After An 11 Year Study: More Water Doesn’t Equal More Fish

Since 2014, South San Joaquin Irrigation District and Oakdale Irrigation District have spent more than a $1 million annually to have biologist study fish and water flows on the Stanislaus River was well as how to improve habitat for fish.

Dennis Wyatt, the Manteca Bulletin, writes “there is no peer-reviewed scientific journal or research showing more water equals more fish. Pulse flows have provided no scientific benefit to improve salmon or rainbow trout/steelhead population. Scientists who actually have worked on the river point out that habitat restoration and predation control are far more effective ways to increase the number of fish. An estimated 95 percent of young salmon and steelhead are eaten before they ever reach the Delta.”

Despite of lack of proof of any benefit, the State’s water cop — State Water Resources Control Board — plans to order that more than 60 percent of all natural flows down the Stanislaus and Tuolumne Rivers be allowed to flow to the ocean, an action that will decimate city water supplies and food production throughout the northern San Joaquin Valley and foothills.

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