Millerton Lake is an artificial lake near the town of Friant , about 15 mi (24 km) north of downtown Fresno , California, United States. The reservoir was created by the construction of 319 ft (97 m) high Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River which, with the lake, serves as much of the county line between Fresno County to the south and Madera County to the north.
171-801: Part of the Central Valley Project , the dam was built by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and was completed in 1942 with the exception of the drum gates being installed in 1947. The lake stores water for irrigation , which is distributed by the Madera and Friant-Kern Canals to the San Joaquin Valley . It has an instantaneous capacity of 520,528 acre⋅ft (0.642062 km). Secondary uses include flood control and recreation, including swimming , fishing , water skiing and camping . A 25 MW hydroelectric plant operated by
342-560: A chance to return for spawning. According to UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences these rice fields adjacent to the Sacramento River will serve as potential nurseries for salmon. UC Davis also concluded from past experimental releases of salmon, that the Yolo Bypass floodway could have up to 57,000 acres of a productive breeding habitat with almost no cost to farmers. The Nigiri project has demonstrated off-season agriculture fields such as
513-732: A diversion point for a pair of canals, the Friant-Kern Canal and the Madera Canal . The Friant-Kern Canal sends water southwards through the Tulare Lake area to its terminus at Bakersfield on the Kern River , supplying irrigation water to Tulare , Fresno , and Kern counties. The Madera Canal takes water northwards to Madera County , emptying into the Chowchilla River . The Central Valley also consisted of 500 miles of canals, providing
684-617: A great network of pumps and canals that would take water from the Sacramento River in the north, and transport it to drought-prone central and southern California, especially the San Joaquin Valley. The Sacramento River basin receives "two-thirds to three-quarters of northern California's precipitation though it has only one-third to one-quarter of the land. The San Joaquin River watershed occupies two-thirds to three-quarters of northern California's land, but only collects one-third to one-quarter of
855-413: A large portion of the habitat currently used by migrating birds. Native bird populations have been declining steadily since the 19th century. Species that were once common but now are endangered or gone include the southwestern willow flycatcher , western yellow-billed cuckoo , least Bell's vireo , and warbling vireo . Another reason for dropping numbers are the introduction of non-native species, such as
1026-564: A large proportion of their population within a few decades of the arrival of Sutter and the following settlers, the start of the gold rush , not to mention the numerous battles fought between the settlers and native bands as well as the forced relocation of some of the tribes to Indian reservations in several places scattered around the Sacramento Valley, mainly in the Coast Ranges. In the early 1850s, several treaties were signed between
1197-559: A pair of large dams on the Sacramento River north of the city of Redding . The Shasta Dam is the primary water storage and power generating facility of the CVP. It impounds the Sacramento River to form Shasta Lake , which can store over 4,500,000 acre-feet (5,600,000 dam ) of water, and can generate 680 MW of power. Shasta Dam functions to regulate the flow of the Sacramento River so that downstream diversion dams and canals can capture
1368-637: A part in the formation of the 300-mile (480 km) Monterey Submarine Canyon when sea levels were lower during the Ice Ages. The Monterey Bay outlet of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers was blocked off by uplift about 2 million years ago, and runoff from the Sierra began to transform the Central Valley into a gigantic lake, called Lake Clyde . This lake stretched 500 miles (800 km) north to south and
1539-403: A plethora of massive changes to the environment beginning in the 20th century. An early project was undertaken to raise the entire city of Sacramento about 11 feet (3.4 m) above its original elevation. This was followed by much bigger engineering projects to control and store the floodwaters of the Sacramento River; the building of these public works would radically transform the river during
1710-488: A pumping station (which replaced the Red Bluff Diversion Dam ) removes water for irrigation. Beyond Red Bluff the river reaches the low floodplain of the Sacramento Valley, receiving Mill Creek from the east and Thomes Creek from the west near Los Molinos , then Deer Creek from the east near Vina . Southeast of Corning , the Sacramento forms the boundary of Tehama County to the west and Butte County to
1881-609: A safe eating advisory for fish caught in the Millerton Lake due to elevated levels of mercury. By diverting most of the San Joaquin River for irrigation, the Friant Dam has caused about 60 miles (97 km) of the river to run dry except in high water years when floodwaters are spilled from the dam. The desiccation of the river has caused the degradation of large stretches of riverside habitat and marshes, and has nearly eliminated
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#17328514182052052-523: A series of man-made channels, the Mokelumne River , and other natural sloughs, marshes and distributaries. From there, the water travels to the C.W. Bill Jones Pumping Plant , which raises water into the Delta-Mendota Canal , which in turn travels 117 miles (188 km) southwards to Mendota Pool on the San Joaquin River, supplying water to other CVP reservoirs about midway. A facility exists at
2223-600: A total of over 3,000 cubic feet per second (85 m /s) of water to irrigate some 150,000 acres (610 km ). In 1960, construction began on the State Water Project, whose primary purpose was to deliver water to Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. Oroville Dam – the tallest dam in the U.S. – was built on the Sacramento's largest tributary, the Feather River. A series of channels were enlarged in
2394-532: A tributary of the Sacramento River, generating 154 MW of power in the process. Whiskeytown Lake (formed by Clair. A Hill Whiskeytown Dam ) in turn provides water to the Spring Creek Tunnel, which travels into the lowermost extreme of Spring Creek, a stream that flows into Keswick Reservoir, generating another 180 MW of electricity. From there the water from the Trinity River empties into Keswick Reservoir and
2565-475: A turning point in the history of the Sacramento Valley, and California as a whole. In 1841, Sutter and his men built a fortress at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers and the Mexican government granted him almost 50,000 acres (200 km ) of land surrounding the two rivers. Naming it New Helvetia, he created an agricultural empire in the lower Sacramento Valley, attracting several hundred settlers to
2736-468: A vast tidal estuary and inverted river delta of over 1,000 square miles (2,600 km ) which receives the entire run-off of the Central Valley, a region covering a third of California. The Sacramento is by far the largest contributor of fresh water to the Delta; in an average year, it accounts for more than 80 percent of the fresh water inflow. At Walnut Grove , the manmade Delta Cross Channel connects
2907-424: Is 43 miles (69 km) long and is maintained to a depth of 30 feet (9.1 m). The Sacramento River and its drainage basin once supported extensive riparian habitat and marshes , in both the Sacramento Valley and the Delta, home to a diverse array of flora and fauna. Due to the reclamation of land for agriculture and the regulation of seasonal flooding, the amount of water-based habitat declined greatly during
3078-565: Is generated at Folsom and Nimbus dams, and marketed to the Western Area Power Administration . The Folsom Unit consists of Folsom Dam , its primary water storage component, and Nimbus Dam , which serves as its downstream forebay. The Folsom Dam is located on the American River, and stores 1,010,000 acre-feet (1,250,000 dam ) of water in its reservoir, Folsom Lake . Folsom Lake covers 11,550 acres (4,670 ha) and
3249-657: Is located downstream of Nimbus Dam, to compensate for the two dams' destruction of American River spawning grounds. The Sly Park Unit includes Sly Park Dam , Jenkinson Lake, the Camp Creek Diversion Dam, and two diversion tunnels. The Sly Park Dam and its similarly-sized auxiliary dam form Jenkinson Lake, which covers 650 acres (260 ha). Jenkinson Lake feeds the Camino Conduit, a 5 mi (8.0 km) aqueduct . The Camp Creek Diversion Dam diverts some water from Camp Creek into Jenkinson Lake. The third unit
3420-547: Is located inside the Folsom Lake State Recreational Area . Eight additional earth fill saddle dams are required to keep the reservoir from overflowing. The dam also generates 200 MW from three generators. About 7 mi (11 km) downstream of Folsom Dam is the Nimbus Dam , forming Lake Natoma . The dam generates 7.7 MW from two Kaplan turbines on the north side of the river. The Nimbus Fish Hatchery
3591-415: Is now providing water to over half of California's population and supporting the most productive agricultural area in the nation, these changes have left the Sacramento greatly modified from its natural state and have caused the decline of its once-abundant fisheries. The Sacramento River originates in the mountains and plateaus of far northern California as three major waterways that flow into Shasta Lake :
