Why One of USA's Biggest Lakes Is Reappearing Centuries After Disappearing
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- Опубліковано 9 вер 2024
- Why did Americans drain a lake that was at one point larger that the Great Salt Lake in Utah? And how did it all happen in less than a century? This video documentary delves into the fascinating story of a forgotten water body that was once a key feature of the American landscape. From the initial discovery to its gradual disappearance, this educational video uncovers the socio-economic, environmental, and political factors that led to its removal. Learn how changing human needs and climate concerns have shaped the land and water resources of the United States. This will provide you with insights into the incredible tale of the vanished ninth largest lake and whether there is any potential for its restoration in the future.
I am kinda rooting for the lake.
Me too
The people of California are always seeking water from lake Mead but they get angry if mother nature gives them there own lake to responsible use.
Z-42 ..fishboy
Be careful what you rootin for old Greg gonna be at that lake drinkin Bailey's from a shoe harassing men don't say I didn't warn you
Me too!
I once saw a documentary about a Mayan City, maybe Copan. Archeologists noted that all the plazas tilted toward the city cisterns so all he rainwater would be saved. They noted that in Las Angeles all the rain water is allowed to run off toward the ocean. If Las Angeles had a similar system, to save the rain water, as the Ancient Mayans had, Las Angeles would rarely have problems from droughts.
Uh....no. The water needs of LA could never be supplied by rainfall and runoff from the area no matter how well the area's water was managed. You don't have any idea of the size and water needs of the LA area. Massive amounts of water from Northern California rivers are diverted to LA.
@@pumpupthevolume4775 I would say it's feasible enough to offset much of the water usage with more aggressive water harvesting techniques. During the historic rains, I'd drive to work over the Santa Ana River and see the whole river filled with freshwater getting pushed out into the Pacific Ocean (this happens right along the edge of Huntington Beach and Newport). Thousands of gallons a second just getting shot out into the ocean, happening for weeks in a row because the reservoirs up around Anaheim and Corona weren't built to contain volumes for more than 2-3 year drought events. If we built more reservoirs (above or underground) around Corona, Burbank, and Santa Monica, it would definitely be possible to siphon a lot of the runoff across the Greater LA metro into long-term storage and reduce the need to take water from NorCal and the Colorado.
Now, convincing the State to build that infrastructure and stop taxing people from catching rainwater is another issue entirely.
California did that they couldnt push global warming.
I think I read of a bill that the California legislature past two years ago maybe three that’s illegal to collect rainwater
@@pumpupthevolume4775 your so right, all the fountains, golf courses and restaurants serving water that doesnt get even a sip is a massive draw on all neighboring states. California should fall off into the ocean, plenty water there
I live near visalia(Tulare county) and my grandma who has passed away many years ago….would tell us that the valley was full of water at one time, but I thought it wasn’t real…but now i know the history and it is fascinating.
Right! I live in Bakersfield, so I’ve been told similar things. It’s crazy to imagine we had our own Great Lake a long time ago
FRESNO f tc
I am pretty sure I have seen quite recent maps 1600 or so with the big lake Corcoran, I a confused.
I learned a long time ago to listen to those old codgers. They sound crazy, but they lived in a whole different world back then, things we can't imagine and then some of us tend to blow them off. I've found that most of the time, our elders are speaking the truth, we just have to listen.
My step grandparents - living in Fresno - were married in 1917. She said it was a very wet year and that water was up almost to the southern Delta, perhaps Stockton. They took a paddleboat from Fresno but never got to SF .. too windy, stormy. Otherwise wight have made it to SF! Mind blowing for me! Fresno to SF in paddleboat. I was very young when she told me.
The return of the lake is a good sign.
No it’s bad real bad
Draining lakes causes ground water to drop and eventually desertification. What the Soviets did to Aral Sea is a good example of how horrible it gets. San Joaquin Valley is heading the same way.
No matter what any government, or people decides to do. Nature will always try to correct things. It's a losing battle for people to try and fight over the long run.
As George Carlin used to say "The earth will be fine, the humans, however, are f*cked."
Life is short, why even worry about it. On the other hand that lake could come back at anytime!
Mom always gets HER WAY.
