I’ve spent a lot of time listening to some very smart people explain California water policy. Here’s what I’ve learned.
One perk of working at Golden State Salmon Association (GSSA) is getting to work with some really smart people.
People like GSSA Senior Policy Advisor Barry Nelson and GSSA Senior Policy Director (and founding Executive Director) John McManus, who have spent decades fighting to protect California salmon. These guys know more about water rights, river flows, dams, and fish biology than I could ever hope to learn.
Me? I’m just a marketing guy with a boat who likes to fish and thinks California rivers and oceans should be full of salmon.
So when Barry and John start talking about things like unimpaired flows, water quality standards, and the Bay-Delta Plan, I do my best to keep up. Sometimes I even understand what they’re saying. Sometimes.
But there’s one term that keeps coming up that I think every salmon fisherman should understand.
The so-called Voluntary Agreements. So-called that is until Gavin Newsom’s team determined the term had lost its propaganda value and renamed them the “Healthy Rivers and Landscape Agreements”, but that’s for another time.
Who could be against “voluntary agreements”? That sounds like a good thing. All parties agreed to settle a dispute. Sounds good, right?
Maybe you’ve heard GSSA criticizing them. Maybe you’ve read about Governor Newsom’s efforts to get them approved. Or maybe you’re wondering what the hell they are and why you should care.
Well, after listening to Barry and John explain this stuff more times than I can count, I’m going to try to explain it myself.
First, let’s talk about California’s water problem.
California has a lot of people who need water. Farmers need it to grow crops. Cities need it for drinking water. And salmon need it to survive.
The problem is that we’ve built a massive system of dams, reservoirs, canals, and pumps that takes water from our rivers and sends it somewhere else.
Much of that water comes from the same rivers that salmon depend on.
As we all know, salmon need cold, clean water to spawn, hatch, and migrate to the ocean. When we take too much water out of rivers, temperatures rise, migration becomes more dangerous, and fewer young salmon survive. That’s why we got shut down for three years.
It’s not the only reason California salmon are struggling, but it’s by far the biggest part of the problem.
Which brings us to the Voluntary Agreements.
So what exactly are the Voluntary Agreements?
California has something called the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan, or Bay-Delta Plan. It establishes water quality protections for the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta and the rivers that feed it, including protections for fish and wildlife. As far as salmon fishermen are concerned, this thing should be called the Central Valley Salmon Rivers Diversion Plan because that’s a big part of what it is.
For years, fishermen, scientists, and conservation groups have argued that California needs to leave more water in its rivers to help struggling salmon populations recover. The proof is in the pudding…. As we’ve seen water diversion of Central Valley salmon rivers rise over the last four decades, we’ve seen a corresponding decrease in our salmon runs. Simple.
But more water for salmon can mean a little less water available for farms.
Enter the Voluntary Agreements, or VAs.
Instead of the state overseeing a slight reduction in river diversions, r the state negotiated an alternative approach with participating water agencies and let the water agencies write their own plan
Under these “agreements,” water agencies say they’ll commit to providing some additional water for the environment, along with funding for habitat restoration and other projects intended to help fish.
Supporters say it’s a win-win. Salmon supposedly get some additional water and habitat improvements, while farms and cities get more certainty about their water supplies.
Sounds reasonable, right?
Well, not so fast.
Here’s why GSSA thinks these agreements suck.
After spending enough time listening to Barry and John, I’ve come to understand that the biggest problem with the Voluntary Agreements is pretty simple.
They don’t provide nearly enough water for salmon.
And that’s the whole ballgame.
Simply put, salmon need more water.
Scientists have spent decades studying how much water California’s rivers need to support healthy fish populations, and they now have a pretty good idea.
One concept that comes up a lot is unimpaired flow. That’s roughly how much water would flow down a river if dams and diversions weren’t a thing.
The Voluntary Agreements promise some additional flows, but GSSA argues those increases fall far short of what salmon need to recover.
Imagine a salmon river that’s been running dangerously low for years. Fish populations are collapsing, and fishing seasons are getting canceled.
Now imagine someone says, “Good news! We’re going to give the river a little more water.”
Great. But is it enough? Will it be there when needed, as in droughts? And “a little more than” what? What’s the baseline that we’re measuring “more” from? And how many loopholes are also written into these agreements to let the diverters dodge their obligations?
According to GSSA’s policy team, the plan is a resounding failure.
You can’t replace water with habitat projects.
