Where's your water from?
Here in Berkeley we drink nice fresh water piped straight from the Mokelumne River in the Sierras -- some of the best water possible (far better than most bottled water!). The water flows down out of the melting snowcaps and collects behind Pardee Dam and Camanche Dam in the foothills east of Lodi, and is then pumped through 100 miles of pipes to fill the system of East Bay reservoirs -- San Leandro, San Pablo, Chabot, and Briones. After temporary storage in these reservoirs, the water is treated and pumped into the municipal water system, about 200 million gallons a day of it.
We benefit greatly from a plentiful water supply unaffected by the pesticides and fertilizers from the Central Valley, but it comes at a price. Tens of thousands of salmon once spawned every year in the Mokelumne gravel beds, but the construction of the Pardee Dam in 1929 inundated miles of riverside habitat and blocked off all upstream spawning areas. The Camanche Dam, built in 1963, blocked most of the remaining salmon habitat.
References:
- Historical and Present Distribution of Chinook Salmon in the Central Valley Drainage of California, by Ronald M. Yoshiyama, Eric R. Gerstung, Frank W. Fisher, and Peter B. Moyle.
A map of the East Bay's water system can be found at http://www.ebmud.com/water_&_environment/water_supply/system_maps/default.htm