Once-vast lake makes dramatic comeback
Once the largest body of freshwater west of the Mississippi, Tulare Lake in California’s San Joaquin Valley vanished over a century ago due to colonial-era drainage for agriculture. However, in the past year, this once-lost lake has dramatically reemerged, bringing both challenges and opportunities to the region.
In the late 19th century, Tulare Lake spanned over 100 miles in length and 30 miles in width, facilitating steamship travel from Bakersfield to San Francisco. However, man-made irrigation caused the ancestral lake and connecting waterways to disappear. The Tachi Yokut tribe, who knew it as “Pa’ashi”, relied on the lake, fed primarily by snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada mountains, as rainfall in the region is scarce.
Historical significance and recent return
“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.
Once, Underhill says, there was so much water that a steamship could carry “agricultural supplies from the Bakersfield area up to Fresno and then up to San Francisco” – a distance of nearly 300 miles.
The “ancestral lakes” and connecting waterways that made such a route possible have all but disappeared thanks to manmade irrigation, Underhill says.
Despite the arid landscape of the San Joaquin Valley, recent heavy snowmelt has resurrected Tulare Lake, flooding farmland and communities. While presenting challenges, this resurgence also sparks reflection on historical water management practices.
Impact on the region
Its disappearance in the late 19th century resulted from agricultural drainage. The Tachi Yokut tribe historically relied on Tulare Lake for sustenance. The lake’s return prompts reevaluation of historical water management practices.
