… Delta pears trace their history to the California Gold Rush, when farmers planted orchards along the riverbanks to provide fresh fruit for prospectors. Boats ferried fruit to Sacramento or San Francisco. Levees and dams put a stop to frequent flooding. Fruit box labels in the 1920s depicted paddleboats, while an RV park today is named Cannery Landing. It was one of the earliest instances of commercial-scale fruit production in the country. Since then, the Delta has become an environmental hot button. Its water has been pumped to cities and farms all over California. Many of the islands have sunk below sea level, while the reduction of inflows sometimes allows brackish water to creep upstream from the San Francisco Bay. Delta farmers, including [Robert] Arceo, have pushed back against a proposal to route even more river water under the wetlands to California’s more drought-prone southern region.