CALIFORNIA - The San Joaquin River

"Money Flow Is Concern for California's San Joaquin River Restoration" PBS Newshour 7/12/2013

Excerpt

SPENCER MICHELS(Newshour):  This is the once-mighty San Joaquin River, and much of it has been like this, dry as toast, since the 1940s.

That's when the federal government constructed Friant Dam near Fresno, California, which impounded the San Joaquin's water in a large reservoir, so it could diverted through a vast network of canals to farms and ranches in the San Joaquin Valley, leaving some sections of the river wet, some dry.

Today, the San Joaquin Valley is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world.  But the fish are gone, and the river is a ghost of its former self.

Now there is a controversial move afoot to cover this sand with water to restore this river.  Before the dam, the water began high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and flowed west, through the Central Valley, and eventually out through San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean.

The survival of salmon that used to come up the river from the Pacific Ocean is a crucial reason for restoring the river.

Gerald Hatler works for California Department of Fish and Wildlife.