Water Rights (Case 7)

The agricultural belt of the Central Valley in California, depends on water pumped from the Bay Delta. The community of Fresno, which has one of the worst poverty rates in the U.S., is extremely dependent on farm labor as a source of employment. However the pumping of water from the Bay Delta is home to an endangered species of fish, the Delta Smelt, and many scientists and environmentalists worry that the continued pumping endangers the fish population and the ecosystem of the Bay Delta as a whole.