For the first time in decades, Tulare Lake is reappearing in the San Joaquin Valley, reclaiming the lowlands at its historic heart. This month, after a historic series of powerful storms, the phantom lake has reemerged. Thread ⬇️
Sixth Avenue used to cut through miles of farmland. Now, the road has disappeared under muddy water, its path marked by sodden telephone poles that protrude from the swelling lake. Water laps just below the windows of a lone farmhouse that sits alongside the submerged route.
“This is unreal,” said Mark Grewal, an agronomist who has worked on the area’s farms since 1979, surveying floodwaters that stretched to the horizon. “I’m just amazed at how fast it filled.” More water is set to come rushing into the basin in the coming weeks from the rivers that feed it — the Kings, St. John’s and Tule, among them — sending flows coursing through the network of canals that crisscross the lake bottom.
In one mysterious incident, Jack Mitchell of the area’s Deer Creek Flood Control District alleged that someone had intentionally cut open a levee with a backhoe in the dark of night. He says he knows who did it, but the report hasn’t prompted an investigation. Over the years, the company has built levees on the old lakebed bottom to control floodwaters. “The idea is that you want to flood the least amount of acres the highest you can to minimize losses,” Grewal said.Local responsibility for flood control in the basin is split among about a dozen reclamation districts, which are controlled by landowners. State officials have visited the area to discuss response efforts.
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