California ‘ghost lake’ starts to reemerge after 130 years, burying 94,000 acres of farmland

A California “ghost lake” that disappeared in the 19th century is making its grand return after 130 years, swallowing up 94,000 acres and counting of private farmland.

The Tulare Lake in California’s San Joaquin Valley began to dry up in the late 1850s — not through some fluke, but through deliberate action taken to reshape the land at the expense of the existing ecosystem and nearby indigenous communities.

It vanished altogether around 1890 and reappeared with a vengeance in 2023, thanks to the massive winter storms across the Golden State and snowmelt from Sierra Nevada.

Flooding scenes in San Joaquin Valley, California, show a large body of water, presumably Tulare Lake’s resurgence, with a distant field and residents dealing with the situation. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The lake once spanned over 100 miles long and 30 miles wide.

“Tulare Lake was the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi River. It’s really difficult to imagine that now,” Vivian Underhill, a researcher formerly at Northeastern University studying the phenomenon, told Northeastern Global News.

There were manmade basins around where the lake formerly resided, but the sheer flux of snowmelt overwhelmed them all and submerged acres on acres of farmland.

While it has come at the expense of fertile farmland, the lake’s return has already started to revitalize the once-lost ecosystem in the valley. Ducks and other waterfowl have flocked to the lake’s shores for the first time in years and frogs have even started to make themselves at home on the edge.

“Once, there was so much water that a steamship could carry agricultural supplies from the Bakersfield area up to Fresno and then up to San Francisco,” Underhill told the outlet.

There were manmade basins around where the lake was previously, but the sheer flux of snowmelt overwhelmed them all and submerged acres on acres of farmland.

Flooded El Rico Pipe Yard on 10th Ave in Corcoran, CA, due to the expansion of Tulare Lake. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The indigenous Tachi Yokut tribe who originally called that part of the valley home dubbed the lake “Pa’ashi,” and it proved to be central to their lives.

But then the state drained the lake in a process called “reclamation.”

“If people could drain that land, they would be granted ownership of parts of that land. So there was a big incentive for white settlers to start doing that work,” Underhill told NGN.

A sign marking a flooded area on a road in Angiola, California, as floodwaters rise in Tulare Lake Basin following a winter of heavy rain and snow. CAROLINE BREHMAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Floodwaters from Tulare Lake Basin engulfing a road in Helm Corner, California due to heavy rain and snowpack melt. CAROLINE BREHMAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

So, hundreds of irrigation canals and basins were constructed to drive water away from the lake.

Soon, it had dried up entirely, freeing up those hundred thousand acres of farmland — and forcing the Tachi Yokut off of their land, having crippled the local ecosystem through the drainage.

The lake’s return raised concerns in the community as the water continues to rise, submerging not only the privately owned land but entire storage sheds containing materials harmful to the reviving ecosystem, like fertilizer, manure, and even electrical wires.

Not only that, but the ghost lake could very well pass on again. While it has made a smashing return in the last year, this is also the fifth time Tulare Lake has cropped back up since 1890.

The draining and flooding pattern is almost cyclical and could mean that it’s bound to disappear again soon.