California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday released a letter he sent this week to the Obama administration pleading for intervention in the state's water crisis — specifically, a repeal of the salmon and delta smelt biological opinions contributing to this year's reduced water pumping from the delta.
Schwarzenegger's office gives figures of 35,000 jobs and $710 million in farm revenue lost to this year's water shortages. State and federal water managers have attributed nearly a quarter of this year's pumping reductions to the biological opinions.
From Arnold's letter:
It is clear that we are trapped in an outdated and rigid bureaucratic process that dictates fish protection actions one species at a time rather than evaluating the entire ecosystem and addressing its many stressors. State and federal water pumps clearly impact the Delta, but regulating as though they are the only influences ignores the complexity of the situation and creates new problems while failing to solve others.
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