The rainy season around here is a good time to talk about the dry season. it will come, and that's when streams drop and tempers rise over their use.
Seven conservation groups want the Shasta River to drop LESS in the dry season, and they just put a petition before the California Water Board asking for action. The petition calls for the board to establish a permanent flow for the river, a bottom number that will protect fish and other river-dwellers. The flip side is that farmers and other water users will potentially have to curtail their water consumption to hit a permanent flow target.
The Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center and Save California Salmon are two of the groups filing the petition. Regina Chichizola from SCS and Nick Joslin from MSBEC discuss the situation in the Shasta, and their proposed remedy for it.