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.
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.
State legislators denied a local lawmaker’s bill to stop a
mining project that proposes to drill and blast a 600-foot pit
along the San Joaquin River and is undergoing its environmental
review. On Monday, the California Assembly Committee on Natural
Resources voted down AB 1425 from Assemblymember Joaquin
Arambula, D-Fresno, though it may come back up in January 2026
for absent committee members to consider, said committee chair
Isaac Bryan, D-Baldwin Hills. The “narrowly tailored” bill,
according to Arambula, would have stopped Mexico-based CEMEX
from emptying water from mining pits, which he said risks
contaminating the river and overdrafting water along the river.
By banning “dewatering,” the company’s plan to dig the 600-foot
pit would not only be stopped, but it would force the company
to cease its current operations as well, CEMEX representative
Scott Govenar said at the hearing.
If the San Joaquin River is to be protected from further harm
at the hands of a multinational mining company with a history
of environmental violations, help won’t be arriving from the
state capitol. A bill authored by Assemblymember Joaquin
Arambula (D-Fresno) aimed at squelching CEMEX’s controversial
blast mine failed to advance from its first committee hearing
Monday afternoon in Sacramento. Only one member of the Assembly
Natural Resources Committee voted “aye” on AB 1425 compared to
13 “noes” and no votes, killing the bill for this legislative
session. That does not mean CEMEX gets the green light to start
drilling and blasting 200 feet away from the river 3 miles
outside the Fresno city limits. Goodness no. It simply means
the process for potential approval will continue as prescribed
by the California Environmental Quality Act. –Written by Fresno Bee opinion columnist Marek
Warszawski.
A bill introduced by Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula aimed at
stopping a century-long mining project in Fresno County did not
make it out of committee Monday afternoon. That mining project
would drill a 600-foot deep pit near the San Joaquin River in
Fresno County. Arambula introduced a bill, AB1425, which went
before the Natural Resources Committee in Sacramento this
afternoon. It would have disqualified building materials
company CEMEX’s proposed 100-year mining expansion project
utilizing hard rock mining, blasting and drilling that deep
pit. … The San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust
has been strongly opposed to the project because of its
potential impact on the environment.
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.