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#17328514182053762-609: Is released into rivers and wetlands in order to comply with state and federal ecological standards. Two large reservoirs, Shasta Lake and Trinity Lake , are formed by a pair of dams in the mountains north of the Sacramento Valley . Water from Shasta Lake flows into the Sacramento River which flows to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and water from Trinity Lake flows into the Trinity River which leads to
3933-573: Is the Auburn-Folsom South Unit , consisting of several dams on American River tributaries. These include Sugar Pine Dam and Pipeline (supplying water to Foresthill ), and the uncompleted Folsom South Canal. The primary component of the unit, concrete thin-arch Auburn Dam , was to be located on the North Fork of the American, but was never built because of the significant risk of earthquakes in
4104-592: The American River , which drains off the Sierra Nevada and flows into the Sacramento River . The division is further divided into three units: the Folsom, Sly Park and Auburn-Folsom South. The American River Division stores water in the American River watershed, to both provide water supply for local settlements, and supply it to the rest of the system. The dams also are an important flood control measure. Hydroelectricity
4275-482: The Blessed Sacrament ". In the following years, two more Spanish expeditions traversed the lower part of the river, the last one in 1817. The next visitors were Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) fur trappers exploring southwards from the disputed Oregon Country , starting in the 1820s. The first organized expedition, led by Peter Skene Ogden , arrived in the area of Mount Shasta in 1826. By this time, California
4446-600: The California Coast Ranges , enclosing the Sacramento Valley and forcing the streams within to flow south instead of west, forming the ancestral Sacramento River. (The Klamath Mountains , which enclose the northwest part of the Sacramento Basin, were formed in the same way but are much older, dating back 7.5 million years.) It is possible that the river once had its outlet in Monterey Bay , and may have played
4617-453: The California Coast Ranges . The West San Joaquin Division and San Luis Unit consist of several major facilities that are shared with the federal California State Water Project (SWP). San Luis Dam (or B.F. Sisk Dam) is the largest storage facility, holding 2,000,000 acre-feet (2,500,000 dam ) of water. Although called an offstream storage reservoir by USBR, the reservoir floods part of
4788-597: The California State Water Project (SWP). Many CVP water users are represented by the Central Valley Project Water Association. In addition to water storage and regulation, the system has a hydroelectric capacity of over 2,000 megawatts , and provides recreation and flood control with its twenty dams and reservoirs. It has allowed major cities to grow along Valley rivers which previously would flood each spring, and transformed
4959-474: The California Trail and Siskiyou Trail guided hundreds of thousands of people to the gold fields. By the late part of the century mining had ceased to be a major part of the economy, and many immigrants turned to farming and ranching. Many populous communities were established along the Sacramento River, including the state capital of Sacramento . Intensive agriculture and mining contributed to pollution in
5130-651: The Carquinez Strait into San Pablo Bay and San Francisco Bay , joining the Pacific at the Golden Gate . Following the Columbia River , the Sacramento is the largest river by discharge on the Pacific coast of the continental United States. The natural runoff of the river is 22 million acre-feet (27 km ) per year, or about 30,000 cubic feet per second (850 m /s). Before dams were built on its tributaries,
5301-636: The Delta was where limited irrigation for orchards first started. Following the arrival of the Transcontinental railroad , immigration from Asia and the rest of the U.S. led to growing numbers of settlers in the region. Despite the rich soils and favorable weather of the 42,000-square-mile (110,000 km ) Central Valley, immigrants to the valley who were unfamiliar with its seasonal patterns of rainfall and flooding began to take up irrigation practices. Farmers soon found themselves troubled by frequent floods in
Millerton Lake - Misplaced Pages Continue
5472-633: The Gulf of California just south of the US-Mexico border near the southeast part of the state, is far larger than the Sacramento in terms of length and drainage area but has a slightly smaller flow. The Sacramento, when combined with the Pit, is also one of the longest rivers in the United States entirely within one state—after Alaska 's Kuskokwim and Texas ' Trinity . The major drainage basins bordering that of
5643-690: The Klamath Diversion , proposed to send the entire flow of the Klamath River into the Sacramento River through a system of large reservoirs, canals, pumping stations and tunnels. Similarly, the Dos Rios Dam project would have diverted a considerable portion of the Eel River to the Sacramento. Both projects were defeated by local resistance, opposition from environmentalists, as well as the high capital cost. The Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel
5814-558: The Oregon –California border, occasionally overflows into the Pit River during wet years, although this has not happened since 1881. The Goose Lake watershed is the only part of the Sacramento River basin extending into another state. Unlike most California rivers, the Pit and the McCloud Rivers are predominantly spring-fed, ensuring a large and consistent flow in even the driest of summers. At
5985-535: The Pacific Ocean . Both lakes release water at controlled rates. There, before it can flow on to San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean , some of the water is intercepted by a diversion channel and transported to the Delta-Mendota Canal , which conveys water southwards through the San Joaquin Valley, supplying water to San Luis Reservoir (a SWP-shared facility) and the San Joaquin River at Mendota Pool in
6156-401: The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta faced problems in dry summer and autumn months when the inflowing water was low. In order to continue to sustain the valley's economy, there needed to be systems to regulate flows in the rivers and equally distribute water among the north and south parts of the valley. In 1873, Barton S. Alexander completed a report for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that
6327-551: The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta . It is a large receding geological floodplain moderated by its Mediterranean climate of dry summers and wet winters that includes regular major drought cycles . At the time of its construction, the project was at the center of a political and cultural battle over the state's future. It intersected with the state's ongoing war over land use, access to water rights, impacts on indigenous communities, large vs. small farmers,
6498-650: The San Joaquin River —which has far less average flow than the Sacramento—in order to divert its water to southern Central Valley aqueducts. The Friant Dam , completed in 1942, is the largest component of the Friant Division of the CVP. The dam crosses the San Joaquin River where it spills out of the Sierra Nevada, forming Millerton Lake , which provides water storage for San Joaquin Valley irrigators as well as providing
6669-709: The Shasta , Modoc , and Achomawi /Pit River Tribes of the volcanic plateaus in the north; the Wintu and Hupa in the northern Klamath and Trinity mountains; the Nomlaki , Yuki , Patwin , and Pomo of the Coast Ranges; the Yana , Atsugewi , Maidu , Konkow , and Nisenan in the Sierra and their western foothills; and the Miwok in the south. Most of the Sacramento Valley's native peoples relied on hunting, gathering and fishing, although agriculture
6840-522: The Snake – Columbia River systems; geologic evidence indicates that the two were connected by a series of wetlands and channels about 4-5 million years ago. Located along the Pacific Flyway , the sprawling wetlands of the Sacramento Valley are an important stop for migratory birds; however, only a fraction of the historic wetlands remain. Seasonally flooded rice paddies in the Sacramento Valley comprise
7011-534: The Tehachapi Mountains via four large pumping stations. The project irrigates 750,000 acres (300,000 ha) of land in the San Joaquin Valley and serves 22 million people in Central and Southern California. Over the years, several other plans materialized to divert rivers from California's North Coast into the Sacramento watershed, as future demand was projected to exceed supply. The only one to be built
Millerton Lake - Misplaced Pages Continue
7182-547: The Trinity Dam forms a blockade that prevents salmon from reaching about 109 miles (175 km) of upriver spawning grounds. In the early years of the 21st century, the Bureau of Reclamation finally began to steadily increase the water flow downstream from Lewiston Dam. While providing less water for the CVP altogether, the new flow regime allows operations to meet the line drawn by Reclamation itself in 1952 stating that at least 48% of
7353-466: The Trinity River . It then swings east through Redding , the largest city of the Shasta Cascade region, and turns southeast, entering Tehama County . East of Cottonwood it receives Cottonwood Creek – the largest undammed tributary – from the west, then Battle Creek a short distance downstream. Below Battle Creek it carves its last gorge, Iron Canyon, emerging from the hills at Red Bluff , where
7524-437: The foothill yellow-legged frog and western spadefoot are listed as endangered species. Riparian and wetlands areas along the Sacramento once totaled more than 500,000 acres (2,000 km ); today only about 10,000 acres (40 km ) remains. Much of this consists of restored stretches and artificially constructed wetlands. Levee construction has prevented the river from changing course during winter and spring floods, which
7695-416: The semi-arid desert environment of the San Joaquin Valley into productive farmland. Freshwater stored in Sacramento River reservoirs and released downriver during dry periods prevents salt water from intruding into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta during high tide . There are eight divisions of the project and ten corresponding units, many of which operate in conjunction, while others are independent of
7866-451: The 117,000 acre-feet (144,000 dam) that was originally released for agricultural purposes. However, the river restoration project will cause a 12–20% reduction in irrigation water delivered from Friant Dam. Central Valley Project The Central Valley Project ( CVP ) is a federal power and water management project in the U.S. state of California under the supervision of the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR). It
8037-417: The 20th century. From the late 19th century through the 20th century, California experienced an economic boom that led to the rapid expansion of both agriculture and urban areas. The Central Valley was becoming a heavily developed irrigation farming region, and cities along the state's Pacific coast and the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers were growing rapidly, requiring river control to prevent flooding on
8208-419: The 20th century. Other human impacts include the heavy water consumption for agriculture and urban areas, and pollution caused by pesticides , nitrates , mine tailings , acid mine drainage and urban runoff . The Sacramento supports 40–60 species of fish, and 218 species of birds. The basin also has a number of endemic amphibian and fish species. Many Sacramento River fish species are similar to those in
8379-424: The Bureau of Reclamation studied the feasibility of raising Shasta Dam. One of the proposed heights was 18.5 feet (5.6 m) greater than its current size, thus increasing the storage capacity of Shasta Lake by 636,000 acre-feet (784,000 dam ). The agency also proposed a smaller raise of 6.5 ft (2.0 m) that would add 290,000 acre-feet (360,000 dam ). Previously, a 200 ft (61 m) raise of
8550-488: The CVP in order to lessen the ecological impact on the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers. Actions mandated included the release of more water to supply rivers and wetlands, funding for habitat restoration work (especially for anadromous fish spawning gravels), water temperature control, water conservation, fish passage, increasing the service area of the CVP's canals, and other items. Despite the preservation of river programs,
8721-649: The Cascades; its headwaters rise on the western extreme of the Basin and Range Province , east of major Cascade volcanoes such as Mount Shasta and Lassen Peak . The other two are the Klamath River and Columbia River . By discharge, it is the second-largest contiguous U.S. river draining into the Pacific, after only the Columbia River, which has almost ten times the flow of the Sacramento. The Colorado River , which reaches
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#17328514182058892-415: The Central Valley into the breadbasket of the U.S. Following the 1848 California Gold Rush , large numbers of U.S. citizens came into the region and made attempts to practice rainfed agriculture , but most of the Central Valley land was taken up by large cattle ranchers like Henry Miller who eventually controlled 22,000 square miles of land. The large-scale levee construction by Chinese workers along
9063-501: The Central Valley watershed, the CVP's diversion of water from the Trinity River from Lewiston Dam into Whiskeytown Lake has significantly hurt the Klamath River tributary's salmon run. Over three-quarters of the river's flow is diverted through the Clear Creek Tunnel and away from the Trinity River, causing the river below the dam to become warm, silty, shallow and slow-flowing, attributes that hurt young salmon. Furthermore,
9234-559: The Delta to facilitate water flow from the Sacramento to the Banks Pumping Plant and the California Aqueduct , which can carry as much as 4.2 million acre-feet (5.2 km ) of water each year. From its origin at the Delta the canal runs 444 miles (715 km) southwards through the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, providing irrigation water to farmlands along its length, and lifted almost 3,000 feet (910 m) over
9405-400: The Friant Power Authority produces electricity from large releases and two smaller plants use water released for a fish hatchery and to maintain minimum-flow in the river. Prior to the construction of Friant Dam, the current lake bed was the site of the town of Millerton , the first county seat of Fresno County. The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has issued
9576-454: The Knaggs Ranch property within the Yolo Bypass by Sacramento River for four consecutive winters. UC Davis shares their results produced the fastest growth of juvenile Chinook salmon in the Central Valley to ever be recorded. The Nigiri project attempted to see if these floodplains as surrogate wetlands which can be controlled to copy the Sacramento River system's annual natural flooding cycle the native fish depend on. Runoff water from agriculture
9747-493: The Pit and McCloud Rivers provided the majority of river flow in dry summers when the Upper Sacramento and other tributaries slowed to a trickle. Monthly combined discharge of Sacramento River at Freeport and Yolo Bypass near Woodland (cfs) The Sacramento River's watershed is the largest entirely in California, covering much of the northern part of the state. The endorheic (closed) Goose Lake drainage basin in southern Oregon , however, has been known to overflow into
9918-406: The Sacramento River and generating peaking power in the process. Trinity Dam forms Trinity Lake , the second largest CVP water-storage reservoir, with just over half the capacity of Shasta and a generating capacity of 140 MW. Lewiston Dam , downstream of Trinity Dam, diverts water into the Clear Creek Tunnel, which travels to empty into a third reservoir, Whiskeytown Lake on Clear Creek ,
10089-402: The Sacramento River system during particularly wet years. The Sacramento River basin generally lies between the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range on the east and the Coast Ranges and Klamath Mountains in the west, although the part of the basin drained by the Pit River extends east of the Cascades. The Pit River, has the distinction of being one of three rivers that cut through the main crest of
10260-411: The Sacramento River system is the Pit River, which is by far the largest of the three rivers flowing into Shasta Lake. At the USGS Montgomery Creek gauge, the average flow of the Pit River was 4,760 cu ft/s (135 m /s) for the period 1966–2013. By comparison, the Sacramento River at Delta gauge, a few miles above Shasta Lake, recorded an average of 1,191 cu ft/s (33.7 m /s) for
10431-452: The Sacramento River, although not all of them are currently operational. The ones currently in operation are at Delta, California (near the source at Mount Shasta), at Keswick (near Redding), Colusa (about halfway down the river), Verona , and Freeport . The Freeport gauge, which sits just downstream of Sacramento, provides a relatively good metric of the annual outflow from the Sacramento River Basin. The average flow between 1949 and 2013
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#173285141820510602-461: The Sacramento River, and significant changes to the river's hydrology and environment. Since the 1950s the watershed has been intensely developed for water supply and the generation of hydroelectric power . Today, large dams impound the river and almost all of its major tributaries. The Sacramento River is used heavily for irrigation and serves much of Central and Southern California through the canals of giant state and federal water projects. While it
10773-399: The Sacramento River. In 1963, the Spring Creek Debris Dam was constructed just upstream of the outlet of the Spring Creek Tunnel, to prevent acid mine drainage from the Iron Mountain Mine from continuing downstream and contaminating the river. The American River Division is located in north-central California, on the east side of the Great Central Valley. Its structures use the water of
10944-409: The Sacramento Valley and a general lack of water in the San Joaquin Valley. The Sacramento River , which drains the northern part, receives between 60 and 75% of the precipitation in the Valley, despite the Sacramento Valley covering less area than the much larger San Joaquin Valley, drained by the San Joaquin River , which receives only about 25% of the rainfall. Furthermore, cities drawing water from
11115-456: The Sacramento Valley in 2017, according to a report sent to the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). This is the second lowest number of returning adult winter run salmon since modern counting techniques were implemented in 2003. By comparison, over 117,000 winter Chinooks returned to spawn in 1969. The CVP stores about 13 million acre-feet (16 km ) of water in 20 reservoirs in
