To save salmon runs and fishing jobs California needs new water rules | Opinion

Today, Chinook salmon are spawning in the Sacramento, American and other Central Valley rivers. After three years of disastrous populations and closed commercial salmon seasons, this fall brings hope for a better future.

It’s time for decision-makers to take bold action to save California’s largest salmon runs and the fishing jobs that depend on them. That starts with California’s State Water Resources Control Board, which is setting new water diversion rules to protect salmon, the Bay-Delta and Valley rivers for the first time in three decades.

The number of wild Sacramento River Fall run Chinook — the cornerstone of California salmon fishing — has crashed by 95% over 20 years. The loss of fishing seasons has devastated California’s salmon fishing industry. When salmon runs are healthy, they generate $1.4 billion per year and 23,000 jobs. Coastal fishing families and ports are struggling, as are Central Valley fishing-related businesses.

The cause is clear: During the last drought, irresponsible operation of Shasta Dam resulted in warm river flows in the fall that killed nearly all the baby salmon in the river. Similar actions harmed salmon in other Valley rivers. Excessive summer water diversions also meant that the few surviving baby salmon faced low flows that made their migration down rivers and through the Delta even harder. Predictably, three years later, there were not enough adult salmon to support fishing or ensure healthy runs for future years.

Water users point at anything other than low flows and high temperatures as the cause; predators, invasive species and the loss of floodplain rearing habitat have all been cited as villains. But those claims don’t hold water. Striped bass were introduced here in 1879, and the population of adult stripers is at its lowest in many decades. And scientists have established that a lack of habitat has not driven the current decline of salmon.

It’s not that complicated: Salmon need enough cold water to survive, particularly during spawning, egg incubation and their spring migration to the ocean.

The irresponsible policies that have harmed salmon have also increased harmful algae blooms in the Delta. Toxic algae is a threat to people, salmon, drinking water and water for farms. Low flows have also harmed Native American tribes and their cultural uses of the Delta lands, including subsistence fishing.

The Delta was once home to one of the nation’s largest commercial salmon fisheries that fed Americans and employed the region’s diverse population. Restoring water for salmon runs is restorative for the region’s people as it will improve water quality for all.

In 2018, the State Water Board adopted new water diversion rules to protect the San Joaquin River, ordering a significant increase in flows when salmon need them. Water diverters have blocked the implementation of those rules and offered “voluntary agreements” that would provide modest increases in habitat and tiny increases in flows.

On the Tuolumne River, for example, water diverters offer to increase flows by as little as one-tenth of 1%. The offers from Sacramento Valley water users are similarly paltry. The State Water Board’s analysis clearly shows that these proposals would fail. Worse still, these “voluntary agreements” are designed to allow massive new water diversions in the future.

Nevertheless, Gov. Gavin Newsom is pressuring the State Water Board to embrace the water diverters’ “voluntary agreements.”

It’s time for the State Water Board to do their job. The current 30-year-old salmon standards have long since failed. The board should reject doomed-to-fail voluntary agreements and adopt an updated, science-based Bay-Delta Plan that significantly increase water flows when salmon, the Delta, Valley rivers, communities and Tribes need them.

Vance Staplin is executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, which represents California commercial and recreational salmon fishermen and related businesses. Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla is executive director of Restore the Delta.

This story was originally published December 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM.