Written by Dan Bacher Wednesday January 05, 2022
REDDING, CA - Just before the California Department Fish and Wildlife released a New Year’s Eve letter revealing that 2.6 percent of juvenile Chinook salmon had perished in lethally warm water conditions on the Sacramento River, a petition sponsored by Save California Salmon in opposition to the Sites Reservoir reached 50,000 signatures.
This milestone also came just a week after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Sites Project Authority announced an extension of the public comment period on the proposed 13,200-acre Sites Reservoir project from Jan. 11 to Jan. 28, 2022.
Sites Reservoir is opposed by California Tribal representatives, environmental justice groups, conservation organizations and fishing groups because the big threat that they say it poses to the imperiled salmon and other fish species and ecosystems of the Trinity and Klamath rivers, the Sacramento River, the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary and to Tribal rights and culture.
“Sites Reservoir’s infrastructure would cross Colusa, Glenn, Tehama and Yolo counties and divert water south from an already severely impacted Delta and Sacramento River Basin,” according to a press release from Save California Salmon. “The reservoir has been linked to the controversial Delta Tunnel by investors.”
“We are glad so many people are joining California's fishermen and Tribes in opposing building new reservoirs that would divert even more water from the already overtaxed Sacramento River and Bay Delta," said Mike Conroy, from the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA). "This year was disastrous for California's historic salmon runs.” ...