11286-512: The Sacramento Valley is below 300 feet (91 m) in elevation; in its lower course, the Sacramento River drops only about 1 foot (0.30 m) per mile. Between the bajadas or alluvial slopes extending from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges, are the low floodplains of the Sacramento River. The river flows at an elevation somewhat higher than the surrounding terrain due to deposits of sediment over millennia that created raised banks (essentially natural levees ). The banks separate
11457-420: The Sacramento Valley, first coming into contact with European explorers in the late 1700s. The Spanish explorer Gabriel Moraga named the river Rio de los Sacramentos in 1808, later shortened and anglicized into Sacramento . In the 19th century, gold was discovered on a tributary of the Sacramento River, starting the California Gold Rush and an enormous population influx to the state. Overland trails such as
11628-400: The Sacramento and Feather Rivers into the Yolo Bypass , which parallels the Sacramento River down the west side of the valley. Cache Creek and Putah Creek , two major tributaries which formerly joined the Sacramento River from the west, are now intercepted by the Yolo Bypass via man-made channels. The main channel of the Sacramento flows south, forming the Yolo– Sacramento County line. As
11799-446: The Sacramento are that of the Klamath in the north, the San Joaquin and Mokelumne to the south and the Eel River in the west. The Russian River also lies to the west and the endorheic (closed) Honey Lake and Eagle Lake basins to the north. On the east side are many endorheic watersheds of the Great Basin including the Truckee River and Carson River . Parts of the Sacramento watershed come very close to, but do not extend past,
11970-465: The Sacramento to the Mokelumne River channel, allowing a portion of the water to be pumped south toward Clifton Court Forebay , the receiving reservoir for the main CVP and State Water Project aqueducts which irrigate millions of acres and supply water to over 23 million people in the San Joaquin Valley , the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles . Although river levels are tidally influenced here and occasionally as far north as Verona,
12141-423: The Sacramento upriver of Shasta Dam, the American upriver of Folsom Dam, the Stanislaus upriver of New Melones Dam, and the San Joaquin upriver of Mendota —have become inaccessible to migrating salmon. In three of these cases, it is because the dams are too high and their reservoirs too large for fish to bypass via fish ladders . The San Joaquin River, however, had a different fate. Almost 60 mi (97 km) of
12312-479: The Sacramento with a portion of its historic flood plain, which it would have naturally flooded had the levee system not been in place. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, the first concrete proposals for a statewide water engineering project emerged, but when the state government could not sell the necessary bonds to fund the project, the federal government took over. The Central Valley Project , one of
12483-466: The Sacramento's main tributaries, enabling the regulation of water for irrigation and hydroelectric power. Starting in the late 1950s, two major canals were extended to irrigate the western side of the Sacramento Valley – the Tehama-Colusa and Corning Canals . Starting at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam on the Sacramento, the canals are 111 and 21 mi (179 and 34 km) long respectively, and divert
12654-624: The Sacramento. The Sacramento and its wide natural floodplain were once abundant in fish and other aquatic creatures, notably one of the southernmost large runs of chinook salmon in North America. For about 12,000 years, humans have depended on the vast natural resources of the watershed, which had one of the densest Native American populations in California. The river has provided a route for trade and travel since ancient times. Hundreds of tribes sharing regional customs and traditions have inhabited
12825-602: The San Joaquin salmon run into the Merced River in the 1950s failed, because the salmon did not recognize the Merced as their "home stream". Not only on the San Joaquin River have CVP facilities wreaked environmental havoc. On the Sacramento River, Red Bluff Diversion Dam in Tehama County , while not as large or as impacting as Friant Dam, was once a barrier to the migration of anadromous fish. The original fish passage facilities of
12996-559: The San Luis Canal towards the Coalinga area. A pair of separate dams, Los Baños Detention Dam and Little Panoche Detention Dam, provide flood control in the Los Baños area. The San Luis Drain was a separate project by USBR in an attempt to keep contaminated irrigation drainage water out of the San Joaquin River, emptying into Kesterson Reservoir where the water would evaporate or seep into
13167-485: The San Luis Canal, the federally built section of the California Aqueduct , which carries both CVP and SWP water. The San Luis Canal terminates at Kettleman City , where it connects with the state-built section of the California Aqueduct. With a capacity of 13,100 cubic feet per second (370 m /s), it is one of the largest irrigation canals in the United States. The Coalinga or Pleasant Valley Canal branches off
13338-558: The San Luis Creek valley. San Luis Creek, however, is not the primary water source for the reservoir. Downstream of San Luis Reservoir is O'Neill Forebay , which is intersected by the Delta-Mendota Canal , a separate CVP facility. Water is pumped from the canal into the Forebay and uphill into San Luis Reservoir, which functions as an additional water source during dry periods. Water released from San Luis and O'Neill reservoirs feeds into
13509-601: The Santa Clara Tunnel and Conduit, carries water to the Santa Clara Valley. Once, profuse runs of anadromous fish — salmon , steelhead , and others—migrated up the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers to spawn in great numbers. The construction of CVP dams on the two rivers and many of their major tributaries—namely Friant Dam and Shasta Dam —mostly ended the once-bountiful Central Valley salmon run. From north to south,
13680-462: The Shasta and Keswick Dams. Diversion dams , pumping plants, and aqueducts provide municipal water supply as well as irrigation of about 100,000 acres (4,000,000 dam ). The Red Bluff Diversion Dam diverts part of the Sacramento River into the 110-mile (180 km) Tehama-Colusa Canal, the 21-mile (34 km) Corning Canal and a small reservoir formed by Funks Dam. Six pump plants take water from
13851-529: The Sierra Nevada. The watershed also has Lassen Volcanic National Park , which covers 106,000 acres (430 km ) centered on Lassen Peak, the southernmost Cascade volcano. Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area , which is over 200,000 acres (810 km ) in size, straddles much of the upper Sacramento and Trinity Rivers, and is named for the three local reservoirs (Shasta Lake, Trinity Lake and Whiskeytown Lake ) which are popular tourist areas. Many other state parks and recreation areas lie within
14022-682: The Spanish colonial model of Catholic missions and ranchos (1772–1846) was then followed by the current United States era. Due to its Mediterranean climate , the first cultural period was hunter-gatherer based. The Spanish missions' ranching and tanning business was based on the forced labor of Las Californias tribes. Spain's model of land use with the grazing of livestock for meat, wool and leather started along Alta California 's coast eventually spreading inland. The U.S. era evolved from primarily ranching to large-scale plantations or more commonly known today as corporate farming that turned
14193-613: The U.S. government and the Native Americans involving their relocation onto a reservation in the Sierra foothills; this promise was broken. Therefore, in 1863, the tribes from the area surrounding the middle Sacramento and Feather rivers , the Konkow group, were removed and marched forcibly to the Round Valley Indian Reservation near the Eel River . A total of 461 people were forced from their homes, but only 277 made it to
14364-479: The United States, Sutter and other large landholders in California held on to their properties. In 1848 Sutter assigned James W. Marshall to build a sawmill on the South Fork American River at Coloma , where Marshall discovered gold. Although Sutter and Marshall originally intended to keep the find a secret, news soon broke attracting three hundred thousand hopefuls from all over North America, and even
14535-659: The Upper Sacramento River, McCloud River and Pit River . The Upper Sacramento begins near Mount Shasta , at the confluence of North, Middle and South Forks in the Trinity Mountains of Siskiyou County . It flows east into a small reservoir, Lake Siskiyou , before turning south. The river flows through a canyon for about 60 miles (97 km), past Dunsmuir and Castella , before emptying into Shasta Lake near Lakehead in Shasta County . The McCloud River rises on
14706-421: The Yolo Bypass in the rice field floodplains adjacent to the Sacramento River. The name comes from a form of Japanese sushi which contains a slice of fish on top of a compressed wedge of vinegared rice. Salmon migrate from the Central Valley rivers to the ocean where they increase in size for one to three years then return to rivers to spawn, if a young fish is larger when they enter the ocean, they will have more of
14877-581: The ancient path of the Siskiyou Trail, in the 1880s and 1890s. Many parts of the railroad were treacherous, especially in the mountainous areas north of Dunsmuir . It was not long after Sacramento surpassed a population of 10,000, then the Great Flood of 1862 swept away much of it (and almost everything else along the Sacramento River) and put the rest under water. The flood waters were exacerbated by
15048-619: The area, and general public opposition to the project. However, the high Foresthill Bridge , built as part of the preliminary work for Auburn Dam, still stands. County Line Dam, about 10 miles (16 km) south of Folsom Dam, was also never built. One of the most important parts of the CVP's San Joaquin Valley water system is the series of aqueducts and pumping plants that take water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and send it southwards to supply farms and cities. The Delta Cross Channel intercepts Sacramento River water as it travels westwards towards Suisun Bay and diverts it south through
15219-549: The area, and relied on Native American labor to maintain his domain. Sutter had something of a two-faced relationship with the many Native American groups in the area. He was friendly with some of the tribes, and paid their leaders handsomely for supplying workers, but others he seized by force to labor in the fields. After the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846 and the Mexican–American War , in which California became part of
15390-488: The base of the Montezuma Hills , forming the border of Solano and Sacramento Counties. This part of the river is dredged for navigation by large oceangoing vessels and averages three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km) across. North of Antioch and Pittsburg , the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers join at the head of Suisun Bay , marking the official end of both rivers. The combined waters flow west through Suisun Bay and
15561-565: The border of California and Nevada . The basin's diverse geography ranges from the glacier-carved, snowcapped peaks of the Sierra Nevada to the sea-level (and often lower) marshes and farmlands of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The highest point is 14,104 feet (4,299 m) at Mount Shasta , a dormant stratovolcano near the headwaters of the Sacramento River. The Sierra Nevada peaks generally decrease in height from south to north—from over 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in
15732-430: The bypass recorded an average throughput of 4,809 cubic feet per second (136.2 m /s) between 1939 and 2013, mostly from December–March. The highest recorded flow was 374,000 cubic feet per second (10,600 m /s) on February 20, 1986. During the dry season of July through September, the bypass carries low to zero flow. Although the Sacramento River nominally begins near Mount Shasta, the true hydrological source of
15903-497: The canal and feed it to the Colusa County water distribution grid. Water diversions from northern rivers in the state remain controversial due to environmental damage. Trinity River Division is the second largest CVP department for the northern Sacramento Valley. The primary purpose of the division is to divert water from the Trinity River into the Sacramento River drainage downstream of Shasta Dam in order to provide more flow in
16074-501: The center of an agricultural empire that provided food to feed the thousands of miners working in the hills as well as a place of financial exchange of all the gold that was mined. Sacramento was officially established in 1850 and was recognized as the state capital in 1854. As the economy of the Sacramento Valley grew, the Southern Pacific Railroad established tracks along the river to connect California with Oregon following
16245-507: The city dwellers and power sales from the generation of electricity pay of the project costs. On the Stanislaus River , a major tributary of the San Joaquin, lies the relatively independent East Side Division and New Melones Unit of the CVP. The sole component of the division/unit is New Melones Dam , forming New Melones Lake , which, when filled to capacity, holds nearly 2,400,000 acre-feet (3,000,000 dam ) of water, about equal to
16416-503: The counties. Many of the mountainous regions of the watershed are administered by the U.S. Forest Service . The Sacramento River watershed includes large areas of coniferous forests in the Mendocino and Trinity National Forests in the Coast Ranges, Shasta and Lassen National Forests in the southern Cascades and the Plumas , Tahoe and Eldorado National Forests on the western slopes of
16587-513: The crest of the old dam. This results in the river below the dam attaining a much higher temperature than usual, hurting native fish and wildlife. To solve this problem, Reclamation shuts off operations of the dam's hydroelectric power plant when water levels are drastically low, but this results in power shortages. Originally, after the dam was constructed, the State of California put filling the reservoir on hold because of enormous public opposition to what
16758-484: The dam continually experienced problems from the beginning of operation in 1966, and introduced species that prey on young smolt often gather at the base of the dam, which reduced the population of outmigrating juvenile salmon into the Pacific. The Red Bluff Diversion Dam has since been replaced with a fish screen and pumping plant, thus allowing unimpaired passage through Red Bluff. Further upstream, Keswick and Shasta Dams form total barriers to fish migration. Even out of
16929-465: The dam, increasing storage to 13,890,000 acre-feet (17,130,000 dam ), was considered, but deemed uneconomical. When Shasta Dam was first built, it was actually planned to be two hundred feet higher than it is now, but Reclamation stopped construction at its present height because of a shortage of materials and workers during World War II . The raising of the dam would further regulate and store more Sacramento River water for dry periods, thus benefiting
17100-500: The delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. However, due to their vantage point, neither Fages nor any of his men saw the Sacramento clearly. They assumed that the San Joaquin, coming from the south, was the largest of the merging rivers they saw. In 1808, explorer Gabriel Moraga , on a journey to find suitable sites for the construction of missions, became the first foreigner to see the river clearly. Judging its huge breadth and power he named it Rio de los Sacramentos , or "River of
17271-562: The dwindling fish populations of Northern and Central California rivers. In 2017 the Klamath and Trinity rivers witnessed the worst fall run Chinook salmon return in recorded history, leading to a disaster declaration in California and Oregon due to the loss of the commercial fisheries. The recreational fall Chinook salmon fishery in both the ocean and the Trinity and Klamath rivers was also closed in 2017. Only 1,123 adult winter Chinook salmon returned to
17442-679: The east slope of Mount Shasta and flows south for 77 miles (124 km) through the southern Cascade Range , roughly parallel to the Upper Sacramento, eventually to reach the McCloud Arm of Shasta Lake. The Pit River, by far the largest of the three, begins in Modoc County in the northeastern corner of California. Draining a vast and remote volcanic highlands area, it flows southwest for nearly 300 miles (480 km) before emptying into Shasta Lake near Montgomery Creek . Goose Lake , straddling
17613-596: The east. A few miles downstream it forms the border of Butte County and Glenn County to the west. Stony Creek joins from the west in Glenn County, near Hamilton City and about 15 miles (24 km) west of Chico . The river then forms the Glenn– Colusa County line for a short distance before crossing entirely into Colusa County. It passes by the Sutter Buttes , a group of volcanic hills that rise abruptly from
17784-456: The eastern boundary of the Yolo Bypass . The manually operated Sacramento Weir, located across from downtown Sacramento on the west side of the river, serves to relieve floodwater pressure from the American River by allowing it to drain west into the Yolo Bypass instead of continuing down the Sacramento River. Downstream of Sacramento, the river enters the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta ,
17955-583: The emergency spillways, prompting the state and federal governments to repeal the limits they had imposed on the reservoir. Furthermore, the project allows a far smaller sustainable water yield than originally expected, and Reclamation calls the dam "a case study of all that can go wrong with a project". In response to these environmental problems, Congress passed in 1992 the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA), Title 34 of Public Law 102-575, to change water management practices in
18126-464: The entire operations of the CVP, and also generating additional power. However, the proposed height increase was fought over for many reasons. Raising the dam would cost several hundred million dollars and raise the price of irrigation water from Shasta Lake. It would drown most of the remaining land belonging to the Winnemem Wintu tribe—90 percent of whose land already lies beneath the surface of
18297-615: The entrance of the pump plant in order to catch fish that would otherwise end up in the Delta-Mendota Canal. A second canal, the Contra Costa Canal , captures freshwater near the central part of the delta, taking it 48 miles (77 km) southwards, distributing water to the Clayton and Ygnacio Canals in the process, and supplying water to Contra Loma Dam, eventually terminating at Martinez Reservoir. The CVP also has several dams on
