“You play the shade,” said Thomas, who had hooked a 4-pounder by 8 a.m.Ī 4- or 5-pound bass is generally considered a good catch in the delta, though the largest ever hooked weighed 18.6 pounds. “They’re going to destroy a beautiful piece of nature and they’re going to destroy a community.” “They call this area the heart of the delta and they’re going to fill it in,” griped Chuck Russo, 63, owner of Russo’s Marina, as he gazed across Franks Tract from his boat launch, where the bass tournament began. Gavin Newsom’s even larger vision of a tunnel to carry Sacramento River water to the south, has renewed questions about what must give, and who must sacrifice, when it comes to protecting this coveted estuary and providing fresh water to 30 million Californians. The site of the proposed marsh is Franks Tract, where prime boating and fishing ground would be lost. This is where the bass fishermen come in. They want to build a $500 million marsh to reduce saltwater intrusion in the delta, essentially creating a blanket of wetlands that would deflect salty flows even as San Francisco Bay rises 2 feet, what’s widely expected sometime after mid-century. State water officials have a fix in mind. With the climate warming, state water managers warn they may have to cut delta exports 25% by the end of the century as higher oceans drive in more salty bay water. As much of the delta’s fresh water is pumped off before it runs to the sea, brackish flows from San Francisco Bay push in, an advance that is accelerating - and quietly cutting into California’s water supply. The rivers are thinning, water quality is slipping and wildlife is dying.Ī fundamental, and increasingly concerning, piece of this ecosystem is salt water. Pumps and pipes across the 1,100-square-mile region send flows to faraway farms and cities across the state, from Silicon Valley to Southern California, a burden the delta is struggling to accommodate. The fishing community - alongside farming, boating, tourism and other livelihoods in these rural lowlands - is caught up in the unsparing effort to boost the delta’s freshwater exports. But, as with many things in this vast estuary at the edge of the Bay Area, the sport and its cottage industry of marinas, bait shops, boat showrooms and bars are threatened by converging forces: climate change, drought, development and California’s escalating water wars. delta-part-two: Shipwrecked on Little Potato Sloughīass fishing is a pillar of the delta. delta-part-one: Delta residents dig in against the tunnel Several Chronicle editors, graphic artists and website developers are also contributing to the series. This occasional series, Delta on the Edge, explores how climate change, drought and California’s unrelenting thirst have pushed this region to the brink and reignited the state’s water wars.Ĭhronicle staff writer Kurtis Alexander and staff photographers Santiago Mejia and Carlos Avila Gonzalez have spent months exploring the delta and uncovering its stories, speaking to hundreds of residents about what the future might hold. But so do locals who live and work in one of the state’s most extraordinary places. People across the Bay Area and California rely on the bounty of water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
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