That's Some Expensive Sushi!

California spends $178 million per fish to bring back salmon

Leftie greenies recently hailed the return of ... five ... salmon, swimming upstream to the San Joaquin river to spawn. Paradise restored! In water-starved California, that was quite an achievement, given that each salmon required 50,000 gallons of water to get the job done, coming at a price tag of $890 million at the low end and $2 billion at the high. And that water came out of the hides of California's farmers, who got very little of the water they were promised, and paid for, as a result. That's some use of resources to get those five salmon to swim upstream.

Wayne Western, Jr., at The Sun, writes how this clown show spend-fest came to be:
In 1988, then-Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) developed the first version of the Central Valley Improvement Act (CVPIA). That same year, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit claiming that Friant Dam violated environmental laws.

In 1992, Congress pushes through the CVPIA. This action single-handedly shifted water and money from Valley farmers by driving money to environmental organizations and sending water to the ocean.
In 2006, a Settlement is reached and by 2009, the Democrat-led Congress and President Obama enact the Settlement.
Cost estimates of this effort range from $890 million to $2 billion to restore 153 miles of the river from Friant Dam to the confluence of the Merced River.

Between 250,000 and 360,000 acre-feet of water are specifically dedicated to fish habitat on the San Joaquin. Based on this week’s news, it appears to be working.
Taking the conservative cost estimate, each of the five fish caught cost taxpayers and water users $178,000,000.
And each of those fish needed 50,000 acre-feet of water per year.
I won’t even stress the cost of pumping, aquifer consequences, fallowed land, and – lest we forget – lost jobs. Many politicians aren’t either. . . .

The author confused gallons with acre-feet (the amount of water needed to cover one acre a foot deep, or 325,851gallons. That's a pretty huge error.

But just think, if they get 5 more fish back next year, the average price per fish drops to a mere $89,000,000 per fish, and assuming a 10 lb averages, a mere 8.9 million dollars per pound! That is, assuming they don't spend any more money . . .

Now, it is worth fixing things in the environment for their own sakes, but the San Joaquin River is the main river draining the lower end of California's Central Valley. It is, almost literally, a giant agricultural drainage ditch. I wouldn't want to eat those salmon.

The value of agriculture in the Central Valley to the nation's food supply and economy far outweighs the value of restoring the San Joaquin to fraction of it's original state. Let Alaska handle the salmon production.

Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links.