18468-529: The fertile agricultural region bounded by the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada known as the Sacramento Valley , but also extending as far as the volcanic plateaus of Northeastern California. Historically, its watershed has reached as far north as south-central Oregon where the now, primarily, endorheic (closed) Goose Lake rarely experiences southerly outflow into the Pit River , the most northerly tributary of
18639-454: The flow of the river more efficiently, and to prevent flooding in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta where many water pump facilities for San Joaquin Valley aqueducts are located. The Keswick Dam functions as an afterbay (regulating reservoir) for the Shasta Dam, also generating power. The Sacramento Canals Division of the CVP takes water from the Sacramento River much farther downstream of
18810-487: The foothills of the Sierra Nevada , the Klamath Mountains and the California Coast Ranges , and passes about 7.4 million acre-feet (9.1 km ) of water annually through its canals. Of the water transported, about 5 million acre-feet (6.2 km ) goes to irrigate 3,000,000 acres (1,200,000 ha) of farmland, 600,000 acre-feet (0.74 km ) supplies municipal uses, and 800,000 acre-feet (0.99 km )
18981-517: The geographically similar Colusa Basin is located to the west. The Sutter Bypass begins at Colusa and runs parallel to the east side of the Sacramento River until reaching the confluence with the Feather River . The Yolo Bypass, located on the west side of the river, starts at the confluence of the Feather and rejoins the Sacramento in the Delta. Although termed "bypasses", the system essentially reconnects
19152-425: The gold fields. As the miners expanded their diggings deeper into the Sierra Nevada and Klamath Mountains, Native Americans were pushed off their land and a long series of skirmishes and fights began that continued until intervention by the state and national governments. The influx of migrants brought foreign diseases like malaria and smallpox , which American Indians had no immunity to. These diseases killed off
19323-580: The ground. Because of environmental concerns, the system was never completed. The CVP also operates a San Felipe Division to supply water to 63,500 acres (25,700 ha) of land in the Santa Clara Valley west of the Coast Ranges. San Justo Dam stores water diverted from San Luis Reservoir through the Pacheco Tunnel and Hollister Conduit, which travel through the Diablo Range . A separate canal,
19494-597: The headwaters of the American River near Lake Tahoe , to 5,000 to 7,000 feet (1,500 to 2,100 m) in Lassen County where they adjoin the Cascade Range. On the west side, the Coast Ranges are the opposite, increasing in height to almost 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in the north. The arid volcanic plateaus in the northeast, which are characterized by alternating hills and large sedimentary basins, typically lie at elevations of 3,000 to 5,000 feet (910 to 1,520 m). Most of
19665-448: The historic chinook salmon run that once reached about 15,000 fish each year. Reduction in flows has also increased the concentration of pesticide and fertilizer runoff in the river contributing to pollution that has further impacted aquatic species. On September 13, 2006, after eighteen years of litigation, environmental groups, fisherman and the USBR reached an agreement on releasing part of
19836-556: The lake—and flood several miles of the McCloud River , protected under National Wild and Scenic River status. Buildings, bridges, roads and other structures would have to be relocated. The added capacity of the reservoir would change flow fluctuations in the lower Sacramento River, and native fish populations, especially salmon, would suffer with the subsequent changes to the ecology of the river. New Melones Dam has come under even greater controversy than Shasta Dam, mainly because of
20007-1090: The land in the delta to gradually sink since the late 19th century. Many of the delta islands would be underwater if not for the maintenance of the levees and pumps that keep them dry. Some of the "islands" are now up to 25 feet (7.6 m) below the adjacent channels and sloughs. The Sacramento River watershed is home to about 2.8 million people; more than two-thirds live within the Sacramento metropolitan area . Other important cities are Chico , Redding , Davis and Woodland . The Sacramento River watershed covers all or most of Shasta , Tehama , Glenn , Butte , Plumas , Yuba , Sutter , Lake and Yolo Counties. It also extends into portions of Siskiyou , Modoc , Lassen , Lake (in Oregon), Sierra , Nevada , Placer , El Dorado , Sacramento , Solano and Contra Costa Counties. The river itself flows through Siskiyou, Shasta, Tehama, Butte, Glenn, Colusa, Sutter, Yolo, Sacramento, Solano and Contra Costa, often forming boundaries between
20178-538: The land was probably submerged under the Pacific), they were worn by erosion , and the present-day range only formed about 4 million years ago. The northern part of the Sacramento watershed is more ancient, and was formed by intense volcanic activity over 25 million years ago, resulting in lava flows that covered and created the Modoc Plateau, through which the Pit River flows. Mount Shasta and Lassen Peak are among
20349-471: The land. Most of the villages were small. Although it was once commonly believed that the original natives lived as tribes , they actually lived as bands , family groups as small as twenty to thirty people. The Sacramento Valley was first settled by humans about 12,000 years ago, but permanent villages were not established until about 8,000 years ago. Historians have organized the numerous separate original native groups into several "tribes". These are known as
20520-476: The largest irrigation projects in the world, was constructed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation beginning in 1935. Ultimately, the system would distribute 7 million acre-feet (8.6 km ) to irrigate 3 million acres (1.2 million ha) of land in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. Construction of Shasta Dam, the principal water storage facility in the Sacramento River system, started in 1938 and
20691-436: The late 1930s, and the last facilities were completed in the early 1970s. Other features of the project were never constructed, some lie partly finished, or are still awaiting authorization. Dec 2 - USBR regulations stipulate that water only be given out to farmers with 160 acres of land or less - see 4-7-1944 1951 Jan 3 - CVP and state agree to keep grasslands flooded to protect migratory birds Shasta Division consists of
20862-543: The lower end of Shasta Lake is Shasta Dam , which impounds the Sacramento River for flood control, irrigation and hydropower generation. Before the construction of Shasta Dam, the McCloud River emptied into the Pit River, which joined the Sacramento near the former mining town of Kennett , submerged when Shasta Lake was filled. The Pit River Bridge , which carries Interstate 5 and the Union Pacific Railroad over
21033-529: The main channel of the Sacramento. The Sacramento River and the Sutter Bypass flow parallel for over 40 miles (64 km), rejoining on the border of Sutter County and Yolo County near Knights Landing . The Feather River , the largest tributary of the Sacramento, joins from the east at Verona directly below the Sutter Bypass. A second flood control structure, the Fremont Weir, diverts flood waters from both
21204-614: The middle of the Sacramento Valley, where it receives Butte Creek from the east at Colusa . Below Colusa the river flows south-southeast, forming the border of Colusa County and Sutter County to the east. About 20 miles (32 km) further downstream, the Sacramento River reaches the Tisdale Weir. During floods, water overtops the weir and flows east into the Sutter Bypass , the first of two major bypass channels that temporarily store and move floodwaters downstream to reduce pressure on
21375-413: The most recent being the Great Flood of 1862 . Dams, levees and floodways constructed during the 20th century have thus far prevented this phenomenon from re-occurring. The Sacramento River and its valley were one of the major Native American population centers of California. The river's abundant flow and the valley's fertile soil and mild climate provided enough resources for hundreds of groups to share
21546-576: The numerous Cascade Range volcanoes that still stand in the area. As the Sierra rose, water erosion and glaciation carved deep canyons, depositing massive amounts of sediment to form a coastal plain between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean. About 3 million years ago, multiple terranes were formed and smashed into the North American Plate from the Pacific Plate, causing the uplift of
21717-462: The one hand, and to ensure a consistent supply of water on the other. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the State of California completed reports as early as the 1870s and 1880s which outlined future development of the Sacramento, Feather, Yuba and Bear rivers. In 1873, Colonel B.S. Alexander of the Army Corps of Engineers surveyed the Central Valley's hydrology and irrigation systems and proposed
21888-626: The parasitic cowbird , which lays its eggs in the nests of other bird species causing its hatchlings to compete with the others for food. There were once 9 species of amphibians that used the Sacramento River, but some have become extinct and most other populations are declining due to habitat loss caused by agriculture and urban development. Amphibians originally thrived in the marshes, sloughs, side-channels and oxbow lakes because of their warmer water, abundance of vegetation and nutrients, lower predator populations and slower current. This population once included several species of frogs and salamanders;
