Opinion: Gavin Newsom just declared war on San Francisco Bay
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order this week declaring war on California’s water scarcity takes a note from the Bush playbook. The decision to extend his drought emergency declaration — despite the recent record rains and flooding — gives carte blanche to state agencies to eviscerate essential water quality and environmental protections in perpetuity. Meanwhile, his administration continues to press for the same kinds of projects and management strategies that helped create the state’s water problems in the first place. The results will be catastrophic for the health of San Francisco Bay. The bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta form one of the planet’s great estuaries, where salt water and fresh mix, and the estuarine ecosystem is highly dependent on the amount of fresh water that flows into it from the watershed.
-Written by Gary Bobker, program director at the Bay Institute.Related articles: