The San Joaquin River, which helps
drain California’s Central Valley, has been negatively impacted
by construction of dams, inadequate streamflows and poor water
quality. Efforts are now underway to restore the river and
continue providing agricultural lands with vital irrigation,
among other water demands.
After an 18-year lawsuit to restore water flows to a 60-mile dry
stretch of river and to boost the dwindling salmon populations,
the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement is underway.
Water releases are now used to restore the San Joaquin River and
to provide habitat for naturally-reproducing populations of
self-sustaining Chinook salmon and other fish in the San Joaquin
River. Long-term efforts also include measures to reduce or avoid
adverse water supply impacts from the restoration flows.
… One day, according to a master plan, green spaces that
straddle the water and form the 22-mile San Joaquin River
Parkway will be connected with trails and offer visitors more
ways to safely, legally and comfortably get to the
water. The San Joaquin River Conservancy, formed in the
early 1990s to create the parkway, has acquired some of the
properties it needs to make that possible. But today, many of
the conservancy-owned lands are tagged with “Closed” signs and
closed to the public. … Still, there are a number of spaces
today that provide true public access to people seeking
opportunities for outdoors fun, exercise, education and more
along the river. These spaces — some of them already connected
by trails and offering popular fishing, biking and hiking spots
— signal what could be for the 22-mile stretch of water that
many consider to be the Fresno-Madera region’s hidden gem.
Much of the prized public land in the Sierras above Fresno that
was at risk of getting sold off to real estate developers as
part of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” such as
Huntington Lake and Edison Lake, was taken off the bargaining
table Monday afternoon after senate officials ruled that
selling these key parcels owned by the National Forest Service
could not be voted on in its current state due to procedural
issues. But one of Fresno’s top hiking spots, with
cultural significance to local tribes – the San Joaquin River
Gorge – could still be at risk of getting auctioned
off. It is expected that the final decision will be made
before the 4th of July. … The new proposal from Sen.
Mike Lee, R-Utah, would still allow public land to be sold to
developers to create more housing, but only land held by the
Bureau of Land Management within five miles of a population
center. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that Lee couldn’t
sell off the national forest land, the Associate Press
reported, due to restrictions in the budget reconciliation
process.
… Originally born in Colorado, (Richard) Sloan moved to
Fresno with his parents when he was around 4 years old. He
moved to Khartoum, Sudan for two years and returned in 1964 to
Fresno. It was then, when he was 13 years old, when he first
became acquainted with the San Joaquin River. … During
his final years in (Army) service and after, Sloan began
volunteering for the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation
Trust. That was when he experienced his first canoe ride down
the river, where he noted that he was “never out of sight of a
tire” while on the water. … “I thought, ‘Oh my God, why
doesn’t anybody do anything about that?’ and that’s what
spurred me onto that first cleanup, then after that, I started
organizing tire cleanups and they turned out to be pretty
popular,” Sloan said. In 2000, he got a full-time position
with the trust as the River Steward Coordinator and also became
chair of the Sierra Club Tehipite Chapter. Through his
positions he was able to coordinate the river’s first clean up
at Camp Pashayan, where they pulled out 60 tires and an
old-timey soda vending machine.
Earlier this month, Fresno welcomed 448 members of the
Salmonidae family to town. … The 448 adult salmon
represent a milestone for the San Joaquin River Restoration
Program, marking the highest number of captured returns since
spring-run juveniles were reintroduced to the river system in
2014 following the 2008 legal settlement that modified the
operations of Friant Dam to provide minimum flows for native
fish. … Most of this year’s bumper crop were trapped in fyke
nets placed downstream of the Eastside Bypass Control Structure
in Merced County. (Some made their way upstream to Sack Dam
until being captured.) After being placed into tanks with
oxygenated, temperature-controlled water, the salmon were
trucked 120 miles then examined and measured before being
released back into the river in northwest Fresno. … What
measures are taken to ensure nearly 450 adult salmon residing
on the outskirts of a city of 547,000 people remain undisturbed
until they can reproduce? The short answer is enforcement and
education. –Written by Fresno Bee columnist Marek Warszawski.