22059-410: The period 1945–2013. The McCloud River had an average discharge of 775 cu ft/s (21.9 m /s) for the 1967–2013 period. Since the 1960s, the McCloud River flow has been reduced and the Pit River flow increased due to diversion of water for hydropower generation; however the total volume of water entering Shasta Lake remains the same. Before Shasta Dam was built, the volcanic springs feeding
22230-411: The precipitation." The topography of the Sacramento River watershed makes it particularly prone to flooding. Storm water runs quickly off the steep mountains flanking the Sacramento Valley, but with few exceptions the alluvial valley floor is strikingly flat, slowing down the runoff and causing it to overflow the river banks. Before flood control works were built, the winter floods frequently transformed
22401-478: The pressure of floodwaters on the main channel. The bypasses are then allowed to drain slowly once flood crests have passed. For most of the year, the bypasses remain dry and are used for annual crops such as rice. Some of the principal features are the Butte Basin, Colusa Basin, Sutter Bypass and the Yolo Bypass. The Butte Basin is a large lowland area on the east side of the river between Hamilton City and Colusa ;
22572-538: The problems associated with the CVP with programs like the Refuge Water Supply Program . In recent years, a combination of drought and regulatory decisions passed based on the Endangered Species Act of 1973 have forced Reclamation to turn off much of the water for the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in order to protect the fragile ecosystem in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and keep alive
22743-540: The process, eventually reaching canals that irrigates farms in the valley. Friant Dam crosses the San Joaquin River upstream of Mendota Pool, diverting its water southwards into canals that travel into the Tulare Lake area of the San Joaquin Valley, as far south as the Kern River . Finally, New Melones Lake , a separate facility, stores water flow of a San Joaquin River tributary for use during dry periods. Other smaller, independent facilities exist to provide water to local irrigation districts. The Central Valley Project
22914-411: The project's conflicts with federal and state limits and its impact on the watershed of the Stanislaus River . The original Melones Dam, submerged underneath New Melones Lake (hence the name New Melones Dam ) is the source of one of these problems. The disused Melones Dam blocks cold water at the bottom of the lake from reaching the river, especially in dry years when the surface of the lake is closer to
23085-425: The project. Unfortunately, because of insufficient money in the state's treasury and the coincidence with the Great Depression , California turned to the national government for funding to build the project. This resulted in several transfers of the project between California and the federal government, and between Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers. The first dams and canals of the project started going up in
23256-436: The reservation; the others perished of disease, starvation or exhaustion. As mining developed from simple methods such as panning and sluicing to a new form of commercialized extraction, hydraulic mining , profits from the petering gold rush made a second leap, earning more profits than placer miners in the early years had ever made. The city of Sacramento , founded on the original site of Sutter's fort, began to flourish as
23427-550: The reservoir, is structurally the highest double-decked bridge in the United States (although most of the bridge piers are submerged under Shasta Lake when the reservoir is full). The Upper Sacramento River canyon also provides the route for I-5 and the railroad between Lakehead and Mount Shasta. Below Shasta Dam the Sacramento River enters the foothills region of the northern Sacramento Valley. It flows through Keswick Dam , where it receives about 1,200,000 acre⋅ft (1.5 × 10 million km ) of water per year diverted from
23598-672: The rest of the network. California agriculture and related industries now directly account for 7% of the gross state product for which the CVP supplied water for about half. Many CVP operations have had considerable environmental consequences, including a decline in the salmon population of four major California rivers in the northern state, and the reduction of riparian zones and wetlands . Many historical sites and Native American tribal lands have been flooded by CVP reservoirs. In addition, runoff from intensive irrigation has polluted rivers and groundwater . The Central Valley Project Improvement Act , passed in 1992, intends to alleviate some of
23769-473: The rice fields under the Yolo Bypass next to Sacramento River can serve as an important floodplain habitat and feeding ground for juvenile or endangered fish. UC Davis noted juveniles grew much bigger and faster within the flooded rice fields when compared to those released in the Sacramento River. Public agencies, conservation groups and landowners have all been working together and conducting experiments since 2011. Experiments conducted on rice fields took place at
23940-491: The rich valley bottom and marsh lands. Before European contact, the indigenous population of the Sacramento Valley has been estimated at 76,000 people. The first outsiders to see the river were probably the members of a Spanish colonial-exploratory venture to Northern California in 1772, led by Captain Pedro Fages . The group ascended a mountain, likely in the hills north of Suisun Bay , and found themselves looking down at
24111-403: The river after use) are about 4.72 million acre-feet (5.82 km ) for irrigation and 491,000 acre-feet (0.606 km ) for urban use. An additional 7.61 million acre-feet (9.39 km ) is reserved for environmental uses, primarily to maintain a minimum fresh water outflow in the Delta to combat salinity. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has stream gauges on 25 locations along
24282-444: The river continues south it approaches the Sacramento metro area, the largest population center in the watershed. Sacramento International Airport is located on the east bank of the river near Fremont. Near downtown Sacramento it receives the American River from the east, then passes under the historic Tower Bridge and Interstate 80 Business . The California State Capitol sits less than zero point five miles (0.80 km) east of
24453-463: The river flooded up to 650,000 cubic feet per second (18,000 m /s) during the rainy season, equal to the flow of the Mississippi River . Late summers of particularly dry years could see flows drop below 1,000 cubic feet per second (28 m /s). Large volumes of water are withdrawn from the Sacramento River for irrigation, industry and urban supplies. Annual depletions (water not returned to
24624-415: The river from the lowlands to the east and west that once served as vast overflow basins during winter storms, creating large areas of seasonal wetlands . Since the 19th century, artificial levee systems have been constructed to enable farming in the fertile flood plain. Today there are 2,000,000 acres (8,100 km ) of irrigated farmland in the Sacramento Valley. Due to the reduction of the floodplain area,
24795-487: The river is dry because of diversions from Friant Dam and Millerton Lake . Even downstream of Mendota, where the Delta-Mendota Canal gives the river a new surge of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, irrigation runoff water, contaminated with pesticides and fertilizer , has caused the river to become heavily polluted. To make matters worse, efforts by the California Department of Fish and Game to route
24966-521: The river where the Tower Bridge crosses it. Shortly downstream, the Port of Sacramento is located on the west side of the Sacramento, connected to the river by a lock. The Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel provides access to the port from the Pacific, bypassing about 42 miles (68 km) of the winding lower Sacramento. The channel runs parallel to the Sacramento several miles to the west, and also forms
25137-403: The river's natural flow must be left untouched in order for Trinity River salmon to survive. The lack of flow in the Trinity up to then was also a violation of the authorization that Congress made over the operation of the dam. The "...legislation required that enough be left in the Trinity for in-basin needs, including preservation of the salmon fishery." In the early years of the 21st century,
25308-493: The sediments washed down by the millions of tons by hydraulic mining, which filled the beds of the Sacramento, Feather and American rivers up to 7 feet (2.1 m) in Sacramento and also covered thousands of acres of Central Valley lands. A flood in 1875 covered the city of Marysville and when it subsided the town's streets were filled with debris and rocks washed down from the "hydraulicking" going on upstream. Repeated floods and increased demand for Sacramento River water saw
25479-499: The speed of flood flow in the Sacramento River has increased, creating a significant hazard for the farms and towns along its course. By the early 20th century engineers had realized not all the floodplains could be safely reclaimed, leading to the intentional creation of flood bypasses where development is limited to annual crops and recreational uses. Further south, much of the delta region is actually below sea level: subsidence caused by wind erosion and intensive farming have caused
