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.
California’s state parks system is getting larger, following a
trio of new additions announced on Earth Day. State
officials said the three parks will be located in an area where
these public spaces have long been few and
far-between. They are the Feather River
Park near Olivehurst in Yuba County — the county’s
first state park — the San Joaquin River
Parkway in Fresno and Madera counties, and the Dust
Bowl Camp near Bakersfield in Kern County. … State Parks
Director Armando Quintero spoke with Insight Host Vicki
Gonzalez about these latest efforts to expand recreational and
conservation efforts in the Central Valley.
Sycamore Island, a 600-acre property on the banks of
the San Joaquin River in the Central Valley,
is a little pocket of nature in the middle of a metropolis.
… Last week, Sycamore Island became part of California’s
largest expansion to its state park system in decades. On Earth
Day, Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled plans for three new California
state parks and announced the expansion of several more. The
state parks expansion touches the redwoods, the Sierra Nevada,
the Pacific Coast and the Central Valley. … The San
Joaquin River Parkway, including Sycamore Island, is a proposed
state park that would consist of 874 acres of riverfront
property and will provide river access and recreation
opportunities for communities in Fresno and Madera.
After four decades of piecing the San Joaquin River Parkway
together parcel by parcel, the state is preparing to hand six
of its properties — 874 acres in all — to California State
Parks, giving the long-stalled greenway its first permanent
institutional landlord. The new San Joaquin River Parkway
State Park is one of three that Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed
Wednesday under the “State Parks Forward” initiative.
… For the River Parkway Trust, which has run Sycamore
Island and other Conservancy lands under contract, the move
solves a looming problem. The Trust’s Sycamore Island operating
contract expires in June 2027.
The Central Valley could soon be home to three new state parks
in what officials say is the largest expansion of California’s
state park system in decades. The proposed parks —
Feather River Park in Yuba County, San
Joaquin River Parkway near Fresno, and Dust Bowl Camp
in Bakersfield — would serve historically park-poor
communities. … The largest of the proposed parks,
Feather River in Olivehurst, Yuba County, sits on nearly 2,000
acres along the Feather River. It would be the first state park
in Yuba County, complete with a boat launch and riverside
beach, as well as a floodplain designed to take on
water in high-flow years. The San Joaquin River
Parkway in Fresno and Madera counties would join various
properties into an 874-acre state park directly upriver from
the city of Fresno.
American Rivers is today announcing the San Joaquin River as
one of America’s Most Endangered Rivers® of 2026 due to a
600-foot-deep blast mine proposed alongside it, threatening its
flows, water quality, and the people and wildlife that rely on
it. The San Joaquin River is the water source for 30
million Californians, supports nearly half of the state’s $61
billion agricultural economy, and is the prime habitat for
Chinook salmon and Steelhead trout. … The global gravel
mining company CEMEX seeks a 100-year permit for the mine,
which would divert water from the life-sustaining San Joaquin
River to a quarry site, potentially exposing the water supply
to hazardous mining pollution.
… Some people call it “human compost,” but Sharon Weaver
prefers a different term. “It is technically called natural
organic reduction soil,” said Weaver, who is executive director
of the non-profit San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation
Trust. … Weaver approved of using this compost along the
San Joaquin River because, she said, it would help restore the
land. … The practice had been happening for more than a
year. But last month, it became the center of a public
conversation. That’s because Fresno County Supervisor Garry
Bredefeld caught word of it. … In March, the county
handed Weaver a cease-and-desist letter to stop using this soil
along the San Joaquin River – and she did stop. … Still,
green burials like this are gaining popularity around the
country.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Delta explores the competing
uses and demands on California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta. The 11th edition examines this critical
water hub and its myriad challenges. The 2025 version
includes the latest information on the tunnel project, habitat
restoration efforts, climate change impacts and an updated
section on the legal and political facets of the Delta.
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.
The Sacramento and San Joaquin
rivers are the two major Central Valley waterways that feed the
Delta, the hub of California’s water supply
network. Our last water tours of
2018 will look in-depth at how these rivers are managed and
used for agriculture, cities and the environment. You’ll see
infrastructure, learn about efforts to restore salmon runs and
talk to people with expertise on these rivers.
New water storage is the holy grail
primarily for agricultural interests in California, and in 2014
the door to achieving long-held ambitions opened with the passage
of Proposition
1, which included $2.7 billion for the public benefits
portion of new reservoirs and groundwater storage projects. The
statute stipulated that the money is specifically for the
benefits that a new storage project would offer to the ecosystem,
water quality, flood control, emergency response and recreation.
For more than 100 years, invasive
species have made the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta their home,
disrupting the ecosystem and costing millions of dollars annually
in remediation.
The latest invader is the nutria, a large rodent native to South
America that causes concern because of its propensity to devour
every bit of vegetation in sight and destabilize levees by
burrowing into them. Wildlife officials are trapping the animal
and trying to learn the extent of its infestation.
