Pa’ashi Lake
Long before California was a state, indigenous Americans lived on the land for thousands of years. The Tachi Yokut tribe resided around the San Joaquin Valley, and according to Vivian Underhill, a research fellow at Northeaster University, they called Tulare Lake “Pa’ashi.”
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Underhill also noted that “Pa’ashi” was formed by snow melting off the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains, and since there was “no natural outlet within the valley,” the water simply stayed.
The Complicated History of Lake Tulare
When colonists first arrived in Calfironia, Lake Tulare was still there. In fact, Underhill reported that “Fresno was a lakeside town” in the 1800s. Which is wildly hard to imagine for those who have visited the extremely dry city of Fresno over the past several decades.
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Essentially, the state of California decided to dry up Tulare Lake in order to “take public land and put it into private ownership.” Underhill explains, “’public land,’ that [was] historically indigenous land that the state of California blanket-proclaimed as ‘public.’”
New Residents Would Be Awarded Ownership if They Drained the Land
According to Underhill, “People could drain that land,” and “be granted ownership of parts of that land. So there was a big incentive for white settlers to start doing that work.”
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Often called “reclamation,” this process was, as we now know, a form of theft from indigenous residents. But in this case, they didn’t just steal their land; the settlers also eliminated a natural, thousands-of-years-old body of water.
Water from the Lake Was Used to Irrigate New Farms
At that time, the settlers built irrigation systems throughout the valley to water their new farms, and they used water from what once was Pa’ashi to do so.
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By 1890, the ancestral lake was gone, and while it has reappeared a few times over the past 130 years, in 2023, it returned in earnest for the first time .
Why Did Tulare Lake Reappear?
Meteorologists understand that Tulare Lake has returned for the first time in over a century due in large part to the excessive snowfall on the Sierra Nevada mountains last winter.
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Underhill explained, “California just got inundated with snow in the winter and then rain in the spring. If you have a rain and snow event, the snow melts really fast.”
Some Farms Have Been Completely Flooded
Because the land under where the lake once was is now farmland, many of these fields have been completely submerged in water since the lake’s return.
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Some flooding protection built over the last century has ensured the lake will never return to its full size and safeguarded thousands of acres of fields.
Many Homes within the San Joaquin Valley Were Destroyed
However, homes and businesses around farms have been completely ruined by the lake’s reappearance.
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Communities of migrant workers who live in homes around the farms were the most affected, reported Underhill, saying that many of these workers have been displaced since the flood.
The Return of Tulare Lake Is Both Beautiful and Detrimental
Underhill went on to explain, “Most of the news coverage about this time talked about it as catastrophic flooding. And I don’t want to disregard the personal and property losses that people experienced, but what was not talked about so much is that it wasn’t only an experience of loss, it was also an experience of resurgence.”
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And the local Tachi Yokut people certainly do see it as a gift from above. Underhill wrote, “The return of the lake has been just an incredibly powerful and spiritual experience. [The Tachi Yokut have] been holding ceremonies on the side of the lake.”
Natural Wildlife Has Returned to the Once Barren San Joaquin Valley
Since the lake returned last year, the Tachi Yokut, as well as local ornithologists, have also noted that an incredible number of wetland birds have reappeared.
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Underhill explained, “The loss of that habitat has been a major issue in bird conservation and bird diversity,” but that “birds of all kinds—pelicans, hawks, waterbirds,” are once again gracing the sky.
The Lake Benefits Humans as Well as Animals
It’s also important to note that while the return of the lake is undoubtedly a positive for the natural wildlife, it also benefits those living in the area.
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San Joaquin Valley can experience intense heat waves in the summer when the temperature is consistently above 100°F. However, Tulare Lake can help decrease air temperature by up to 20 degrees.
“Tulare Lake Wants to Remain”
Vivian Underhill explained that, “This landscape has always been one of lakes and wetlands, and our current irrigated agriculture is just a century-long blip in this larger geologic history. This was not actually a flood. This is a lake returning.”
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And finally, “At a certain point, I think it would behoove the state of California to realize that Tulare Lake wants to remain.”