{"id":1943,"date":"2014-01-22T09:54:49","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T17:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/?p=1943"},"modified":"2014-01-22T09:54:49","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T17:54:49","slug":"california-drought-loosens-some-environmental-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/?p=1943","title":{"rendered":"California Drought Loosens Some Environmental Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The American River during the 1977 drought, when freshwater flows were drastically low. (Photo: CA DWR)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Governor Jerry Brown is calling for water conservation as the primary strategy against California\u2019s record drought, but his emergency declaration on Friday also opened the door for weakening some environmental rules.<\/p>\n

State regulators can now relax water quality standards, allowing rivers and estuaries to be saltier and warmer, as they try to manage the state\u2019s limited supplies.<\/p>\n

The change is making some fishing and environmental groups wary, who fear that wildlife concerns will come second to the needs of parched cities and farms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be some tough choices coming down the road on how we balance protections for the environment and water supply,\u201d said Doug Obegi of the Natural Resources Defense Council. \u201cThere\u2019s just no getting around it in critically dry years like this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The change focuses on water quality control plans, like the one for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the hub of the state\u2019s water supply. The plan assures that a minimum amount of water is released from dams, so freshwater is provided for downstream water users and wildlife, including salmon.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThis year, everybody is going to feel some pain\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re minimum standards for protection of the estuary and they really are minimums,\u201d said Obegi.<\/p>\n

Under the drought declaration, regulators can \u201cconsider modifying requirements for reservoir releases or diversion limitations.\u201d Dam operators may ask to reduce releases to keep water in the reservoirs, so it can be used later in the year. That could violate water quality standards in rivers below the dams.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s critical that we really maintain those minimal protections so that we don\u2019t further exacerbate the precarious nature of our native fisheries,\u201d says Obegi.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rivers are going to be super warm and super low,\u201d says John McManus of the Golden Gate Salmon Association. \u201cSalmon are going need to help because we\u2019ve got tens of thousands of jobs hanging in the balance that depend on California salmon runs.\u201d Several fishing groups are concerned that young salmon released from hatcheries won\u2019t survive the dry conditions.<\/p>\n

More at KQED.org<\/a> >>><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Governor Jerry Brown is calling for water conservation as the primary strategy against California\u2019s record drought, but his emergency declaration on Friday also opened the door for weakening some environmental rules. State regulators can now relax water quality standards, allowing rivers and estuaries to be saltier and warmer, as they try to manage the state\u2019s … Continue reading California Drought Loosens Some Environmental Rules<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3,9,13,6,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fish","category-rafting","category-safety","category-salmon","category-water","category-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1945,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943\/revisions\/1945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanriverwildlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}