A river used to run through downtown San Jose, and now it doesn't. As the Mercury News reports, the Guadalupe River is history, with fish and wildlife missing or dead.
"I'm heartbroken," said Leslee Hamilton, executive director of the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy, a nonprofit that runs educational and community programs along the bank of the river. "We've been seeing a great increase in the number of birds and wildlife in the area... The timing of this is just devastating."
"Every stream is slowly going dry. But it's tough to give names and numbers," said Gordon Becker, a fisheries scientist with the Center for Ecosystem Management and Restoration. "The system is hopelessly inadequate."
Trails along the bank of the Guadalupe River are popular with cyclists and pedestrians alike. Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza named the waterway for the Virgin of Guadalupe as he camped alongside it on his way from Monterey to San Francisco.
"The deeper you get into the drought, the worse it gets," Matt Clifford, an attorney with Trout Unlimited, said recently. "It's grim."
Previously: Video: Broken San Bruno Pipe Releases Millions Of Gallons Of Water