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For the first time, California water regulators are cracking down on one of the state’s major farming regions for failing to take steps to curb growers’ excessive groundwater pumping, which has sent water levels into rapid decline and is causing the land to sink. The State Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously Tuesday to place the Tulare Lake subbasin on …

Their land is sinking. But Tulare Lake farm barons defy calls to cut groundwater pumping

Earlier this year, as floodwaters rushed toward the San Joaquin Valley city of Corcoran — home to roughly 20,000 people and a sprawling maximum-security state prison — emergency workers and desperate local officials begged the state for help raising their levee. In October, state water regulators announced they’re taking the first step toward putting the Tulare Lake region on “probation” …

One March morning in the small Central Valley town of Woodlake, Joshua Diaz was getting out of bed when he noticed that his carpet was bubbling and that his tile floor had grown slick. If we invest our money back into our homes, will our investment be sound?” Madisyn Liles holds 1-year-old Luka as her husband, Keylan, watches two water …

Lake

‘This water needs to be protected’: California tribe calls for preservation of Tulare Lake

When Leo Sisco was growing up on his tribe’s reservation, he heard elders’ stories about the great lake that once sustained their people, and how it was drained and taken away from them. “We’re very hopeful that it stays.” :: Robert Jeff, vice chairman of the Santa Rosa Rancheria tribal council, holds a traditional clapper stick at the edge of …

Just as federal officials were laying out alternative scenarios last week for steep water supply cuts from the Colorado River due to the drying Southwest, California officials were warning that this year’s historic Sierra snowpack could flood much of the state later this year. Lake Mead, and farther up the Colorado River, Lake Powell — Southern California’s two big out-of-state …

The 'phantom' Tulare Lake returns with a vengeance

A mailbox stands in the floodwaters that have innundated farms near the community of Stratford, Calif., on March 21, 2023. A winter of epic snow and rain had brought California’s “phantom lake” back to life — and threatened towns and farms in the process. Floodwaters from a break in levees in the vast and fertile San Joaquin Valley engulf structures …

About 15 miles north of Fresno sits Millerton Lake, a reservoir created in the 1930s when the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation built Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River. It also threatened the rights of landowners to divert naturally flowing San Joaquin River water for their fields. This is one of several big water agreements, known as settlement or exchange …

Letters to the Editor: California drained Tulare Lake for farming. Let’s use the drought to restore it

To the editor: Tulare Lake, as the article on the drought in the San Joaquin Valley notes, was once the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi River. She hopes to see the current farming and ranching economy replaced with something else, “perhaps factories or business parks.” Here’s a novel idea: Let’s restore what was once Tulare Lake …

Tulare Lake