25650-536: The state legislature continued to have the power to construct dams. Sacramento River The Sacramento River ( Spanish : Río Sacramento ) is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains , the river flows south for 400 miles (640 km) before reaching the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay . The river drains about 26,500 square miles (69,000 km ) in 19 California counties , mostly within
25821-427: The state's irrigation districts and public vs. private power. Its proponents ignored environmental concerns over its impacts, other than the outcome not damage the major stakeholders at that time. The Central Valley of California has gone through two distinct culturally driven land use eras. The first was the indigenous tribal period that lasted for thousands of years. Then came the arrival of Europeans, first by
25992-399: The storage capacity of Trinity Lake. The dam functions to store water during dry periods and release it downstream into the northern San Joaquin Valley according to water demand. The dam generates 279 MW of power with a peaking capacity of 300 MW. The CVP has a significant amount of facilities for storing and transporting water on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, in the foothills of
26163-418: The valley into an inland sea. In 1880 State Engineer William H. Hall developed the first flood control plan for the Sacramento River. Hall recognized that with the combination of flat topography and extremely heavy winter runoff volumes, a system of levees alone could not hope to contain flooding, as had been proven time and again in the flood prone city of Sacramento. The Sacramento River Flood Control Project
26334-427: The water currently diverted into the irrigation canals into the San Joaquin River in order to help restore the river and its native fish and wildlife. The first water was released on October 2, 2009, at a rate of 185 cubic feet per second (5.2 m/s). By 2014, these "restoration flows" were scheduled to be increased to 302,000 acre-feet (373,000 dam) per year, or 417 cubic feet per second (11.8 m/s), on top of
26505-480: The water stays fresh in all but the driest years. Saltwater intrusion from the Pacific Ocean was one of the main reasons for the construction of the federal Central Valley Project (CVP), whose dams maintain a minimum flow in the Sacramento River to keep seawater at bay. Below Rio Vista , the lower Sacramento River is rejoined by the Deep Water Ship Channel and the Yolo Bypass and curves southwest along
26676-579: The watershed. By geologic standards, the Sacramento is a fairly young river; the borders of its watershed began to form only a few million years ago as magma welling up below the Earth's crust pushed up by the Pacific Plate colliding with the North American Plate caused the formation of the Sierra Nevada . Although mountains had existed as early as 100 million years ago in this region (before then
26847-579: The world, to the Sacramento River in search of fortunes, kicking off the California Gold Rush . People flocked to the region by the Oregon Trail -Siskiyou Trail, California Trail , Southern Emigrant Trail and various land and/or sea routes through the Isthmus of Panama and around southern South America by ship. Steamboats traveled up and down the Sacramento River carrying miners from San Francisco to
27018-431: The years to come, this path, which eventually extended from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon following parts of the Sacramento, Willamette , Klamath , Rogue , and other rivers would become an important trade and travel route. Although just one of thousands of American emigrants that poured into California over the next few years when California became part of the United States, John Augustus Sutter 's arrival marked
27189-473: Was 23,330 cubic feet per second (661 m /s). The maximum recorded flow was 115,000 cubic feet per second (3,300 m /s) on February 19, 1986; the lowest was 3,970 cubic feet per second (112 m /s) on October 15, 1977. Flow in the Yolo Bypass , a relief channel designed to carry a portion of the flood waters in order to protect the Sacramento area, is not measured by the Freeport gauge. A separate gauge on
27360-522: Was at least 1,000 feet (300 m) deep. About 650,000 years ago the lake catastrophically overflowed, draining into San Francisco Bay and creating the Carquinez Strait , the only major break for hundreds of miles in the Coast Ranges. The narrow outlet trapped some of the sediments of the rivers in the Central Valley, forming the inland Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta . Since then, this inland sea has periodically reformed during times of intense flooding,
27531-416: Was authorized by the federal government in 1917. While it intended to contain minor floods in the river banks by strengthening the existing levee system, the main feature was a series of bypasses, or sections of the valley intentionally designed to flood during high water. Weirs placed at strategic points along the Sacramento River release water into the bypasses when the river reaches a certain stage, relieving
27702-516: Was being inundated: the limestone canyon behind the dam, the deepest of its kind in the United States, contained hundreds of archaeological and historic sites and one of California's best and most popular whitewater rafting runs. Thus the reservoir extended only to Parrot's Ferry Bridge, 9 mi (14 km) below its maximum upriver limit, until the El Niño event of 1982–1983, which filled it to capacity within weeks and even forced Reclamation to open
27873-465: Was completed in 1945. Controlling runoff from the upper 6,600 square miles (17,000 km ) of the Sacramento River watershed, Shasta greatly reduces flood peaks on the middle and lower parts of the Sacramento River. Flood waters are stored for irrigation in dry years as well as navigation and electricity generation. In the following decades, more huge reservoirs – capable of storing a combined 13 × 10 acre-feet (16 km ) of water – were constructed on
28044-400: Was completed in 1963, and was built to facilitate navigation of large oceangoing ships from the Delta to the port of Sacramento. The channel bypasses the winding lower part of the Sacramento River between the state capital and the Delta thus reducing water travel times. It also serves to discharge floodwaters from the lower end of the Yolo Bypass . Built by the Army Corps of Engineers, the canal
28215-434: Was crucial to the renewal of existing wetlands and the creation of new ones. Since the late 19th century the river has been mostly locked in a fixed channel, which once could shift hundreds of feet or even several miles in a year because of floods. In 2010, about 100 miles (160 km) of the river's riparian forests were undergoing restoration. UC Davis initiated a project known as The Nigiri Project which takes place under
28386-455: Was devised in 1933 in order to provide irrigation and municipal water to much of California's Central Valley —by regulating and storing water in reservoirs in the northern half of the state (once considered water-rich but suffering water-scarce conditions more than half the year in most years), and transporting it to the water-poor San Joaquin Valley and its surroundings by means of a series of canals, aqueducts and pump plants, some shared with
28557-643: Was practiced in a few areas. Settlement size ranged from small camps to villages of 30–50 permanent structures. Acorns were a staple food , and the Sacramento Valley's riparian zones, which supported seven species of native oaks, provided these in abundance. Native Americans pounded the acorns into flour, which they used to make bread and cakes. Abundant salmon and steelhead runs in the Sacramento River and its tributaries were harvested using fishing weirs, platforms, baskets and nets. The river also provided shellfish, sturgeon, eel and suckerfish They also hunted waterfowl, antelope and deer which all existed in huge numbers in
28728-573: Was the Trinity River Project (which would become part of the CVP), sending over 90 percent of the flow of that river into the Sacramento via a tunnel under the Klamath Mountains. Due to environmental damage and fish kills in the Trinity River, the volume of diverted water has been limited by law since the 1990s. Other, larger projects ultimately failed to take root. One of the most notorious,
28899-454: Was the first attempt at creating a Central Valley Project. In 1904, the Bureau of Reclamation (then the Reclamation Service) first became interested in creating such a water project, but did not get far involved until a series of droughts and related disasters occurred in the early 1920s. The State of California passed the Central Valley Project Act in 1933, which authorized Reclamation to sell revenue bonds in order to raise about $ 170 million for
29070-411: Was the world's largest water and power project when undertaken during Franklin D. Roosevelt 's New Deal public works agenda. The Project was the culmination of eighty years of political fighting over the state's most important natural resource - Water . The Central Valley of California lies to the west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains with its annual run-off draining into the Pacific Ocean through
29241-407: Was under the control of Mexico , although few Mexican settlers had come to what would later become the state, mostly settling in the small pueblos and ranchos along the south and central coast. The HBC mountain men created the Siskiyou Trail out of several Native American paths that ran through the mountains between Oregon's Willamette Valley and the northern part of the Sacramento Valley. In
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