One of the big selling points of the VAs is money for habitat restoration.
And don’t get me wrong. Habitat restoration is important. Salmon need spawning gravel, floodplains, and healthy riverbanks.
But habitat restoration doesn’t replace adequate river flows, and a shortage of habitat is not what’s limiting salmon populations in the Central Valley now
You can spend millions restoring spawning habitat, but if the water is too warm for salmon eggs to survive, what good is it? As a fisherman friend put it – dead fish don’t use floodplains. Also, you can spend millions restoring floodplain habitat, which helps juvenile salmon rear in some years, but again, what good is it if it’s dry and not flooded?
It’s like building a beautiful new house and forgetting to install the plumbing.
That’s how I think about the VAs. They emphasize habitat improvements without providing enough water for those improvements to work.
Worse still, the VAs include a loophole that would allow massive proposed new projects like the Sites Reservoir and the Delta tunnel to take even more water. And at the end of the day, these new diversions could swamp the small amount of “environmental water” in the VAs. Taxpayers would pay for both. Pay water users to provide water under the VAs. And then pay for part of projects like Sites Reservoir. At the end of the day, the VAs would allow conditions for salmon to become even worse – at a cost to taxpayers of billions of dollars.
The VAs are not just a weak industry proposal. They are a scam.
The people taking the water wrote the deal, and they made sure other interested parties, like GSSA, tribes, and others, were kept away from the negotiating room!
This is the part that really gets me. It’s like if Governor Newsom decided the way to settle a labor strike was to throw labor out of the room and have management write a “voluntary agreement.”
The VAs were negotiated with major water agencies whose financial interests are directly tied to how much water they can continue diverting from California’s rivers.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with involving water users. They’re important stakeholders.
But from GSSA’s perspective, the resulting agreements put too much emphasis on protecting water deliveries and not enough on protecting salmon.
And remember, salmon don’t have lobbyists. They don’t make campaign contributions. And they don’t get to sit across the negotiating table and argue for more water.
That’s why organizations like GSSA exist.
Why should salmon fishermen care?
Because this is where complicated water policy gets very real.
When incubating salmon eggs in river gravel never hatch because the river is too warm, fewer salmon return in the years that follow.
When young salmon don’t survive their journey downstream because of water diversions, fewer adult salmon return in the years that follow.
And when too few salmon return, fisheries managers restrict fishing.
Sometimes that means shorter seasons. Sometimes it means smaller catch limits. And sometimes it means no season at all.
California’s commercial salmon fishing industry went three straight years without a season before fishing resumed in 2026. The sport fishery suffered the same fate with a six-day mini season in 2025.
Think about what that means for commercial fishermen, charter operators, tackle shops, marinas, seafood businesses, and coastal communities.
Salmon declines have multiple causes, including ocean conditions, drought, and habitat loss. But poor river conditions are the major cause – and are one of the problems we can address.
We can manage dams differently. We can protect cold water for spawning salmon. And we can leave more water in rivers in the spring when young fish need it.
If you care about catching salmon in California, you should care about how much water we’re leaving in our rivers.
It’s that simple.
So what happens now?
In October 2026, California’s State Water Resources Control Board adopted an updated Bay-Delta Plan that includes the Voluntary Agreements approach.
GSSA strongly opposed the decision because we believe it fails to provide the river flows and protections needed to restore California’s salmon populations.
And while supporters celebrated it as a compromise, GSSA sees it as a major setback for salmon and fishing communities.
Implementation decisions remain, and GSSA is already planning its next steps.
We’re not against farmers or cities having water. And we’re certainly not against habitat restoration.
What we want is a plan that starts with the science and guarantees salmon enough cold water, at the right times, to survive.
Because here’s something I’ve learned from Barry and John:
You can’t negotiate with a salmon about how much water it needs to survive.
I’m still learning about California water policy, and every conversation with these guys teaches me something new.
But one thing has become pretty clear.
California salmon don’t need more clever political compromises that look good on paper.
They need healthy rivers. They need cold water. And they need enough water to survive.
The Voluntary Agreements may sound like a reasonable solution. After all, who doesn’t like the idea of people sitting down and working out their differences?
But a compromise isn’t much of a compromise if the fish are the ones paying the price.
And for those of us who love salmon fishing, that price is already way too high.
That’s why GSSA is fighting the Voluntary Agreements. And that’s why every salmon fisherman in California should be paying attention.