The Tulare Basin represents the wrong approach to flood planning | Opinion
When it comes to flood protection in the San Joaquin Valley, it is a tale of two stories. In most of the San Joaquin River watershed, the state and locals work together year in and year out to better protect the region. Then there is where it is now flooding, the Tulare Basin, which has preferred to be left alone.
There is an explanation, involving the state’s unofficial king of the Boswell lineage.
The Legislature in 2008 declared that for San Joaquin Valley flood planning purposes, the Tulare Basin, which spans parts of Tulare and Kings counties between Stratford, Corcoran and Kettleman City, is simply not in the San Joaquin Valley.
Opinion
Never mind that the map concludes to the contrary. Never mind how record rains and melting snow are refilling the basin’s ancient lakebed and creating a local disaster — more than 160 square miles of standing water and still growing.
This is one of those Sacramento examples of how progress tends to happen in increments. The maiden effort by the Legislature to bring San Joaquin Valley flood planning into the 21st century left the Tulare Basin behind because of politics and power. Now that the state is nonetheless assisting the region in this time of emergency, perhaps the seeds of a lasting partnership may take root.
A lake transformed
Nature designed the Tulare Basin to flood more than any place in the San Joaquin Valley. It is meant to be a lake. It was for thousands of years. It is fed by no less than four rivers — the Kings, the Kern, the Kaweah and the Tule (with only the Kings now connecting to the San Joaquin River from its northern fork).
In a year like this, Tulare Lake used to grow to more than three times the surface area of Lake Tahoe.
The construction of upstream dam after dam over many decades turned the basin into dry farmland in most years, but hardly all. The reservoir system provides only a modest level of flood protection. In really wet years, Tulare Lake makes a cameo reappearance before evaporating in the hot Valley sun, its clay soil too impermeable for much groundwater recharge.
Tulare Lake made a comeback in 1937, then 1952, then 1969, then 1983, then 1998 and now 2023. It could grow beyond 200 square miles before the snowmelt is finally over.
Flood planning comes of age
The Central Valley’s uncoordinated patchwork of flood efforts in the 20th century inspired Mike Machado in 2008 to do something about it. The state senator and farmer from Linden in his final year in political office decided to try something big. He wanted to take flood planning in the Central San Joaquin Valley to the next level.
“It was a combination of reacting to the past and looking toward the future,” said Machado in a recent interview, now 75 and still farming. “You can’t respond to a flood when it happens and expect to protect everything.”
His Senate Bill 5 converted the 97-year-old California State Reclamation Board into the lead on integrated flood management planning. It was converted to the Central Valley Flood Protection Board. And it was charged with working with the watersheds of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and the California Department of Water Resources to approve a comprehensive Central Valley Flood Protection Plan. The board did so in 2012. It has since approved two updates. This plan is the official platform to launch funding efforts to get flood protection projects done.
Flood planning in California does not start with command and control from Sacramento. It begins with locals identifying their own long-term needs, such as levee improvements or multibenefit floodplains.
“Every level of government is essential to partner,” said Jane Dolan, president of the flood board, in a recent briefing. “I am the middle child of seven. I think it is better to get along than to fight.”
Machado left the San Joaquin Valley a safer place thanks to SB 5. At least how he defined it. As stated in SB 5’s Section 9602: “The Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley does not include lands lying within the Tulare Lake, including the Kings River.”
Why did Machado leave the Tulare Basin out?
“You have some very significant interests down there that had sway in Sacramento,” he said. “That is what caused that exception to be made.”
The king is left alone
It is not common knowledge in California that the Tulare Basin happens to be the land of the king. And this king’s empire, anchored at the bottom of the lake, can hold some sway.
The late J.G. Boswell, who amassed 150,000 acres in the basin to grow cotton and tomatoes, was aptly named “The King of California” in the landmark 2003 masterpiece by authors Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman. He created one of the nation’s largest farming empires.
J.G. Boswell died a year after SB 5 was passed. His son, James W. Boswell, now runs the company.
Boswell is one of those last names that does not need a first in California politics. While preferring to fly under the radar, the late J.G. Boswell could impact state water policy when he deemed necessary.
A famous example of the king’s power was in 1982. Then-governor Jerry Brown was trying to replumb the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta with the so-called Peripheral Canal. Environmentalists feared it would siphon too much water. Boswell feared precisely the opposite, that associated environmental safeguards would result in too little water. So he personally bankrolled a campaign to kill the Peripheral Canal. It went down to a resounding defeat.
As an example of this region’s historic passion for cutting-edge flood planning, consider the one still on the books for Tulare County. It was adopted at least three floods ago, in 1972.
Why the lack of passion for flood protection? It comes at a local cost. Even though the state and federal governments have paid the lion’s share of the flood improvements advanced by the state flood board since its inception, the locals typically pay in the range of 10 percent. In the Sacramento area, that has usually come from a flood assessment approved by property owners in a weighted vote based on benefits.
The farmworkers who live in the Tulare Basin and work the fields generally do not own the land.
“Most of the people who are landowners don’t live down there,” Machado said. “But they get to vote on a property tax assessment. The people that are the most affected have the least economic power or sway to do that.”
The J.G. Boswell Corp., as an example, is headquartered in Pasadena.
If J.G. or J.W. Boswell and their peers in the basin had wanted the locals and Sacramento to better plan for flood protection, it surely would have happened.
Better flood planning starts at home
The California taxpayer has been once again on the hook in this flood. Despite facing a budget deficit, Gov. Newsom found $17.2 million to help protect Corcoran to ensure that Tulare Lake doesn’t reach town. It’s the right thing to do. The Tulare Basin represents the wrong approach to flood planning.
Sacramento awaits the successor to Machado’s effort to make the next incremental improvement in flood planning. One solution is to amend SB 5, obey geography, and officially place the Kings River and the Tulare Basin back in the San Joaquin Valley. Then, at least on paper, there is more potential for coordinated state-local flood planning like in the rest of the watershed.
Dolan says it would be far better for change to come from within.
“It is better to have cooperation to work towards the future and make things better,” she said. “It is up to them.”
Tom Philip is an opinion writer with The Sacramento Bee. Previously, he worked for 16 years as a strategic communications and policy adviser for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
