Lake Shasta is facing its worst season in 44 years. Here's what that means for those who rely on it.
BK In The News: May 20, 2021
Lake Shasta this summer is facing possibly its lowest level in at least 44 years, and that could be bad news for the people who rely on it for drinking and irrigation water, as well as endangered salmon that depend on it to survive.
Dam operators have to go all the way back to 1977 to compare how...
BK In The News: May 13, 2021
An entire run of endangered winter-run chinook salmon, as well as the fall-run salmon that make up the core of the California fishery, are in danger of being wiped out this year if the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation keeps diverting water to farmers at its current rate.
With state water resources...
Column: May 5, 2021
Every year, the Baykeeper team takes a field trip to explore the San Francisco Bay we work to protect. We’ve toured the Bay Model in Sausalito, visited the Fisher Bay Observatory at the Exploratorium, explored the SF shoreline with Kayaks Unlimited, and cruised the Bay with the Marine Science...
Blog Post: April 19, 2021
Sometimes justice delayed is justice denied. And so it could be with the Bay’s longfin smelt.
This native fish population has declined 99.9 percent since the late 1980s, signaling widespread decline in the larger San Francisco Bay ecosystem. Identifying this fish as a federally endangered species —...
BK In The News: January 8, 2020
... Farther upstream, the Bureau of Reclamation is required to maintain flows of cold water... "But almost every year, the Bureau of Reclamation asks the Water Board to modify that rule, and the Water Board rubber stamps that request," said Jon Rosenfield, a scientist with the watchdog group San...
BK In The News: December 22, 2019
Harbingers of a diminishing ecosystem, the smelt are almost extinct... “The problem is, while they’re going through that system of canals, or waiting in a truck, they’re exposed to all these other fish, all these predators that are happily snacking on them the whole time,” says Jon Rosenfield, a...
Blog Post: November 12, 2018
Healthy levels of fresh water are vital for San Francisco Bay and the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. Without sufficient flows through these waterways, toxic algae spread, fish die, and pollutants accumulate. Lack of healthy flows are already resulting in record low numbers of native fish like...
Blog Post: December 20, 2010
Although the number of salmon spawning in local creeks has dropped precipitiously over the past several years, this season there is some good news for these migrating fish. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that biologists have counted greater numbers of endangered wild coho salmon returning to...
Press Release: November 30, 2009
Conservation groups have appealed a decision to keep long-term water delivery contracts in California’s Central Valley that would result in years of damage to devastated salmon and other native fisheries, and fail to protect and restoreCalifornia’s largest estuary, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta...
Column: October 1, 2009
San Francisco Bay is part of the largest estuary on the West Coast, a merging of freshwater flows from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the salty waters of the Pacific Ocean. The Bay’s mix of fresh and salt water creates a unique habitat for a broad array of fish, clams, oysters, and...