Opinion: Tulare Lake, restored by floods, haunts California yet again
Only two centuries ago, a shallow inland sea dominated California’s Central Valley. In a ring of impenetrable reeds, called tules, was Tulare Lake — then the largest body of freshwater west of the Mississippi River. At the end of the 19th century, newly arrived settlers began draining it to provide water for agriculture and growing cities and to defend against destructive floods. But during wet years, as 2023 has turned out to be, Tulare Lake seems to rise from the dead — with some labeling it a “phantom lake.” The reality is, Tulare Lake was never gone in the first place. Seasonal rains created an ebb and flow of the boundaries as the shoreline shifted. In drier years, Tulare was two lakes separated by a land bridge. In wetter years, these lakes connected and created an archipelago. In the driest years, the southern lake disappeared and the archipelago became a beach.
-Written by Trace Fleeman Garcia, an interdisciplinary researcher with the Oregon Institute for Creative Research in Portland.