<https://news.yahoo.com/long-dormant-lake-reappeared-california-
140000365.html>

People have worked for a century to make California�s Tulare Basin into a
food grower�s paradise. That pastoral landscape now looks more like the
Pacific Ocean in many areas.

Months of atmospheric river storms have pummeled the area and saturated
the basin�s soil, which sits about halfway between San Francisco and Los
Angeles, not far from Fresno. The rains have led to floods that damaged
towns and deluged farms and have begun to refill what was once a sprawling
lake.

The floods have pitted neighboring property owners against one another and
raised tensions over how to manage the flows, which have damaged hundreds
of structures. And more water is on the way.

Experts say a monthslong, slow-burning crisis will play out next: A
historic snowpack looms in the mountains above the basin � as it melts, it
is likely to put downstream communities through months of torment. The
flooding, which follows several years of extreme drought, showcases the
weather whiplash typical of California, which vacillates between too wet
and too dry. The influence of climate change can make the state�s extremes
more intense.

�This is a slowly unfolding natural disaster,� said Jeffrey Mount, a
senior fellow at the Water Policy Center of the Public Policy Institute of
California. �There�s no way to handle it with the existing
infrastructure.�

The re-forming Tulare Lake � which was drained for farming a century ago �
could remain on the landscape for years, disrupting growers in a region
that produces a significant proportion of the nation�s supply of almonds,
pistachios, milk and fruit. High-stakes decisions over where that water
travels could resonate across the country�s grocery store shelves.

In the farming communities that dot the historic lake bed, accusations of
sabotaged levees, frantic efforts to patch breached banks and feuds �
common occurrences during flood fights in the area � have started already,
said Matt Hurley, a former water manager for several water districts in
the Tulare Basin.

In the nearby town of Allensworth last month, a dispute over a culvert
caused anxiety and friction with the railroad that sends trains through
town. Residents worked into the night to plug a culvert � a drain under
Highway 43 � with plywood and sandbags in a desperate effort to keep
floodwater out of town.

But later that night, workers with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe
railroad unblocked the pipe, which left some Allensworth residents fuming
as water flowed closer.

The residents had used BNSF materials without permission, said Lena Kent,
a railroad spokesperson. Damming the culvert threatened the highway � the
only access point to Allensworth at the time � and the rail tracks that
run parallel to it.

Stress levels could remain high for months.

�The problem this year is it�s just begun. We may have water running at or
near our flood level � in all of our streams, through August or
September,� Hurley said. �This impending monster � a 50-foot-plus deep
snowpack that we haven�t seen in 75 years � is sitting up there, and we
just don�t know how fast it�s going to turn into water and come out of the
mountains.�

The Tulare Basin is at the southern end of California�s San Joaquin Valley
� and in essence, it�s a massive bowl. Before irrigators dug canals and
rerouted water for farming in the late 1800s, Tulare Lake filled the
bowl�s lower reaches. Shallow water stretched across the landscape, and
the lake was the largest body of freshwater west of the Mississippi.

Several rivers � Kings, Tule, Kern and Kaweah � historically dead-ended at
the lake and replenished its water levels every spring, but farmers have
diverted and rerouted so much water that the lake bed is now usually dry.
It�s among the most fertile farmland in the country.

Today, the irrigation system is designed to �use every single drop of
water� that flows into the basin, Mount said.

In fact, through aggressive groundwater pumping, farmers collectively use
more water than what would flow to the lake every year. Pumping has caused
the land to sink dramatically � it has subsided in parts of the San
Joaquin Valley by as much as 28 feet, according to the U.S. Geological
Survey � deepening the bowl.

This season, far more water is flowing than can be used.

For about two weeks, farmers and emergency workers have been scrambling to
plug levees and prevent the worst as the ground became saturated and
rivers swelled after a seemingly endless series of atmospheric river
storms battered California.

The flooding has breached dozens of levees, forced rescues, swamped
construction sites at California�s high-speed rail project and seeped into
several communities, including Allensworth, a historic community that in
1908 was the first settlement west of the Mississippi to be founded and
governed by Black Americans.

�What you�re seeing now more than anything else is traditional flood
problems,� Mount said. �All of that water is making its way into the
bottom of the bowl and starting to fill the bowl.�

What could come next is more unusual � and worrisome.

The Sierra Nevada mountains, above the Tulare Basin, are storing two to
three times as much water as snowpack as is normal. If the snow melts
quickly, it will send floodwater churning toward the lake bottom.

Tulare Lake refilled in 1997 and 1983 during very wet seasons. The
snowpack is larger this year.

�If we use 1983 as an example: They had more than 80,000 acres of land
underwater. If it�s bigger than that, it could be as much as 100,000 acres
underwater,� Mount said.

Tulare County ranked second in the country for agricultural market value,
according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture. The region produces almonds,
oranges, pistachios, wine grapes, milk and cheese.

�This has a ripple effect on the nation�s food supply,� Mount said.

California officials have geared up for a long fight against flooding.
Nearly 700 people were assigned to help with the emergency response just
in Tulare County, where floodwater has damaged more than 900 structures so
far.

But sandbags and helicopter-delivered super sacks � bulk bags filled with
rocks and other material � can do only so much.

�At some point, you know, we do realize that there�s too much water,
there�s more water in the Sierra than these facilities can handle,� Karla
Nemeth, the director of the California Department of Water Resources, said
at a recent media briefing. The agency will do the best it could to help
mitigate damages, Nemeth said.

Once water makes it to the historic lake bed, there will be few options to
remove it, other than to wait for it to evaporate or to try to move it
through canals and pump it away.

Pumps are expensive and inefficient over such sprawling terrain. Differing
levels of subsidence along the lake bed have changed the geometry of
canals, which could complicate efforts to move water away.

In 1983, remnants of Tulare Lake remained on the landscape for about two
years, Mount said. Hurley estimated that if it floods again, the expense
required to return the landscape to growing crops would be in the
billions.

The flooding could also spell disaster for farmworkers and those who live
in the rural communities that dot the Tulare Basin.

�This is a low-income community. People are not out here stocking up food.
They go paycheck to paycheck in a lot of cases,� said Kayode Kadara, of
Allensworth, a community organizer. �All we�ve heard so far is with this
unprecedented snowfall, what we�ve seen so far is a baby flood.�

For now, the best everyone can hope for is a cool summer � with a steady,
manageable melt � and as much cooperation as they can muster.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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