In California’s arid San Joaquin Valley, communities have long grappled with an unrelenting challenge: Their sun-blasted region doesn’t have nearly enough water—at least not to support agriculture of the scale and intensity that has been established in its fertile soils. Though water is imported from as far away as the Klamath River basin via massive conveyance facilities, supplies have been spread thin by nut orchards that now span the valley floor. Groundwater reserves are declining, and worsening droughts and warming winters aren’t helping. Neither are water pumping restrictions meant to protect imperiled fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But what if there was a way to not just maintain current Delta water exports but increase them without impacting the San Francisco Estuary’s remaining fish? Water supply advocates in the region say they have a plan for one. They call the proposed system “fish-friendly diversions.”