California’s Largest Family Owned Restaurant, Scoma’s on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, Concerned About State Water Policy and Decline of Salmon

Fishermen, Seafood Restaurant and Conservationists Call for Improved Water Management in the San Francisco Bay-Delta

By Frank D. Russo

In much of the current debate about California’s water policies there is a lot said about dams, water storage, conveyance devices such as a peripheral canal, and the like. But there is relatively little said about the fish. And much of this debate—other than that which deals with water coming out of the tap—is probably seen as abstract to many Californians.

Yesterday, another report was issued—this time by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), “Fish Out of Water: How Water Management in the Bay-Delta Threatens the Future of California’s Salmon Fishery,” describing how the State Water Project and Central Valley Project contribute to declining salmon populations, by reducing the availability of water necessary for migration and spawning, killing tens of thousands of juvenile salmon by sucking them into giant pumps used to export water, and blocking salmon’s migration route with their dams. This is the latest in a blizzard of reports by academic think tanks and others and comes on the heels of a federal court ruling that water project operations in the Central Valley jeopardize the survival of several salmon runs, and a few months after state and federal agencies closed California’s commercial salmon fishery for the first time ever due to record low numbers of fish returning to spawn.

This report warns that California salmon could soon disappear permanently from the state’s rivers, restaurant menus and supermarkets if massive water diversions from the San Francisco Bay-Delta continue unabated.

What made the report real to me—and what may begin to finally drive the point home to many Californians—is what I learned from talking to Kelly Bennett, the fish buyer for Scoma’s restaurant after a press conference on the pier where they have not only their restaurant, but where they also receive fish directly off of boats. They are the only restaurant in San Francisco with a commercial license to buy fish off of boats.

Scoma’s, you should understand, is the number 23 restaurant in the United States that is not part of a chain in terms of sales according to Restaurants and Institutions. It is the number one volume independently owned restaurant in California and iconic in the Bay Area.

It also has a fond part in my memories as a young adult when I first drove up from San Diego to San Francisco and at Scoma’s discovered cioppino, a fish stew. As the product of an Italian-American restaurant family myself, I identify with the owners, Al and Joe Scoma, who started this eatery in 1965.

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