Delta

California's Sacramento River Delta is an ancient marshland full of fish, small farms and wild waterfowl, and is threatened by plans to pipe water out of the Delta to subsidize unsustainable big agriculture. But California's entire economy is built on promising more water--to factory farms and desert cities--than actually exists. I wrote this piece while camping in the heart of the Delta, among flocks of migrating Snow Geese and other migratory birds that stop here to feed, as they travel the Pacific Flyway.