Tulare Lake’s ghostly rebirth brings wonder — and hardship. Inside a community’s resilience

TULARE LAKE BASIN, Calif. — In the lowlands of the San Joaquin Valley, last winter’s torrential storms revived an ancient body of water drained and dredged decades ago, its clay lakebed transformed into a powerhouse of industrial agriculture.

Rivers swollen with biblical amounts of rainfall overwhelmed the network of levees and irrigation canals that weave through the basin diverting water for farm and livestock use. Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, was reborn, swallowing thousands of acres cultivated for tomatoes and cotton and vast orchards of almond and pistachio trees. In the months since the storms abated, the lake continues to take in runoff from a record snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada, blurring the lines between nature and farmland.

Today, Tulare Lake, roughly the size of Lake Tahoe, appears like a mirage in the desert. Winds glaze off its algae-pocked surface, cooling the summer air, as ducks and egrets wade nearby. Roads that once serviced farms, dairies, chicken barns and cotton gins abruptly give way to lake, their routes discernible only by the tops of telephone poles that cast cross-shaped shadows on the placid waters.

The lake’s rebirth has reshaped life in the Tulare basin and likely will do so for years to come. Some residents grew up picking cotton here. Others found their way to the basin as adults, fell in love with the country sunsets and never left. After a winter of hardships, they remain committed to the San Joaquin Valley and its remarkable seasonal rhythms.

Here are some of their stories.

Jerry Jones, 74, Lemoore

Jerry Jones can point out where nearly every oak tree once stood near the Island District, a triangle of land in Kings County on the north end of Lemoore, bordered by the North and South forks of the Kings River. As a teen, he roamed Lemoore on foot, before the river was so heavily