When the Trump administration presented a new plan exporting more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta five years ago, state officials and environmentalists objected that the new rules would increase the chances that salmon, smelt and steelhead would go extinct. Now, state and federal agencies are nearing the finish line on a replacement plan that could boost water supplies for cities and some growers but, according to a federal analysis, could be even more harmful to the estuary and its fish. The Trump administration rules, critics say, fail to adequately protect endangered fish, while increasing Delta water exports to some Central Valley farms and Southern California cities. But the new proposal from the Biden and Newsom administrations — developed mostly by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources — does not fix what environmentalists considered deal-breaking flaws in the Trump rules. Rather, they say, it worsens them, and could lead to lower survival and accelerated declines in fish listed as threatened or endangered. 

Other Delta article:

• Local News Matters (San Francisco Bay Area): Part 3: The Forgotten Delta: Effort to restore the ecosystem faces challenges