Crops over salmon?

San Joaquin Valley farmers have filed suit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to stop the release of water from the Trinity Reservoir to help save spawning salmon in the lower Klamath River.

The suit claims the release would cut into the farmers’ irrigation-water supply. The Trinity River flows into the Klamath, but its water also gets sent south via the Sacramento River and is piped through the Central Valley Project to farmers in the Westlands Water District. The farmers have received only 20 percent of their allotted water this year. The WWD and the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority filed the suit.

“Back in 2002, these same water agencies blocked downstream releases of Trinity River water, which could have prevented the deaths of tens of thousands of adult salmon. Now they want to do it again,” said Tom Stokely (pictured) of the California Water Impact Network.