… We tend to take the San Joaquin River for granted except for when we take forays to fish and play in its waters or are loading up the car with valuables to be ready to flee on a moment’s notice should one of the levees inching toward failure during high water flows break. The 1,760-square-mile San Joaquin River Basin that the San Joaquin River and its web of tributaries provides with snowmelt helps support what is arguably the most productive agricultural region on earth. The bulk of California’s nearly $59 billion farm production, more than $20 billion of that of the nearest state, is produced in the San Joaquin Valley. The valley grows more than 400 commodities as well as two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts. The ability to feed people has come at a great cost to the San Joaquin River that is among the most heavily dammed and diverted rivers in the West. 
-Written by Dennis Wyatt, editor of the Manteca Bulletin.