Unless you are a type 3 civilization, they are the ones who can ignite stars.
@@bobbarker1593we are😊
It's nice to see nature taking her own back.
Eventually, millions of years from now (centuries if the ice in the polar regions keep melting) the entire ancient inland sea coming from SF to the Great Central Valley from Redding in the north to the climb to Grapevine in the south will reappear. I remember coming across sea fossils in the dry hills along the western edge of the valley.
Imagine if all the ancient western lakes had survived till today, how lovely it would be!
🎣🎣🎣🎣👍🏾
Imagine how many people would have starved to death if they didn’t receive food grown in the region. There’s always a multitude of factors to these types of situations.
Rising ocean levels and collapsing land is bringing them all back.
Imagine what Nevada would look like!
Imagine that California was a Mexican state.
Grew up in the Central Valley, always knew we lived on a dried up river bed, but i always throught it was a ancient prehistoric lake not just a few generations separated
It wasn't just a lake. About 100 million years ago the whole extent of the Great Central Valley was a warm inland sea with the outlet through Gold Gate. All kinds of 'nasty' dinosaurs fished in it.
I hope the lake goes back to the way nature intended it to be.
As of August 2 2023 Tulare Lake didn't fill up to the extent originally anticipated. California had a surprisingly cool spring and early summer, snow melt was slower and the various water agencies in the San Joaquin Valley were able to route a significant amount of the snow melt into big settling basins to recharge aquifers (aquiFERS not aquiFIRES, sheesh). The water is expected to persist for a year or so at least.
But here is where things could become interesting. We are moving from a La Nina where the west would normally be extra dry to an El Nino where the southwest can expect a wetter winter. This winter might be exciting. A repeat of the 1862 flood would fill much of the southern San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento Delta. With a warming environment it is possible. Stay tuned kids.
Re: "Aquafriars" [which sound like old Spanish priests in submarines] When I first started watching this I sent a link to it to a friend in Michigan, saying, "Once we had a Great Lake too."
Later, after watching, I decided to send a follow-up email, apologizing for his fanatically phonetic mispronunciations.
Yes; time we start a brewery! @@TheRealDrJoey
OK except for the crap about the "warming environment ".
@@charlespierce3647 A warmer environment means more evaporation, more thermal lift and more moisture in the atmosphere, all the elements you need for more rainfall. If you think I am lying go try to fly a helicopter in someplace like Papua New Guinea like I did for a time, someplace stinking hot and humid where you can go from clear skies to intense thunderstorms in less than an hour. You don't even need time lapse photography to see the clouds build up. It happens before your eyes as you race back to your base trying to beat the weather. As more of the world warms up that kind of weather will follow. The oceans are the warmest in recorded history. We just endured the hottest year in recorded history. That qualifies as a warming environment and that warming environment will cause more intense storms. It is not that hard to understand. It really isn't.
@@philsalvatore3902: I am just an instrument rated private pilot who has experienced exactly what you are describing, unfortunately multiple times, and utmost violently. I am also a retired physicist who has researched this warming planet problem in considerable depth. The single biggest problem is that there is far too much money involved by academics lying their backsides off, increasing ridiculous hysteria which then benefits the lying academics.
Getting honest data is well nigh impossible but it can be found. While human caused problems are exacerbating the warming planet, the human effect is relatively small compared to a host of other factors. Further, there are indications that the planet may be headed for an extended ice age. In short, we humans are not remotely as all powerful as we so strongly tend to believe ourselves to be.
I'd love to see that lake return. You would think the locals in that area would try to help it return. It would solve some of there water problems.
A LOT would need to be done to help it return - how to compensate people for the land/homes they'll lose, a ridiculous amount of reworking how remaining lands are used, infrastructures, and so much more. Hopefully, we will be able to set new boundaries for the lake, since so much of the original aquifers have collapsed, the watershed levels won't be the same. I really hope we can learn to work around it, set aside land for new wetlands, and be better conservators of the area! But I'm sure there will be a huge amount of pushback, mainly from landowners/investors that will stand to lose money with the lake's return.
And it would solve water problems in Arizona and Nevada as Californians keep hogging water from those two states
Some of the largest farms in the US there, that's who has the money and the power.
