Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
I am a California native born in Sonora, raised in the Bay Area, and ended up with a family of my own here in the Central Valley. So my roots in Northern California and its surrounding waterways and recreational wonderlands has always been a big part of my life, as it has been for many of us here in Northern California.

Growing up as a kid I would fish the Delta often and wondered why the South Delta always looked so horribly unfishable compared to the Sacramento Delta. I began asking questions, and eventually I found out the source of this mess. The huge pumping stations in Tracy, in other terms I don’t know how to put it just flat out are “stealing” water from the rivers that flow to the San Francisco Bay estuary. With recent events such as the collapse of the commercial and recreational salmon fishery, other fisheries such as steelhead trout, and green sturgeon are on the decline in our delta/river system. We have to asourselves, do we really want to let Southern and Central California’s wealthy few obliterate what’s left of our already heavily damaged, and may I remind you the biggest freshwater estuary in western North America?

Please read my words knowing that I am one voice among hundreds of thousands of more than concerned northern Californians trying to figure out why we have let this happen so long and what we can do to keep these people from sucking the heart right out of our beautiful state further wreaking havoc on local economies and ecosystems. I simply cannot stand on the sidelines anymore and allow this to happen, and I strongly urge anyone else living, loving, and prospering in the north part of the state to speak up to local newspapers and local congressman/woman and lawmakers. It’s past the time and with what time we have left I’m afraid it may already be too late.