THB04 "California's Delta In Crisis" [email protected]

In his fourth episode of Tales of the Hydraulic Brotherhood, California water expert and writer Lloyd Carter talks about the ecological crisis facing the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary in the long hot summer of 2007. Los Angeles is experiencing its driest year on record and increasing water exports of Northern California water from the Delta to San Joaquin Valley farms and Southern California have caused the collapse of the Delta's fishery. The three-inch Delta Smelt, a critical part of the Delta fishery food chain, is teetering on the brink of extinction. Experts say it could be the beginning of what may become "the Perfect Drought." A Congressional subcommittee overseeing federal water policy recent held a field hearing in the Bay Area to gather information on what some experts say is a catastrophe waiting to happen.