Chinook

In an about-face, federal officials will not be cutting farm water supplies from Shasta Dam, California's largest, after all, reports The Sacramento Bee. Federal fisheries officials have been in tense conversation over the last month with state and federal water regulators over how much of Shasta’s water to hold back in order to protect the endangered winter-run Chinook salmon. The National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had seemed set to seriously limit water deliveries to Central Valley farmers.

“All is not well in wine country,” writes Stett Holbrook in FERN’s latest story, “Of Water and Wine,” published in Bohemian. As multi-million-dollar vineyards and $1,000-a-night resorts rise Napa Valley, California, residents are trying to stop the powerful wine industry from destroying the watershed.