A huge California lake suddenly reappears after disappearing for 130 years
Tulare Lake was once one of the largest bodies of water in the United States, but colonialists drained the lake to create farmland as early as the late 1800s.
Before it was drained, Tulare Lake was considered the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi River.
However, the colonialists' greed for farmland resulted in the lakes being drained to create irrigation systems to support agriculture.
Vivian Underhill of Northeastern University explains, “California wants to bring (historically indigenous) lands into private ownership.”
Land “reclamation” involves “draining flooded land or irrigating desert land to create arable land,” Underhill said.
She explains that if you are the person who drains the land, you are “given ownership of that portion of the land.”
“So there was a lot of incentive for white settlers to start doing this work,” she continued.
The lake, called “Pa'ashi” by the indigenous Tachi Yokut tribe, is made up primarily of snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada Mountains rather than rainfall.
The small town of Freso, formerly located on the edge of a lake, receives only 10 millimeters of rainfall per year.
It disappeared completely from 1890 and the water was used to irrigate the land around the area.
“The valley is now crisscrossed by hundreds of irrigation canals, all of which were originally built to take water from the lake and feed it into irrigated fields,” she added.
Last year, however, the lake suddenly reappeared.
“California is flooded with snow in the winter and rain in the spring,” Underhill explained.
“If you get rain or snow, the snow melts very quickly,” she continued.
The combination of these events meant that all the water collected in the depression where Tulare Lake once existed.
The local impact was dramatic, with many birds returning to the lake shores.
“The return of the lake is an incredibly powerful and spiritual experience,” Tachi Yokuts said of Underhill’s return to the lake.
“They have been holding ceremonies at the lake. They have been able to do traditional hunting and fishing again.”
However, for homeowners and farmers across the land, the lake's return has had a devastating impact, with many losing their homes to flooding.
Indy 100 reports that attempts to drain the lake have begun, but Underhill said it may not be easy.
“Floods of this size or above will occur more and more frequently under climate change,” Underhill said.
“At some point, I think the state of California should realize that Lake Tulare wants to be preserved. In fact, there are a lot of economic benefits to be had by preserving it.”
Despite attempts to drain the lake, it appears to have disappeared on its own again.
As of March 14, the lake had all but disappeared, “covered with grass sprouts and thick mud, but no sign of a body of water,” according to The Guardian.
Last year wasn’t the first time Lake Tulare returned.
“It happened in the '80s, it happened once in the '60s, it happened several times in the '30s,” Underhill explained. “This land has always been one of lakes and wetlands, and our current irrigated agriculture is just a century-long blip in this larger geological history.”
“This is not actually a flood. This is a returning lake,” she concluded.
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