Water Flow Reduced to Help Spawning Salmon

The Sonoma County Water Agency plans to reduce the amount of water flowing from dwindling Lake Mendocino, but it is asking water users to conserve to help chinook salmon migrating upstream to spawn.

About 1,650 threatened chinook salmon have entered the Russian River via the agency's fish ladder near Forestville.

A water conservation official called for the agency to reduce flows to the minimum allowed by state regulations, but biologists say those rules were created before salmon and steelhead were declared threatened.