State and federal officials have long held the view that the decline of the Sacramento salmon was due to adverse ocean conditions. That conclusion, which sure pleased big agriculture, and endorsed the good works of the Army Corps of Engineers dam-building craze, also conveniently put the blame in a very safe place.
A more recent report still blames ocean conditions for being the immediate cause of the collapse, but it does include an acknowledgement that maybe, just maybe, river conditions played a minor role. Apparently poor ocean conditions were acting "on top of a long-term, steady degradation of the freshwater and estuarine environment" according to a study by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
How does that sound? Let me give you an analogy to make things clear. If a patient develops lung cancer, which surely could be described as a long-term steady degradation of their lung environment, they will ultimately succumb to a lung infection known as pneumonia. As a matter of fact, their death record will list pneumonia as the proximate cause of death.
The question is do you think the patient died of an infection? If you do, the delta dam builders may have a job for you.
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