Central Valley Salmon June 2025 Status – New Threat from Water Projects in Summer-Fall 2025
By Tom Cannon / thomascannon0@gmail.com
It is the beginning of June in wet year 2025, the third year in a row designated as a wetter year after three drier years including critical drought years 2021 and 2022. The last of the spring and winter run salmon are migrating up the Sacramento River from the Bay. The winter run salmon will soon begin spawning in earnest. The spring run salmon will hold in the upper river and tributaries until late summer and fall and then spawn. The last of the wild smolt salmon are leaving the lower river and moving through the Delta and Bay to the ocean. The first heat wave of 100oF+ air temperatures has hit the Valley during several days in May. Most of the storage reservoirs in the Valley have filled with the spring snow melt.
Salmon fishing has been closed for two years (2023 and 2024) after populations crashed during the 2021-2022 drought. Two days of sport-recreational fishing were allowed in spring 2025 – June 7 and 8. Success rates were exceptional outside the Golden Gate and along the coast from an apparent abundance of hatchery and wild salmon produced in wet years 2023 and 2024.
State Water Board water rights hearings on the proposed Sites Reservoir and Delta Tunnel are well underway. The State Department of Water Resources is trying to convince the Water Board (and us) that these new projects are not going to hurt the salmon or hinder their recovery. Various NGOs opposing the projects suggest otherwise.
The federal Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources, operators of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project, are also trying the convince the Water Board that proposed new operations will protect threatened-endangered salmon, sturgeon, steelhead, and smelt, as well as other non-protected fish.
With the proposed new infrastructure and operation schemes the CVP-SWP water projects hope to divert additional water supplies from Central Valley rivers and the Bay-Delta that would otherwise reach the ocean through the Golden Gate.
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