No, the locals do not want that, and if you lived there or understood where a large part of our food comes from neither would you. The lake in question here was never a “lake” like you’d envision Tahoe to be. This was a shallow swamp at best. A host to a massive amount of mosquitos to name one (of which are making an unfortunate return). A return of the water was an issue with the amount of water run off and broken levees from the prior rain year, locals don’t want to see their livelihoods and homes floating away, nor should you. This is another water “problem”, not a solution.
Getting rid of San Diego , LA and SanFrancisco would be a better option for the State. Those 3 cities suck all the life out of the rest of that State.
I grew up on a farm in the central valley and as a kid I had this weird vision that everything around me would be filled with water someday, only way later when I grew up did I find out about the area once being a lake. weird stuff!
The evaporation of these shallow wetlands is what maintained moisture throughout the Central valley and adjacent areas during the hot dry summer months.
It is going back as we speak…many will be displaced or flooded out 😢
The central valley has had so much water removed from the aquifers that by 1930 the ground level across most of the valley was 30 feet lower than in the 1850s and today it's closer to 50 feet in places
So thanks to this action California experiences wildfires like crazy
@@BentleyBohemian_96yes bro and even now people are still trying to drain the fucking lake and it pisses me off, nature is literally trying fix our bullshit but we keep being stubborn because “the farms in the Tulare basin make to much money to abandon” literally it’s all about money man that’s all humans care about, and eventually we’ll pay for it in the worst of ways
And from LA to Vegas, they wonder why they have problems getting enough water.
This is why diverting water from the Mississippi river isn't a good option. It's like giving money to a gambler. Best to learn to manage water more wisely. One example could be to grow rice in areas that experience an excess of rainfall instead of the California desert. Using trees to reduce evaporation, using geothermal generators to use the thermal heat in water reservoirs to produce electricity in order to cool it down and reduce evaporation. Something that could help is if short aviation flights are going to switch to hydrogen, then they should be first done over drought areas so that the water vapor exhaust helps increase the amount of rainfall.
I drive CA state 98 from I-5 to Hanford/Lemoore. It's astounding as to how much it's sunk. Actually, there's a YT video on it. Here's one: State Of Survival: A Sinking Feeling In San Joaquin Valley. It's very noticeable.
The San Joaquin is fascinating. I spent 3 months in California in the Sprinter in 2022 driving around. I had no destination and no time limits other than heading to Canada as things got warmer. I spent a few weeks driving through the Valley. It was well worth it to experience the region and the scale of farming and the vastness of the area.
Sprinter? There’s Spring and Winter. Choose one
@@Sam-TheFullBull It’s a black Mercedes Sprinter, an Airstream Interstate. Apparently, auto-correct is changing my words. Thanks
I don’t have a destination or a time table. I go in whichever direction the van is pointing which included mountains and coastlines and anything in between. I look for interesting things to photograph on digital and film, I enjoy going to new restaurants every day, I try new wines, I talk to people I meet, and I keep a very slow pace. I don’t know where I’m going on any given day; I just end up there. I’ve been to 48 states and 10 provinces, and I mostly did it by not being on Interstate highways.@pyropulseIXXI
@@coasttocoastphotothat sounds fabulous! after everything I've been through lately I could really use a trip like that. ,❤
@pyropulseIXXIFrom Lebec, California driving north past Sacramento is about 5-6 hours using CA 99. Interstate US 5 is slightly faster. How much was your speed ticket?
it used to be called lake fresno. at one time it covered the entire central valley as a inland sea, that is why the central valley has very rich soil. also at one time you could take a steamboat from stockton ca too fresno overnite . found a couple of books on the subject. there was even plans to put locks in the orivle dam but the trade bottomed out due to more modern trucks , trains and better roads .
My nephew lives in Hanford, it's crazy s#!t!!!
That's incredible. Hundreds of miles of what looked like desert seen from driving on a highway through it was not that long ago all water with steamboats traveling along it. 😮
!! I've posted here that my step grandparents started on a paddleboat on their honeymoon from Fresno to SF in 1917 but had to turn back due to high winds and storms. I was little then. Was wondering to me.
It looks like the exact same mistake they made on the Mississippi River.
The Mississippi River used to be a flood base in up to 10 mi wide and the army corps of engineers straightened it out to make it easier to navigate.
This action made the Mississippi more prone to flooding, especially the areas that used to be part of the flood plane.
Once researchers realized what the situation was they started buying out people and taking them out of the flood plain and the army corps of engineers has been reestablishing some the meandering patterns of the Mississippi River to help with flooding.
The state of California needs to buy out the people in the lake area and prohibit further development.
Also, the farmers need to be bought out and move to where the land is a little bit higher.
The state of California also needs to add desalinization plants and pump the water inward for domestic household use.
This way the scarce water resources can be used for agriculture and the desalinated water can be used for homes.
Today good effluent treatments systems make the water pure enough to drink but could be used to fill the lake and maybe re-establish some of the aquifers.
In Belgium they did so with the River Meuse. They even build houses in areas that were wellknown for flooding every late winter and spring.
One or two years ago heavy rain during summer led to rivers flooding and especially destroying the areas which were destined for flooding but now were build as residential areas😂
@@dpt6849 If they put the houses on stilts or piling, they're fine.
Since many business are fleeing California's high taxes, from where will the state obtain the funds for the proposed buy outs?
@fredcarr3550 The state has the money it's just if they have the will. The amount of money loss due to corruption in the state is also part of the reason why people are leaving.
@@ernestestrada2461 I hear you but not being a resident of California, I don't know enough to comment on corruption in the state. However, I recall that last summer the state banned the sale of gasoline powered vehicles from 2035 in favor of electric powered ones. Yet 10 days later, the governor requested that residents conserve the use of electricity due to excessive demand for powering a/cs. As such, they may have the will to do some things, but impaired judgement to make the right decisions.
I know there are folks who will be impacted, but I can't help but think this is a good thing for/from nature.
In 1862 The US gov threw support behind the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. The gov was cash poor but land rich with all the land they had just bought from Mexico in 1848. Much of what they paid the Central Pacific RR was in the form of square sections of land. Some of them were along the RR line, but others were far away. Much of the (almost worthless according to the white men) land in the marsh of the San Juaquin Valley was awarded to Central Pacific RR. The RR later sold the land at great profit *after* the federal government put into place the irrigation system to irrigate (and drain) the Valley. J.G.Boswell and other corporate farmers are the largest beneficiaries of these original government grants today. See also: The Westland Water District.
🎉p
There is a great book about Boswell and his shenanigans: The King of California: J G Boswell and the Making of A Secret American Empire.
So interesting
The San Joaquin Valley doesn't extend as far north as you show here. San Joaquin Valley extends to San Joaquin County which is bordered by Sacramento County. From this point it is the Sacramento Valley.
The Valleys are named for the two man rivers that drain the interior of California.
The San Joaquin river flows north and the Sacramento River flows south. Both river flow into the same delta which drains into the north/east extreme of the San Francisco Bay.
There is only one other place on Earth where 2 rivers flow into the same delta. The other is the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Talk about splitting hairs, regardless of the modern naming the valley extends for 100s of miles north to south. Like the SF bay the central valley could become a sag pond
@@joellenrhodes456 So, are you saying my comment is wrong, or that I'm being overly detailed?
Because I'm pretty sure I'm not wrong.
And I think in this sort of video needs to be accurate.
In some cases what you call "splitting hairs" could be the difference between life and death.
@@erictaylor5462 you can see it on a map though, if it filled with water, it would be 1 lake
@erictaylor5462 Facts matter! Thank you for pointing out what is so obvious to those of us who live in California's Central Valley. I once lived in the San Joaquin Valley (Manteca) then moved to the Sacramento Valley (Fair Oaks). The sloppy factual error by the video producer in misnaming a whole geographic region diminishes his/her credibility overall . . .
Mother Nature just called California, she wants her Lake BACK and has STOPPED ASKING. Mother is just PUTTING IT BACK IN PLACE Humans in the way or not, it's coming BACK. Mom always gets HER WAY.
Now that I am older I can see how futile it is to ignore nature. It is literal KARMA.
The central valley was not a lake in the early 1800s. It did flood sometimes during big storms but was marsh and grassland mostly with large rivers tree lined flowing and joining to go out through the bay. My family was here then. There were elk prong horn grizzly bear etc
He may have the timeline wrong, but California was once no more than a few Islands where the ranges protruded from the Pacific Ocean which covered most of what is now the Western United States.
Those elk and prog horn were keeping it from burning down.
@@kx4532 They were that good at firefighting?
@@dcpack They turned the vegetation into poop instead of dry brush and it would grow back green.
@@kx4532 other people's ignorance of the clear and obvious is sometimes staggering to me. To not understand what you just put down is... well.. infantile. Thank you for being intelligent.
The failure of the role of government. Its a lake. No one should have been allowed to build there. It should only be farms. We had the opportunity to fix a similar problem along the Mississippi years ago, but government caved and didn't move towns inundated by flooding.
Not even farms should’ve been built there tf it’s a lake leave it alone and let it do it’s thing I hate humans
Where do you think most of your nuts and vegetables come from?
@@joellenrhodes456 Well, yeah, California has a lot of nuts and vegetables. Oh wait, you're not talking about Californians... 😄
Read a book called "Cadillac Desert" by the late Marc Reisner. The Federal Government promoted dam building and land "reclamation". There is to this day a Bureau of Reclamation within the Department of the Interior that operates many of these dams. They promoted turning "wastelands"" into farmlands though irrigation using water from dams built on rivers. They financed the bonds to build these systems in part with water sales and significantly through generation and sales of electric power. This was controversial back then as there were many who devoutly believed all power should be generated by private companies and thought the government producing electricity was very wrong. But Bureau of Reclamation prevailed on that controversy. A hundred years ago few were thinking in terms of environmental damage. Most people of the day saw that land under water and thought "oh what a waste, remove the water and farm it". People thought the water was an endless resource. We know better today perhaps.
I was born in Bakersfield and my grandfather used to take me bull frogging,, duck hunting and fishing the lasts of lake Buena Vista. By 1968 it was down to a large 2 mike pond. Where at one time it was the largest lake in southern calif. Wasn't much left when I was a child but had some of the last of the fun on the llake
Why do you not address the positives of the return of Tulare Lake in terms of the benefits of the restoration of the natural environment?
The Great Salt Lake is just a remnant of massive Lake Bonneville.
It's reemerged several times. Last time before this was in the early 80's.
Lesson Learned: don't build or farm in lakebeds or river delas that just happen to appear to be dry, for now as they are likely to fill again.
You can do it, just operate with understanding that anything you build can and will be flooded and destroyed
@@hendo337Even the destruction part is optional. Houses on stilts are a long tradition in flood-prone regions the world over.
Unfortunately, your map graphic is incorrect. The San Joaquin Valley is the watershed with the main channel called the San Joaquin River. It ends in a river delta that is almost due east of San Francisco. North of that is the Sacramento River that drains the Sacramento Valley. The two rivers combine and flow into San Francisco Bay.
Each of these rivers is a true river system where multiple creeks feed small rivers that flow into the main river channel.
And BTW, the rainfall was only 233% of normal in a very few areas. It was very high in the southern San Joaquin Valley, but not nearly as high in the northern end of the Sacramento Valley.
I've commented on it as 'click bait'.
Tulare Lake is back, just took a ride out there to look at it. The road literally ends at the water's edge.
Until California Government drains it again. They can't let there be a fresh water source like that you know.
The road is now a boat ramp?
@@estherdail1334 basically, it didn't look that deep across but the road is covered in algae and slippery now. You can see the other side in the horizon. Parts of it were crumbling into the water.
Probably the Sierra Canal which diverts water from nearly as far north as Lake Tahoe all the way down to LA for all their swimming pools and fountains.
I grew up in Merced, CA and used to wade waist deep into a nearby creek to catch crawdads. About 20 yrs ago I went back and found not only had it dried up completely but was hard as cement. Just since my childhood.
We need to restore that lake. It’s an important part of stopping the entire west from being hot sand and keeping California wet and not dry desert
One question comes to mind: why aren't Californians only irrigating at night? That could significantly reduce the water loss due to evaporation in the hot sun, giving the water a chance to get absorbed into the soil.
the issue is they're doing crops that need too much water for what is available in the area (like almonds)
The farmers negotiate to buy a quantity of water from whatever agency serves their farms. The agency sends workers out to open and close flood gates on a schedule to provide the contracted water to each farm. I believe these operations are conducted around the clock as there are a lot of gates and valves and only so many workers to go around.
Farming uses a lot of the water but a lot more has to be let go to keep the salmon habitat going, plus the citys keep growing and people dont care about the farms or the salmon
@@AmauryJacquot The central valley has the perfect climate for almonds, THATS why they're grown there. do your research.
They irrigate when they can, (water availability) defiantly not when it's convenient.
Go Tulare Lake! I'm rooting for your return.
Another prime example of how a few people & their selfish actions, cause problems and hardships for the many!
Ain’t Democracy great?
The Needs of the FEW Outweigh the Needs of the Many.
Just ask the Bidens, Obamas and Hollywood
A 'few' is correct. In the 70s on conglomerates (mostly from LA area ... wish I could remember the name) started buying up land .. consolidating. The small farmers I knew as a boy have for decades been gone.
It's called an aquifer not "aquifire"...also corps as in "army corps of engineers" is pronounced "core" not "corp"
Maybe the narrator is an AI/synthetic voice. At least they didn't pronounce it as "corpse".
At least he didn't call it the Corpse of Engineers /:
My grandparents would take us there on vacation. Tulare Lake, who knew, lol. That's weird, there was water in the lake in the 60's.
Man caused an environmental disaster? Who would have guessed.
Let's build our city in this lake bottom.
This is really interesting, thorough, and educational. Thank you so much for this! One minor suggestion, The Sierra is already plural so we don't say The Sierras because The Sierra translates to Mountain Range. Thank you again for your great explanation.
Thank you for saying Nevada correctly, unlike most.
It's not widely know outside of the local area in California, but Tulare Lake was drained more than 100 years ago by what has become the powerful JG Boswell farming empire and in conjunction with other local farmers who wanted the rich soil and control of the water. Afterward, several local rivers (Kings, Yule, & Kaweah) feeding Lake Tulare were dammed to further control the water flow. (source GV Wire on 3-20-2023 via SJV Water)
Seems like a logical spot for a lake!
Old Spanish maps from Explorers show that they viewed California as an Island, having two bodies of water on both sides of the land
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Huge Tulare Lake providing groundwater for agriculture, divert water away from the lake for other agriculture, lake dries up, pump too much water out of the ground for ag, land in the San Joaquin Valley subsides 30 feet, rains and snows like crazy later, land is lower and the lake fills up again. Haha
I hoped for a video full of history, and facts… didn’t know it would come with a bunch of conjecture.
Great video! Two pronunciation corrections: “Slough” is pronounced here in California as “slew”, not “slou”. “Tule” is pronounced “too-lee”, not “Tu-lay”. 😀
And Corps is pronounced "core," not "corp."
And aquifer is "AH-kwih-fer" not "ah-kwih-FIRE".
You're right, nic, though it's not just California but most of North America (the educated parts) that use those pronunciations (and those corrections provided for Corps and aquifer). This is the way educated people speak...
That’s how you know this was narrated by a robot and not a real person
Ai voice
If you find the early maps of North America, you will see that the western edge along the coast was an island, and that lake you featured in this vid was a straight cutting California into 2
Best You Tube Video I have seen in a long time> So important information to support life and protect our children's future. Thank you, thank you. Saving this video for future use in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, And Chihuahua, Mexico. I do a lot of organizing and education with our NGO binational citizen group in those states.
The tar sands pipeline project proves there is capital available for such an engineering task. The ocean is rising and a drain pipe to Bonneville could keep water flowing until the salt lakes are restored. More salt lakes can be planned for as the 2050 sea rise is 30 cm or a foot. Other salt lakes from Gulf or Atlantic feed would set up complete eco systems and tourism.
Oddly, I was looking at a few maps from the 1500s and several of them had CA bisected by that lake, leaving the thing strip that includes LA as a FL-like peninsula. I wondered how that could have happened, and now I know.
Let the Lake come back !!
I am sure that different Ice Ages during the last 2.5 million years also played a big part in the formation and levels of the lakes. All part of the geology of the planet.
When you start talking "millions of years ago" you abandon science and enter into mythology.. It's all based on assumptions and not facts.
Tell me , how can the San Andrea faults open as the same time the Pacific ridge is pushing against the Continental crust
It was on all the old maps 400 years and older
All I can say about the lake is, let it grow let it grow dear god let it grow. The lake is reasserting itself, imagen the effect it will have if it gets be enough. Given time it could turn those desert area around it back in to Fertal wetlands and fields.
Not likely now. The clay creates a barrier that the water has a really hard time penetrating.
@pyropulseIXXI Take a drive along Hwy 33, the Westside Highway. Quite a bit of the western side of the southern San Joaquin Valley is desert.
@@spamtrap8021 Huge drills for fracking could turn the clay barrier into swiss cheese with holes filling and seeping, The holes could be paid for as drains.
Anybody here ever heard of the idea that California was an island at one point? This reminds of that idea which comes from a map.
The entire region is covered with thousands of dried up lakes.
It isn't reappearing, parts of it fill in when there is heavy rain or snow melt but then it dries right back up. And it wasn't centuries ago, it was decades ago, they drained it to make farmland.
"Slough is typically pronounced "slew" in most of the United States."
But not slow? Or sloff? Sluphing off is not a term but verbally 've heard it.
@@dthomas9230 UA-cam has vids, 3 pronounciations. Obviously you found that. So...
Please no more canals and dams.
The San Joaquin valley is only the south part of the Central Valley. You are including the Sacramento Valley, which is incorrect. Your thumbnail is wildly inaccurate too.
Nature fights back !!!
As you should know, Lake Ontario is not in the United States, but is a body of water that separates the US from Canada. Check the map.
The same people complaining about the environment probably consume a lot of almondmilk, pistacios, and avocados.
I was born and raised in Fresno, so is it weird that I root for nature and the lake?
No one ever heard of the great flood of 1861-62? They moved the capitol from Sacramento to San Francisco because Sacramento was under water. The town of Red Dog in the Sierra foothills got over NINE FEET of rain that winter. The Sacramento valley was a lake that was deep enough to sail a steam paddle wheeler on. Mark Twain wrote about it and it has happened many times before.
I lived in Sacramento area and know of it. I think there's a museum here that chronicles that. It was very destructive.
You should rename the video... "What happened to Lake Corcoran" and use that for the cover photo. You have some rare details in here which I almost didn't see. Had I known you were referring to Tulare Lake, I probably would not have watched it... IN FACT, I almost turned it off when I realized it was Tulare and I would have missed all the info on the early sea which I have wanted to know more about for decades.
In total agreement! Let the nature takeover!
Some people have gotten nit-picky in correcting minor spelling errors.
The same thing happened in Russia to the Sea of Azov. The Soviets diverted the source water for irrigation, and the sea dried up.
The Aral Sea. The Sea of Azov is part of the Black Sea.
@@Luked0g440You beat me to it.
Azov .. more like salt lake. Black sea is brackish. Azov. even worse.
@@jamesleaty7308 You want brackish, then you want the Dead sea.
@@lennychorn147 The Dead Sea is not brackish, it is saline, much like Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Brackish means slightly salty, like the mixture of river and seawater in an estuary. Saline means outright salty. The Dead Sea is roughly 10 times saltier than average seawater, the Great Salt Lake 3.5 to 8 times.
I mean, tbh California needs That Lake to make a come back
They need water more than people.
Thank God people are leaving CA. Good riddance to their hater attitudes...
Mother Nature can be resilient. Personally, where the lake was known to exist, there should’ve been only farm land or land, not towns. Plus, an article at the end of the video about covering over a river and then allowing builders to build upon it is LUDICROUS!!!!! So, for those that live in that area, have they ever wondered where the water is supposed to go? It seems like people in CA don’t care about the environment but more about grabbing land. Mother Nature is reminding those in that area who actually owns that land.
This was perfect 👏 Informative, nice graphics and bit too long... good messaging aling with history. I enjoyed it! I travel all over the Valley, weekly, and now there's context to the different areas of my travels.
FFS, ***and NOT too long****
Didnt dissappear was drained!
Restore the lake. Give the valley back to nature.
I’m all with ya brother
Excellent video. Thank you.
They complain they need water, mother nature supplies!
I was doing research about 20 years ago and our results pointed to the next World War could possibly be fought over access to water due to the melting of the worlds glaciers
Aquifer, not acquifIer.
I hope the lake returns. California really needs its own water source, instead draining lake Mead. And have a big lake in the center of the state will add so much life and plants that this state can use.
I do hope someone steps up to keep history from repeating itself What goes around comes around
speaking of repeating themselves, how many times is this guy going to ask the question, "but what caused this lake to disappear?"
It was more like the countries largest puddle. To me a lake is deep and puddles are shallow.
..deep freshwater lakes are oligotrophic, not a lot of life, compared to shallow lakes, which have far more fish and plants to utilize....
@@antoinebrosseau ...Sorry, bub. But I am correct. Compare Superior to Erie.
@@FeldwebelWolfenstoollake Baikal in Russia has a lot of life in it and it's the deepest lake in the world.
@@morewi Two words to learn the meaning of...oligotropic vs. eutrophic.
@@FeldwebelWolfenstool Mesotrophic is just right.
Scottish lochs are peat bogs and carbon sinks as the lives beneath are only partially decomposed giving off less CO2. They are likely oligotropic.
I would love to see more lakes returned. They do help create earthquakes but we need to return more nature preservation
Great! Good job!
Much informative
The times when Tulare lake was much larger were before the construction of Pine Flat dam which was finished in 1954. The video seems to ignore this very important difference. It seems to be an attempt to mislead people into thinking that the lake will become much larger, ignoring the fact that the snowpack that caused its reappearance is very rare. The water behind the dam is used to irrigate over 900,000 acres of very productive farmland, some of which is available because of the control of the previous seasonal flooding that the dam affords. Water problems have been caused by changes in the seasonal rainfall patterns. There have been droughts, that have caused shortages, which have eventually resulted in water management.
It was only 5 to 6 hundred years ago that maps showed this valley as ocean and western California as an island.
Did it tie into the sea of Cortez?
Yes. I think maps showed that it was a channel as far north as what is now San Francisco.
The commentary at the end is spot on!
There are several mispronounced words throughout the video.
how many different ways can the same thing be said, over and over and over again
Uh, that's the Aral Sea, not Azov.
Im very in favor of letting it return. It would long term be much better for the area. And would provide much better farm land when it receded latter.
Yeah well unfortunately people are already finding ways to drain it again so farmers can return to fucking up the area even more smh, humans are something man.
This music is amazing its perfect for learning about how amazing these lake are
Thank You for telling the truth. I love the ancient stories of this lake. When Native American People talk legends of a great lake, this is the lake they refer to. Their fishing and hunting blinds, made of stone, are still there. Some lakes are dammed off to remove unwanted people. Mostly, Native Americans and Mormons. Always backfires. I'm for removing the dams and returning the Earth's ecology back in sync. Stopping the fish from going upstream, was just the pebble that started the snowball of decline in the whole food chain.
this is being done in Washington state, but the damage done in the Central Valley is essentially irreversable
Dams in places do definitely have flood control, water storage and power generation purposes. Their entire reason for existing is not to kick people off land as you seem to imply.
Couldn't say it better myself
Well if you want all that gone and the land returned to nature. You best first make plans to depopulate the entire state and region.
@@lennychorn147 Depopulate California? Gov. Newsom is already doing it.
If you go back to 1000 AD it is a Great Lake covering most of the valley. The ecosystem of the lake between creating rain all around and fishing industry makes up for lost farming
your channel is so underrated
I hat to say this but it maybe best for California to allow the lake to return. The state is plagued with dryness and water shortages. They use up all the water they can to irrigate crops. A large lake like this would create its own rain systems, encouraging the water cycle in the area allowing agriculture to thrive in a sustainable way. It would be terrible for the cities and people living there currently but it maybe a net gain for the state as a whole
Not entirely true. While agriculture does play a role in the water shortage, most of the issue is the governments inefficiency of saving the water when there are heavy rains. A lot of the water drains into the ocean, wasting what water we receive here.
I for 1 hope it comes back no matter the cost. It's California healing itself.