Senate committee advances bill to keep minimum flows on Scott and Shasta rivers while permanent rules are developed

Assemblymember Heath (Rogers) presented AB 263 to the California Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, asking the committee to adopt language that would allow emergency in‑stream flow regulations now applied to the Scott and Shasta rivers to remain in effect for five years or until the State Water Resources Control Board adopts permanent regulations, whichever happens first.

Assemblymember Rogers told the committee the migrations of Chinook and Coho on the Klamath watershed remain under strain from diversions and that emergency rules adopted in 2021 have provided a temporary balance between agricultural water uses and fisheries. "We're not trying to set the permanent regulations," Rogers said, adding the bill is meant to "not undo the progress that's been made over the last few years while DWR promulgates those regulations." He also cited a Department of Finance estimate that trimming annual interim rulemaking could save the state roughly $2 million.

Philp Williams, a member of the Yurok Tribal Council, said his people have gone nine years without a commercial salmon…