🚀 go-pugleaf

	One of California's complex and reoccurring ecological
debates has once again resumed its position in the spotlight. 
For over fifteen years California has been debating the disturbed
ecology of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco
Bay, one of the nations last remaining large wetland.  For those
who do not know about the problem, I will give a short brief.  
	The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the San Francisco Bay
meet and form a estuary where a unique ecology exists.  The
plants an animals survive on a mixture of fresh water from the
mountains and the salt water from the ocean.  Water pumps
installed a few decades ago to deliver fresh water to California
residence, business and most of all farmers, have disturbed the
water to salt water ratio.  As a consequence the ecosystem has
deteriorated.  One of the prime victims and focus of the debate
is the threatened delta smelt.  The population of three inch-
smelt has decreased from 2.6 million to 200,000 over the past
decades.  The devastation works its way up the food chain
affecting bass and other fish that survive off the smelt.  
	The dilemma "encompasses many significant issues such as
urban growth and agriculture and a political wrestling match
between the Wilson and Clinton Administration," states the L.A.
Times.  With the very fact that the dilemma has been argued for
fifteen year signifies that a solution is not close,  but with
environmental pressure Clinton has stepped in.  Last December
Clinton announced various steps to cutback the water distributed
to farms and cities from the delta.  He proposed a 7% cutback in
water use with a goal of reducing usage by 540,000 acre-
feet/year. (the usage for 1 million Southern California
households- L.A. Times)  The state amended that the cutback would
actually cutback 25% considering the way the state would execute
the Federal proposal.
	The consequences are plentiful and harsh.  With the
combination of the agriculture and industry "tens of thousands of
jobs"-L.A. Times, would be at stake.  More than $12 billion
dollars will be lost in industry.  Ethics take part in the issue
determining whether the livelihood of a human is worth being lost
to a minnow.  How will someone standing in the unemployment line
feel about the ecocentric view to save the smelt rather than
spare industrialization?

	SHOULD THE DELICATE AND DEVASTATED ECOSYSTEM OF THE DELTA
 		BE SPARED AT THE COST OF SOCIETY?
          ARE THERE ANY OTHER OPTIONS THAT COULD BE IMPLEMENTED? 

ww10baz@ucsd.edu