Ann Hayden is a Senior Water Resource Analyst at EDF.

It’s been a long time coming for the San Joaquin River, but yesterday marked the beginning of the return of both the river and the salmon runs that it once supported.

Congress overwhelmingly approved the project as part of a landmark wilderness bill (sponsored by Senators Feinstein and Boxer) that will require river flows along the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam, re-watering a 63-mile stretch of the river that has been mostly dry for decades. In addition to mandated river flows, the legislation includes provisions to restore riparian habitat as well as measures to help valley farmers. This deal is in no small part due to the tireless efforts of fishing and environmental interests, led by NRDC, who first took the matter to court in 1988, showing that sometimes persistence and hard work does indeed pay off.

Additional flows on the San Joaquin will surely help the imperiled Delta ecosystem as well and will be factored into efforts to create a Bay-Delta Conservation Plan as well as Delta-related activities within the California legislature.

Victories like this are few and far between—giant kudos to our colleagues who worked so hard for so many years.