Visitors have five new trails at Dos Rios Ranch State Park,
nearly a year after it opened southwest of Modesto. The public
can enjoy them starting at 7 a.m. Friday, June 6. They go
farther out on the Tuolumne and San Joaquin
rivers than the initial two trails. They also provide
easy access for the first time to swimming and fishing spots.
… Dos Rios was created on about 1,600 acres of one-time
floodplain where the two rivers join. Restoration began in
2012, led by River Partners and aided by the Tuolumne River
Trust. The nonprofits had more than $40 million from numerous
public agencies. Former farm fields gave way to native
trees, brush and grasses. Fast-growing cottonwoods, willows and
other plantings shelter and feed wildlife. The place was
designed to absorb high river flows, protecting Grayson and
other towns downstream.
Having the San Joaquin out of sight and mind is one of Fresno’s
tragic realities. … But hopefully that will change soon.
… The San Joaquin River Conservancy is a state agency whose
mission is to create a 22-mile-long parkway in the floodplain,
from Friant Dam northeast of Fresno to Highway 99. The river is
to be kept in a natural state, but a trail would be constructed
and access points would be made along the river. Work on
creating the parkway is ongoing, but slow. … It is time,
however, for the San Joaquin River to be a more recognized fact
of life in Fresno. City leaders, if you want new energy in
Fresno, prioritize the river and its opportunities. –Written by Tad Weber, opinion writer for The Fresno
Bee.
Fresno does not have to look far for successful examples of how
to bring locals and visitors to a river parkway. In
Bakersfield, the Kern River Parkway boasts the longest
municipally-owned bike trail in the country. In Sacramento, the
American River Parkway hosts archery tournaments, a “Burger
Battle” between local chefs and firefighters, and large
festivals for rock and country music fans. … But, in
Fresno, access to the water and revenue-generating activities
along the parkway or adjacent to it are limited in comparison
to other Central Valley cities. And a lot of Fresnans still
don’t know that they can enjoy their river. According to
existing plans, the Fresno-Madera parkway will one day offer a
full trail system along 22 miles of the San Joaquin
River from Friant Dam to Highway 99. However, the path
to completion has been far from simple, or speedy.
The San Joaquin River connects three of the defining features
of California’s landscape, the Sierra Nevada Central Valley in
San Francisco Bay the river and its tributaries cover a
drainage of over 15,000 square miles. Today on KVPR Central
Valley roots the story of the river and how it earned its many
names. Long before the river was called the San Joaquin, native
peoples lived along its banks and fished its waters. The Mono
tribe called the river Typici-h-huu, which means important or
great river. The Yokuts also called the river home, and named
it Tihshachu, which means “salmon spearing place.” … In
either 1805 or 1806, an expedition led by Gabriel Moraga
entered the Central Valley and came across the river. Moraga
named it after St. Joachim, the father of the Virgin Mary. Thus
the name San Joaquin River was born.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a state of emergency
for San Joaquin County following last year’s failure of the
Victoria Island Levee. The emergency proclamation allows
the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to assist the
county with additional work to shore up the levee, according to
a news release from Newsom’s office. San Joaquin County
first submitted a request for financial assistance to the
California Disaster Assistance Act on Nov. 6, 2024, officials
said. … The failure of the levee in October 2024
included a 2,000-foot section of the breakwater that caused the
release of water at an estimated 6,000 gallons per minute
through its base, the state said. Reclamation District
engineers found slumping last fall along the Old River on
Victoria Island, near Highway 4, between Stockton and Discovery
Bay. … Additional work began in late November as crews
scrambled to repair the damaged section of levee before winter
rains could damage it further.
