The Scott River, which flows out of mountain forests into a broad valley near the California-Oregon border, provides vital habitat for salmon that swim upstream from the ocean to spawn in the fall and winter.
But this year, portions of the river have been transformed into stretches of dry sand and gravel, while farmers have kept hayfields green by running their wells and pumps.
Environmental advocates are accusing regulators at the State Water Resources Control Board of failing to do enough to prevent the river from running dry.
“They didn’t do their job,” said Regina Chichizola, who leads the nonprofit group Communities United for Water Protection. “It’s a free-for-all in the Scott River, and the water board has the authority and the laws in place to manage the water withdrawals, and they need to start doing it.”
A stretch of the Scott River sits dry at State Route 3 near Fort Jones in Northern California.
(Water Climate Trust)
She and other critics say the state should have ordered farmers to cut groundwater pumping more drastically this year to save water in the river. Farmers disagree, saying drought and other factors are primarily to blame.
The debate over the drying out of the Scott River reflects long-standing disputes over how to keep water in the river and balance the competing needs of farmers and fish.
The river is partly fed by groundwater in the Scott Valley. When farmers pump heavily from wells, that lowers the water table and can diminish the river.
The river also depends on melting snow to sustain it in the summer. But this year, it was extremely warm and the surrounding mountains got mostly rain and almost no snow. The snowpack in the area measured just 1% of average on May 1, when it typically reaches its seasonal peak.
State officials say this significantly affected the river.
“The big driver for the low flows in the Scott River this year is the extremely low snowpack,” said Erik Ekdahl, chief deputy director of the state water board. “The river has the capacity to go dry even in scenarios when there are very few diversions or overpumping.”
The Scott River, as well as the nearby Shasta River, are two of the most heavily regulated rivers in the state because of their importance for salmon. Both are tributaries of the Klamath River, where Chinook and coho salmon swim upstream to spawn.
In 2021, after Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency, the state water board adopted emergency regulations governing the two rivers and began ordering the dozens of growers in the Scott Valley to take less water from the river and reduce groundwater pumping.
Last year, the Legislature passed a law extending the board’s special regulatory powers over the two rivers until 2031, while the agency works on permanent regulations to protect river flows and fish.
“The challenge in the Scott is understanding the connection between flow and groundwater pumping,” Ekdahl said. “When surface water diversions are curtailed, the effect on streamflow is immediate. That is not the case with groundwater pumping. It could be weeks, months or years before groundwater pumping impacts a stream.”
Portions of the river similarly dried up in 2021, 2022 and 2023, even after the state started imposing limits on how much water farmers could take.
Because of the lack of snow this year, the state water board ordered farms to stop taking water from the Scott River in June. Some farmers were cited for violations when they continued taking water from the river.
The board also limited groundwater pumping, largely by asking growers to submit plans for reducing water consumption by about 30%.
Over the last few months, parts of the river have continued flowing, while other stretches dried up beside alfalfa fields.
Chichizola and other environmental advocates say the state’s efforts since 2021 have helped but that more needs to be done to ensure a flowing river for salmon.
Chinook salmon swim upstream first in the fall, and coho salmon usually start appearing in the Scott River to spawn in November.
“To allow such an important tributary to run dry as the salmon are returning is indefensible,” Chichizola said.
She and leaders of several other environmental groups, as well as the Quartz Valley Indian Reservation, wrote to the state water board calling for a review of the regulations for the Scott River, arguing the current approach isn’t working. They called for the state to reexamine whether the rules are adequate to protect salmon.
“The river’s health reflects the health of our people,” said Leonard Lincoln, chairman of the Quartz Valley Indian Reservation. “And the Scott River cannot remain a vital salmon nursery without cool, clean water.”
Record-breaking heat left the mountains across California with very little snow this spring, a situation that scientists say is a clear indication of climate change.
“It’s definitely been a dry year,” said Brandon Fawaz, a farmer in the Scott Valley.
He noted that research shows climate change is a major factor shrinking the snowpack that traditionally stored water into the summer.
“No matter what agriculture uses in a situation of extreme drought — and we are in an extreme snow drought this year — the river is going to disconnect” and dry up in places, he said. “No matter how hard you regulate the ag community and take from them, you’re not going to have made the river flow properly in a year like this.”
He and other farmers say there are other ways of restoring a flowing river. When storms bring heavy runoff, growers have been spreading water on fields to recharge groundwater. They’ve also been looking into other ways of capturing and storing more water.
Additionally, growers have suggested that the surrounding forests, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, are overgrown because of decades of fire suppression, and that thinning them out through controlled burns would help reduce the amount of water absorbed by upland vegetation.
“As climate change continues to reduce our snowpack, that’s a future that we need to find ways to grapple with,” said Ryan Walker, president of the Siskiyou County Farm Bureau.
He disagreed with the stance of environmental groups that imposing more drastic water cutbacks is the answer.
“They have to prove that those stronger curtailments are going to achieve the goals that they have, and that the state has,” Walker said. “I don’t think simply passing a regulation which cuts ag off at the knees is going to produce more fish.”
State officials say they are working on a series of initiatives to help salmon recover in rivers across the state, including along the Klamath River and its tributaries.
In 2024, crews finished demolishing four dams on the Klamath River, completing the largest dam removal effort in U.S. history. Scientists recently found that, since the dams came down, salmon have rapidly returned to spawn upstream, reoccupying 88% of their historical areas.
The Scott River flows into the Klamath downstream from where the dams stood. For decades, that made the Scott a rare refuge for salmon.
This year, though, the river’s dry sections could prevent returning salmon from getting far, and might leave them congregating at its mouth or in its lower reaches, which can increase the risks of a disease outbreak.
Environmental and fishing advocates say they’re hoping the seasonal rains come soon to refill the river and allow the fish to reach the creeks where they can lay their eggs.
“This river is really important to the health of salmon populations in California, and it’s extremely important to the tribes,” said Nathaniel Kane, a lawyer for the Karuk Tribe.
“What we’re seeing in a year like this is that the current regulations are not enough,” he said. “We want to see a permanent management program for this river that protects minimum flows so that we don’t have the river going dry.”
