Too Little Too Late?

California is slowing the diversion of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California officials ordered on Friday an additional 17 percent cut in the amount of water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect a fish in the most populous U.S. state's fresh water hub.

Combined with a prior U.S. court order to reduce pumping to protect another fish in the delta, the amount of water drawn from it by state and federal water systems will be cut by nearly half from average levels, said Don Strickland, a spokesman for California's Department of Water Resources.

Water from the delta, which is east of San Francisco, is distributed as far away as Southern California, where a number of local water authorities in the most populated part of the state have already imposed water use restrictions after two years of below-average rainfall and snow in California.

Is it enough to bring back the smelt that the salmon feed on, and have the salmon return? I kind of doubt it.