Well, not quite. However, two Family Water Alliance (FWA) productions, "California Waterways: A Legacy in Crisis" and "The Sacramento River Small Diversion Fish Screen Program", will be aired on Redding’s Public Broadcast Station, KIXE local channel 9, on May 5th at 10:30 p.m. and June 5th and 10th at 6:00 p.m. FWA produced these two videos in furtherance of its mission of public education and outreach regarding issues that affect our rural communities, private property rights, and water rights in Northern California.

California Waterways: A Legacy in Crisis is both a look back, and a glance into the future. It begins by documenting the historical flooding experienced throughout the Sacramento Valley. The program goes on to describe the components of the flood control system initially devised by Will S. Green of Colusa in the early 1900’s, which employs a network of weirs, bypasses and levees to protect our rural communities and reclaim valuable and productive farmland. The story continues by describing the various maintenance activities historically undertaken to ensure this engineered system continued to function properly. The Program delivers its message by describing the current state of disrepair and lack of maintenance of the flood control system today. It illustrates the problems associated with large woody debris, lack of dredging, habitat restoration within the system, lack of levee maintenance, and the impacts associated with environmental regulations. It concludes by advocating for an immediate change of the unwise policies that have contributed to the unacceptable degradation of this all important infrastructure, that protects us from flooding, preserves lives, and ensures the stability of our regional economy.

The Sacramento River Small Diversion Fish Screen Program is a case study of "Responsible Environmentalism". It documents the efforts of this Program in working to develop state of the art fish screen technology to protect endangered fish species, while simultaneously serving to protect farming interests from the punitive portions of the Endangered Species Act. It promotes this type of win-win solution, describing the programmatic partnerships entered into by FWA, private landowners, state and federal agencies, engineers, and divers, all of which are necessary to successfully operate this program. It describes the challenges overcome to date, the continuing efforts to monitor the systems to continuously learn and improve on the product, and documents the success of the program by giving the landowners an opportunity to comment on the success of the program through their own experiences.

FWA wishes to thank KIXE for airing these programs, assisting us in our efforts of public education and outreach. Also, we want to encourage all to tune in for an entertaining and educational half hour of must-watch television for residents of rural communities in the Sacramento Valley. #