To those who know about it, the San Joaquin River is Fresno’s
greatest natural feature. … Yet, those passionate about
the river told The Fresno Bee that too many people — even
Fresnans — still don’t know about it. And they have different
ideas about how to capture the possibilities. Some want more
entrepreneurial development at the water’s edge — like a new,
commercialized river walk — though others vehemently oppose
that kind of development, and it doesn’t square with long-term
goals set out in a conservation-focused master plan. Others
argue it’s the city of Fresno that holds the keys to unlocking
the river’s potential for economic development, and that
leadership over the years has failed to advance innovative
ideas. … Critics of the river’s management say that it
has too few public access points and too few easy ways for the
general public to use it for recreation. The natural resource
is administered by a conservancy that has set out a long-term
plan that does not emphasize economic development or tourism
marketing.
Growing up in the shadow of the
Rocky Mountains, Andrew Schwartz never missed an opportunity to
play in – or study – a Colorado snowstorm. During major
blizzards, he would traipse out into the icy wind and heavy
drifts of snow pretending to be a scientist researching in
Antarctica.
Decades later, still armed with an obsession for extreme weather,
Schwartz has landed in one of the snowiest places in the West,
leading a research lab whose mission is to give California water
managers instant information on the depth and quality of snow
draping the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
This tour traveled along the San Joaquin River to learn firsthand
about one of the nation’s largest and most expensive river
restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Hampton Inn & Suites Fresno
327 E Fir Ave
Fresno, CA 93720
This tour ventured through California’s Central Valley, known as the nation’s breadbasket thanks to an imported supply of surface water and local groundwater. Covering about 20,000 square miles through the heart of the state, the valley provides 25 percent of the nation’s food, including 40 percent of all fruits, nuts and vegetables consumed throughout the country.
Land and waterway managers labored
hard over the course of a century to control California’s unruly
rivers by building dams and levees to slow and contain their
water. Now, farmers, environmentalists and agencies are undoing
some of that work as part of an accelerating campaign to restore
the state’s major floodplains.
Voluntary agreements in California
have been touted as an innovative and flexible way to improve
environmental conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
and the rivers that feed it. The goal is to provide river flows
and habitat for fish while still allowing enough water to be
diverted for farms and cities in a way that satisfies state
regulators.
California is chock full of rivers and creeks, yet the state’s network of stream gauges has significant gaps that limit real-time tracking of how much water is flowing downstream, information that is vital for flood protection, forecasting water supplies and knowing what the future might bring.
That network of stream gauges got a big boost Sept. 30 with the signing of SB 19. Authored by Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa), the law requires the state to develop a stream gauge deployment plan, focusing on reactivating existing gauges that have been offline for lack of funding and other reasons. Nearly half of California’s stream gauges are dormant.
One of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade
Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within
weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that
Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.
That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach”
on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded
floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.
Bruce Babbitt, the former Arizona
governor and secretary of the Interior, has been a thoughtful,
provocative and sometimes forceful voice in some of the most
high-profile water conflicts over the last 40 years, including
groundwater management in Arizona and the reduction of
California’s take of the Colorado River. In 2016, former
California Gov. Jerry Brown named Babbitt as a special adviser to
work on matters relating to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and
the Delta tunnels plan.
The San Joaquin Valley, known as the
nation’s breadbasket, grows a cornucopia of fruits, nuts and
other agricultural products.
During our three-day Central Valley Tour April
3-5, you will meet farmers who will explain how they prepare
the fields, irrigate their crops and harvest the produce that
helps feed the nation and beyond. We also will drive through
hundreds of miles of farmland and visit the rivers, dams,
reservoirs and groundwater wells that provide the water.
The whims of political fate decided
in 2018 that state bond money would not be forthcoming to help
repair the subsidence-damaged parts of Friant-Kern Canal, the
152-mile conduit that conveys water from the San Joaquin River to
farms that fuel a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy along
the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
