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| Version 4 | Version 5 |
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| The Resurrection of Tulare Lake | The Resurrection of Tulare Lake |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| CORCORAN — Crisscrossing the dry flatlands of the San Joaquin Valley last week, I drove along a narrow country road just outside this small agricultural town known as the “Farming Capital of California,” tilled dirt fields on either side of me as far as the eye could see. | CORCORAN — Crisscrossing the dry flatlands of the San Joaquin Valley last week, I drove along a narrow country road just outside this small agricultural town known as the “Farming Capital of California,” tilled dirt fields on either side of me as far as the eye could see. |
| And then, suddenly, water. | And then, suddenly, water. |
| A vast inland sea rose beside the pavement, and the waters glittered far out into the horizon. An egret flapped its snowy white wings along the banks of the newly formed lake. Shorebirds twittered and blue-gray waves lapped and whooshed, bringing the sounds of the beach to the Central Valley. | A vast inland sea rose beside the pavement, and the waters glittered far out into the horizon. An egret flapped its snowy white wings along the banks of the newly formed lake. Shorebirds twittered and blue-gray waves lapped and whooshed, bringing the sounds of the beach to the Central Valley. |
| For the first time in decades, Tulare Lake had returned. | For the first time in decades, Tulare Lake had returned. |
| Once the biggest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi, Tulare Lake was four times the size of Lake Tahoe, home to bands of Yokut Indians and millions of birds and other wildlife, but it was sucked dry by farmers before fully disappearing by the mid-20th century. The lakebed is now home to some of the planet’s major suppliers of cotton, tomatoes and other crops. | Once the biggest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi, Tulare Lake was four times the size of Lake Tahoe, home to bands of Yokut Indians and millions of birds and other wildlife, but it was sucked dry by farmers before fully disappearing by the mid-20th century. The lakebed is now home to some of the planet’s major suppliers of cotton, tomatoes and other crops. |
| But occasionally, during an especially wet winter, the lake comes back to life. | But occasionally, during an especially wet winter, the lake comes back to life. |
| After the barrage of atmospheric rivers that have swept through California over the past three months, Tulare Lake has not only reappeared, but it has also grown to cover 30 square miles — and could expand to 200 square miles in the coming months. | After the barrage of atmospheric rivers that have swept through California over the past three months, Tulare Lake has not only reappeared, but it has also grown to cover 30 square miles — and could expand to 200 square miles in the coming months. |
| As my colleague Shawn Hubler and I recently wrote, the arrival of warmer spring weather will melt the massive snowpack in the southern Sierra Nevada and dump even more water into the nascent lake, a slow-motion disaster for the region’s farmers and residents. The flood will most likely slam the $2 billion agricultural industry here in Kings County and endanger homes and prisons in Corcoran, a town of roughly 22,000 where the swelling lake has already begun to push against the levees intended to keep the community safe. | |
| “We know we’re at the shoreline of the old Tulare Lake, so naturally it floods there,” Greg Gatzka, Corcoran’s city manager, told me. “We all kind of think that we’ll be able to go on with our lives and not worry about it, but it’s a reality.” |