is being commandeered by courts to help the Delta smelt is why the 2-inch fish has become — depending upon how you look at things — the poster fish for all that is wrong with California water development or the whipping fish for how state water policy has been skewed.