Have SF water policies led to salmon collapse?
[Tuolumne River Trust's policy director Peter] Drekmeier’s beef with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission goes back years and rests on the premise that the agency stores far more water than it needs in Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, on the upper Tuolumne, at the expense of the river downstream. The commission’s water management plan is based on the unlikely possibility of an 8.5-year drought—a theoretical disaster dubbed the “design drought” that critics consider overkill. … Environmentalists insist the agency could take a more fish-friendly approach, releasing more water through O’Shaughnessy Dam into the Tuolumne River while still providing adequate supplies for its 2.7 million customers.
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