Tom Barcellos has been farming the reclaimed soil of the Tulare Lake Basin for nearly five decades, and he’s rarely seen a winter like 2023.

A series of soaking storms, which have been funneled across the Pacific Ocean like atmospheric rivers, have led to prolonged flooding in large parts of the San Joaquin Valley. For the first time in decades, Lake Tulare is rising out of the valley as rivers have swollen with runoff from heavy rains and snow flowing into the valley from the Sierra Nevada, overwhelming channels and levees. The return of the lake has inundated thousands of acres of cropland, orchards, highways and homes, potentially rocking the region’s economy for years to come.

And even when the blue skies return, flood-weary farmers need only look east, to the towering Sierra shrouded in historic snow, to know worse is to come.

Barcellos is awed and exhausted by what nature has wrought. But like other farmers who are deeply rooted in this valley, he is not seriously considering leaving. Instead, he digs in for battle.

“This is our livelihood,” said Barcellos, who owns both cropland and dairies. “This is more important than anything, in my mind. And I thank God that everyone jumped in to fight.”

But there will be no quick wins.

For weeks, farmers, their crews and residents of nearby flood-threatened towns have struggled through water, silt and severe storms to bolster the region’s defenses.

Barcellos recounted a strenuous episode in early March when his team, armed with excavators and heavy machinery, sought to contain destruction along the rising Tule River, normally a “lifeline for nearby dairies and more than 125,000 acres of crops.

The Tule River mostly serves as a crucial irrigation line, carrying slush from the Sierra to the man-made channels and ditches that traverse the valley floor, diverting the area’s major rivers with a strategic precision that enables landowners to transform these arid lowlands into an agricultural heartland.

And in the rare years of heavy rain and snowfall, the Tule is a critical outlet, ideally keeping heavy flows within its banks as it passes rural outposts like Porterville, Corcoran and the lucrative farms that dot the watershed.

On this day, as the Tule raced along its banks, the concern was to clear the riverbed of accumulated waste and debris to make room for heavy currents. Using a short boom like a claw in an arcade machine, Barcellos and his team worked for more than 20 hours to retrieve felled trees, heavy sediments and even a washing machine from the turbulent waters.

We were running on pure adrenaline, Barcellos said, pointing to a pickup truck that had driven into the river in an attempt to stop the erosion. At one point, he had to save a friend from falling into the rapids that ran through the sodden banks.

Despite their best efforts, the force of the flood was too great to withstand, and the six-inch-deep water soon began seeping into neighboring fields and clearing dairy farms, Barcellos said.

Roads, bridges and parts of the district’s irrigation system were wiped out in the process. The dirt along the river bed today looks like someone took a cleaver to a chocolate cake.

It’s devastating, Barcellos said. We see that there is a loss here that will not recover.

Once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, Tulare Lake was largely drained to begin with

–

20th century when the rivers that fed it were dammed and diverted for agriculture. In the days before the damming, the lake could stretch for 790 square miles, four times the size of Lake Tahoe, with a depth of 30 feet.

This isn’t the first time that the farms and ranches now proliferating in the ancient lake bed have been threatened by the reappearance of the phantom lake. The latest peak was in 1983, when another period of heavy rain and snow unleashed massive runoff that inundated tens of thousands of acres and took part of the land out of production for years.

Barcellos chairs the Lower Tule River Irrigation District, one of about a dozen reclamation districts collectively responsible for flood control in the Tulare Lake Basin. He estimates that $1.5 million is needed to make necessary repairs in his jurisdiction. And that’s just this small area, on this system, he said, wondering where the money will come from.

Richard Valle, a supervisor in neighboring Kings County, shared estimates for his district

covering more than $1 billion in damage

S

. With the multipliers added in lost jobs, wages, etc., he said, that brings us to $2 billion.

Valle is one of the local leaders hoping to tap into it

federal assistance for storm response and recovery efforts. President

joe

Biden signed a major disaster declaration earlier this month to jump-start emergency assistance to seven flood-ravaged counties, including Tulare. Kings County, omitted from the original request, has asked to be added to the emergency order.

The challenge for the future, Barcellos said, is managing the water for the rest of the year. If orchards that are now flooded are not drained, root rot will put thousands of trees at risk. The hay that feeds the area’s livestock is also at risk.

And as temperatures rise, it’s only a matter of time before a Sierra snowpack, the deepest on record in 70 years, begins to melt, releasing streams of water that will further test the region’s defenses. Crews have a matter of weeks, maybe months, to strengthen levees and repair breaches.

Normally I could look east and see snow if I scan north,” Barcellos said. “Now I’m looking east and there’s a lot of snow going south that isn’t normally there. That will have an impact.

Robert Hansen, a

retired professor of biology and

former president of the Tulare Basin Watershed Network, an environmental stewardship group,

and retired biology professor,

believes no amount of rapid reinforcements will be able to stop the water spewing from the mountains if the region experiences a heat wave early in the season.

It’s probably going to be the biggest flood I’ve ever seen, Hansen said, recalling the 1983 flood when he had a canoe handy in case he had to paddle to work.

And the snow melts from April to bloody July, he said, meaning towns like Alpaugh, Allensworth and Corcoran, a trio of communities nestled in the lake bottom, are at risk of being wiped out for months.

Corcoran in Kings County has a front row view of the devastation. With a population of about 22,000, the city is home to a state prison that serves as a major employer, along with the region’s farms and dairies.

Corcoran is protected to the south by a long, hilly dike that is 55 meters high. On the other side of those defenses, the reformed Lake Tulare continues to take shape, swallowing up pomegranate fields, barns, and warehouses. The flood water laps against the banks and from there stretches for miles to the horizon.

Like Barcellos, city residents are preparing for the inevitable melting snow, opting for the time being to strengthen defenses rather than evacuate. They use excavators and heavy machinery to drive in mounds of earth in hopes of raising the embankment just enough.

Unfortunately, we don’t get much information or sources from the county, state or federal government,

said

City Manager Greg Gatzka said.

The water level on the outside of the levee is at 178 feet, 10 feet below the edge. Gatzka said the goal is to raise the levee

four

4ft. Anything above and beyond, he said, probably doesn’t matter because the whole valley could be flooded.

Working with the Cross Creek Flood Control District, the city hopes to bring in 150,000 cubic yards of dirt, enough to pack a 14-mile stretch. Work has been complicated by travel conditions: Roads throughout the basin remain flooded, and access to and from Corcoran has shrunk to just two routes.

Coming up with the $17 million needed to fund the reinforcements is another problem. But waiting for construction was not an option, because as the water rises, the banks become muddy, making it difficult for heavy equipment to maneuver. As it stands, Gatzka estimates the work will take two months.

And with temperatures rising, “We don’t have the luxury of time,” Gatzka said. “We have to be proactive if we want to have the best chance of protecting the city.”

Residents of Corcoran and inmates at the prison, which is located in the lowest part of the city, will have to seriously consider evacuation if water levels reach 55 meters before reinforcements are completed, Gatzka said. He thinks the city is likely to be flooded for seven months to two years.

Assuming the city survives, the economic fallout is hard to predict, Gatzka said. Most residents are agricultural workers and dairy farmers, so their fate depends on whether farmlands remain dry and when cultivation can resume in flooded areas. Despite the unknowns, he continues to believe.

“It’s going to be a battle across the valley,” Gatzka said. “But we will get through it.”