From Litigation to Collaboration on the San Joaquin River

[WB Staff]

The San Joaquin Valley is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world, and much of its success comes from the waters of the San Joaquin River. Historically, the big challenge in managing this river was how to harness its waters for irrigation while also reducing the impacts of floods. Today, another big challenge has been added to the mix: how to undo some of the damage done to the environment and to reconnect the river to its many communities.

The San Joaquin River and its tributaries—including the Merced, Tuolumne, and Stanislaus rivers—drain the west slope of the Sierra Nevada, flowing north into the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. Before colonization, the waters fanned out across the floodplains of the valley, feeding wetlands, creating vast underground reserves of water, and fueling one of the state’s most productive freshwater ecosystems, which supported numerous tribes, including the Yokuts and Miwoks.

But harnessing the San Joaquin for irrigation and seeking to tame its floods extracted a very high environmental price. All of its tributaries host large dams that regulate flows and block salmon’s access to historical spawning grounds. Roughly 80% of its average runoff is diverted; most of the river is cut off from its historic wetlands by levees or reductions in flows; large sections of the San Joaquin dry out completely in most years; and its groundwater has been drawn down to levels that disconnect it from the river. The ecosystems we see today—along with the species that inhabit them—are vastly different from their historical counterparts.

Read it all: https://www.ppic.org/blog/from-litigati ... uin-river/