Grandpa: I think we both want to see unnecessary fish kills stopped.
As for balance, that has very different meanings to different groups. I suspect the farmers, many of whom are farming on a National Wildlife Refuge, think balance is whatever water they need for whatever crops they want to grow, whatever way they want to use their heavily subsidized water. While to many rabid environmentalists balance is absolutely no impact on endangered fish. (While the chinook kill made the most news there were, in fact many endangered coho killed as well.)

I think that balance in this case would mean a meaningful attempt to store, conserve and reallocate as much water as possible to assure the salmon have the water they need. I just learned that several tribs of the river are often completely dewatered many yera, primarily due to irrigation withdrawls. (Is that balance?) Any excess would go to the farmers. BUT I would like to insist the farmers begin serious efforts to CONSERVE water. They need to install more efficient systems, be more careful with their irrigation, (How many times have you seen a big irrigation sprinkler shooting water all the way across the highway?) Perhaps if we charged farmers the actual cost of the water they might conserve it a bit better?

I do have compassion for a family farm struggling against corporate farms that receive huge taxpayer subsidies. But I have more for a species facing extinction due to decades of abuse.