Even as blue skies return, flood-weary farmers in the San Joaquin Valley have only to look east, to the towering Sierra mantled in snow, to know there is worse to come.
Tom Barcellos has farmed the reclaimed soil of the Tulare Lake Basin for nearly five decades, and he’s rarely witnessed a winter like 2023.
“This is our livelihood,” said Barcellos, who owns both cropland and dairies. “This is more important than anything else, in my mind. And I thank God everybody has jumped in to fight.”For weeks now, farmers, their crews and residents of the nearby towns threatened by flooding have tromped through water, sludge and punishing storms to try to shore up the region’s defenses.
And in the rare years of heavy rain and snowfall, the Tule is a critical release valve, ideally holding the heavy flows within its banks as it passes rural outposts like Porterville, Corcoran and the lucrative agricultural enterprises that crisscross the basin. Despite their efforts, the force of the flood was too much to withstand, and “water six inches deep” soon began seeping into the adjacent fields and evacuated dairies, Barcellos said.
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