A Prayer for Salmon: Chapter 6. The Delta, A Habitat Destroyed

As the Run4Salmon continues to travel upstream, the Winnemem Wintu and supporters witness more obstacles faced by migrating salmon. Once a vast marshland, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta was an important haven for juvenile salmon, but now is a gauntlet of human engineering. Chief Caleen Sisk stands up for salmon and water health at a bureaucratic meeting of Sacramento Valley water districts. Read More “The Delta’s probably one of the most altered places you can imagine on the planet. Of that 500,000 acres of inland freshwater tidal marsh, 98 percent of it is gone.” — Leticia Grenier, scientist with the San Francisco Estuary Institute Sherman Island County Park, CA — Wind turbines along the hardscaped edges of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. May 15, 2021. Tom Levy/The Spiritual Edge A Prayer for Salmon is an 11 part audio documentary series from KALW’s The Spiritual Edge that tells the story of the Winnemem Wintu people and their clash with Northern California’s Shasta Dam. The dam’s construction turned California into an agricultural powerhouse. It also left the Winnemem Wintu displaced and without say over their land. The series details their fight to resist a proposed Shasta Dam Enlargement Project. It also highlights the Winnemem Wintu’s aspirations to return Chinook salmon to their homeland on the McCloud River, a major tributary of the dam.