Fish Barriers dams

Dams, Diversions, and Road Crossings

These maps show how dams, diversions, and road crossings create thousands of impassable barriers on California’s streams and rivers, denying native fish populations the cold, abundant flows that they need to thrive.   Out of California’s 116 native fish species, eight have gone extinct, and 15 are threatened or endangered. Despite this, the State Water Board can receive up to hundreds of water rights permit applications each year requesting even more water diversions, changes in existing appropriations, and transfers of existing water rights. The issuance of water rights permits is done with virtually no information on the minimum water levels needed to protect the health of key rivers and streams, including the aquatic life and beneficial uses that they support. The failure to incorporate needed water flows into the water rights permit process has hastened the over-appropriation of water from rivers and streams, and resulted in the demise of water-dependent species such as Coho and Chinook salmon and steelhead trout.  The many illegal diversions and barriers, rarely enforced against, only add to the problem.  Learn more about CCKA’s work to restore adequate flows to California’s streams and rivers, or learn about other forms of pollution that compromise the health of our state’s waterways.

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