Until the early 1900s, central California’s Tulare Lake naturally
appeared every winter as the southernmost rivers flowing out of
the Sierra Nevada Mountains filled the dry lakebed with rainfall
and melted snow.
Farmers adjacent to the lake also used the water to irrigate
their lands. But the variable shoreline made growing seasons
unpredictable. In response, Pine Flat Dam was built by the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers to control Kings River flows. The Kings
River is still used extensively for irrigation.
Because the Tulare Lake Basin’s irrigation water does not have an
outlet, agricultural drainage is stored in a series of
evaporation ponds in and near the lakebed, which has been
converted to farm fields. By the 1980s the water drained
into 28 ponds totaling 7,300 acres. Crop production improved in
part due to improved drainage. Today, drainage water from about
44,046 acres of farmland is contained and evaporated from eight
basins encompassing 4,740 acres of evaporation ponds.
Anew time-lapse video shared on social media shows Tulare Lake,
California’s ghost lake, disappear after re-forming last year.
A series of atmospheric rivers hit California last year during
an abnormally wet winter season and caused the lake to reemerge
in the San Joaquin Valley. The original lake was once much
larger than Lake Tahoe and was known to be the largest
freshwater lake in the West, but it began to dry up in the late
1800s and fully disappeared 80 years ago when water was
diverted and the land was repurposed for agricultural
uses. Atmospheric rivers are a “long, narrow region in the
atmosphere—like rivers in the sky—that transport most of the
water vapor outside of the tropics,” according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The long-dormant lake that roared to life in California’s San
Joaquin Valley last winter, eventually swelling to nearly the
size of Lake Tahoe, has all but disappeared. Almost a year
after historic storms fueled its rebirth, Tulare Lake endures
today only as several small stretches of standing water. The
vast expanses of farms, roads and buildings unexpectedly
engulfed by the lake ever since March, between Bakersfield and
Fresno, have mostly resurfaced, albeit wet and very muddy. As
of early this month, water pooled sporadically over a total of
a few square miles, in contrast to the uninterrupted 180-square
mile lake that fanned out last spring, according to data from
the Kings County Office of Emergency Services.
The flooding caused by intensifying winter rainstorms in
California is helping to spread a deadly fungal disease called
coccidioidomycosis, or Valley fever. “Hydro-climate whiplash is
increasingly wide swings between extremely wet and extremely
dry conditions,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at
University of California, Los Angeles. Humans are finding it
difficult to adapt to this new pattern. But fungi are thriving,
Swain said. Valley fever, he added, “is going to become an
increasingly big story.” Cases of Valley fever in
California broke records last year after nine back-to-back
atmospheric rivers slammed the state and caused
widespread, record-breaking flooding.
The San Joaquin Valley of California, despite supplying a
significant percentage of the country’s food, is nevertheless a
dry, arid place. Fresno, at the heart of the valley, receives
just over 10 inches of rain a year on average, according to the
National Weather Service, and sometimes as little as
3. And yet, until the late 19th century, the San Joaquin
Valley held a lake more than 100 miles long and over 30 miles
wide. Tulare Lake “was the largest body of fresh water west of
the Mississippi River. It’s really difficult to imagine that
now,” says Vivian Underhill, formerly a postdoctoral research
fellow at Northeastern University with the Social Science and
Environmental Health Research Institute. In research
conducted while at Northeastern, Underhill describes the lake’s
recent, surprising return as a result of
2023’s atmospheric rivers over California, and the effects
the lake’s return has had on indigenous communities,
wildlife and agricultural workers in the San Joaquin
Valley.
Residents living below the Isabella Auxiliary Dam were thrilled
earlier this month with a temporary fix that finally dried up
excessive seepage from the dam that had been swamping septic
systems and breeding forests of mosquito-infested weeds around
their homes. The didn’t realize how temporary the fix would be,
however. After only 12 days without a river cutting through his
land, rancher Gerald Wenstrand woke up to see the seepage back
on Saturday.
… A state audit from the California Water Resources Control
Board released last year found that over 920,000 residents
faced an increased risk of illness–including cancer, liver and
kidney problems–due to consuming unsafe drinking water. A
majority of these unsafe water systems are in the Central
Valley. The matter has prompted community leaders to mobilize
residents around water quality as politicians confront
imperfect solutions for the region’s supply. Advocates point
out that impacted areas, including those in Tulare County, tend
to be majority Latino with low median incomes. … This
year’s extreme weather has only worsened the valley’s problems.
The storms that hit California at the start of this year caused
stormwater tainted with farm industry fertilizer, manure and
nitrates to flow into valley aquifers.
A new underground mapping technology
that reveals the best spots for storing surplus water in
California’s Central Valley is providing a big boost to the
state’s most groundwater-dependent communities.
The maps provided by the California Department of Water Resources
for the first time pinpoint paleo valleys and similar prime
underground storage zones traditionally found with some guesswork
by drilling exploratory wells and other more time-consuming
manual methods. The new maps are drawn from data on the
composition of underlying rock and soil gathered by low-flying
helicopters towing giant magnets.
The unique peeks below ground are saving water agencies’
resources and allowing them to accurately devise ways to capture
water from extreme storms and soak or inject the surplus
underground for use during the next drought.
“Understanding where you’re putting and taking water from really
helps, versus trying to make multimillion-dollar decisions based
on a thumb and which way the wind is blowing,” said Aaron Fukuda,
general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District, an early
adopter of the airborne electromagnetic or
AEM technology in California.
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.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
Salt. In a small amount, it’s a gift from nature. But any doctor
will tell you, if you take in too much salt, you’ll start to have
health problems. The same negative effect is happening to land in
the Central Valley. The problem scientists call “salinity” poses
a growing threat to our food supply, our drinking water quality
and our way of life. The problem of salt buildup and potential –
but costly – solutions are highlighted in this 2008 public
television documentary narrated by comedian Paul Rodriguez.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36 inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
Until the early 1900s, Central
California’s Tulare Lake naturally appeared every winter as the
southernmost rivers flowing out of the Sierra Nevada filled the
dry lakebed with rainfall and melted snow.
In the spring, the shallow lake near Visalia could cover as much
as 790 square miles, or four times the surface area of Lake
Tahoe. By the end of the hot San Joaquin Valley summer, however,
the giant lake – once the largest freshwater body west of the
Mississippi River – could disappear primarily due to evaporation.