TThehe KKingsings RRiveriver HHandbookandbook Prepared by the Public Information Staff of KRCD and KRWA JJ. Randall McFarland, KRCD and KRWA Public Relations Consultant CCristelr L. Tufenkjian, KRCD Manager of Community & Public Relations Special material provided by James Provost The Kings River Handbook 4886 E. Jensen Avenue 4888 E. Jensen Avenue Fresno, CA 93725 Fresno, CA 93725 559.237.5567 559.266.0767 www.krcd.org www.kingsriverwater.org September 2009 Fifth Printing Permission to reprint is granted with credit to the Kings River Conservation District and Kings River Water Association Contents INTRODUCTION . .Page 3 A SYNOPSIS OF KINGS RIVER HISTORY . .Page 4 Beginnings Initial Development, Disputes, Solutions The Modern Era ALONG THE KINGS RIVER. .Page 15 The High Sierra Pine Flat Dam and Reservoir The River: Pine Flat to State Route 99 State Route 99 to Army and Island Weirs Clark's Fork, South Fork and Tulare Lake North Fork and James Bypass KINGS RIVER WATER USERS . .Page 29 Agricultural Water Users Urban Water Agencies Water for the Fishery Groundwater Kings River Support Agencies KRWA MEMBER UNITS . .Page 37 Upper River Agencies Lower River Agencies: State Route 99 to Army and Island Weirs South Fork Agencies: Army Weir to Empire Weir No. 2 Lower River Agencies: Empire Weir No. 2 and Tulare Lake Bed Lower River Agencies: Island Weir to Mendota Pool THE KINGS RIVER THROUGH HISTORY (TIME LINE). .Page 42 QUICK FACTS ABOUT THE KINGS RIVER . .Page 45 THE KINGS RIVER'S PROFILE . .Page 46 FEATURES ALONG THE RIVER . .Page 47 2 Introduction There is nothing in the world quite like the Kings River. The magnificent mountain country in which the river begins is among Earth’s most rugged and spectacular. What water from the Kings has created on the land is equally remark- able, a garden of some one million acres that today is an important part of the world's most fertile and productive agricultural region. It is a living lesson on the value of water in a land of little rain. No resource is more precious to the hundreds of thousands of people who live and work in those portions of Fresno, Kings and Tulare counties watered by the Kings. The river is a stream rich in history. Its waters were often troubled but, with patience and a spirit of coop- eration, Kings River users fashioned voluntary agreements on water rights, entitlements and operations that benefited everyone and made possible the development of the river’s greatest modern storage and flood management asset, Pine Flat Dam. Today, faced with enormous population growth and expansion of environmental values, Pine Flat Dam towers over a riparian forest and an angler entirely new challenges are being met creatively trying his luck downstream on a summer evening in 2009. on the Kings River. Among these are studies, policies, projects and facilities to enhance fish and Dealing with the issues of today and appre- wildlife resources, including implementation of ciating the importance of the river’s beneficial the Kings River Fisheries Management Program. uses requires understanding of what has taken Urban interests are increasingly and construc- place in the past as well as recognition of the riv- tively involved in the Kings River. New coalitions er's varied facilities and complex operations. of Kings River and municipal water agencies These pages summarize the Kings River, its have been brought together with the environ- abounding history, beauty, environmental mental community and state experts to establish resources, operations, agreements, uses and important integrated regional water management incredible value. Although not a large river of planning as a way of the future. Still other efforts commerce or transportation, the river’s waters, are aggressively addressing Central Valley water for all of us and in so many ways, are life. This is quality concerns identified by state agencies. what the Kings River is all about. 3 A Synopsis of Kings River History The Kings River's rich history has had enormous impacts on the way our region has developed, resulting in a vital and incredibly valuable agricultural heritage and rapidly growing urban centers and settings. The past's mighty struggles have ordained how the river is used beneficially today. This synopsis is not intended to be a comprehensive Kings River history but is a summary based upon information con- tained in previous Kings River historical abstracts, general histories of the central San Joaquin Valley, contemporary newspaper accounts, and records of the Kings River Water Association, its 28 member units and the Kings River Conservation District. 4 Beginnings The River and its Origins History on the Kings River tends to be measured from its discovery two centuries ago but those years are a drop in time’s bucket. Time, of course, did not begin on the Kings when it was first viewed through European eyes any more than it did when human life — that of the earli- est Indian tribe members — began along its banks. Like the mountains that spawned it, the Kings is many millions of years in age. Its waters helped shape the river’s Sierra Nevada watershed, between the range’s eternally rising ridges, by carrying tiny particles of A frozen reservoir of Sierra Nevada snow contains each year’s rock down the mountains’ steep Kings River water supply, unleashed by spring’s snowmelt. slopes. These magnificent geologic On January 5, 1805, Moraga's party tribes of Indians—to convert to forces inevitably caused streams to discovered a previously unknown Christianity and to work in the fields. form and to gather into a river in stream flowing from the foothills Father Muñoz later estimated the search of always lower ground. onto the valley floor. Moraga camped native population along the Kings The rivers stretched westward along its wooded banks. He and his River at more than 5,000 in more from the great mountains. The Kings men were refreshed by its beauty than ten different tribes. devoted immeasurable epochs to after so many miles of winter travel No missions would ever be spreading an alluvial fan across the across the tedious and desiccated developed within the Central Valley. valley floor that not only drove away plains. The next day, January 6, was The land’s settlement would have to the ocean but also laid the necessary the Feast of the Epiphany. It was the wait. foundation to ultimately define a inspiration for the river’s christening new civilization’s breadbasket. as El Rio de los Santos Reyes — River of the Holy Kings. And in the eons in which all this so slowly took shape, the river was As for the Moraga expedition’s mostly a study in unvarying natural objectives, what little is known was history, supporting a fairly simple written by one of the Franciscans, ecosystem and, eventually, a very Father Pedro Muñoz. Moraga turned small human population. to this Roman Catholic priest as a chronicler of his journeys. Muñoz The River's Discovery wrote during a subsequent expedi- The native valley floor created tion in October 1806 that the site by the river over so long a process where the naming took place (a loca- was unlike the coastal valleys that tion that has never been identified) encompassed nearly all settlement in was a good one. He said, “All the Spanish and Mexican California. meadows are well covered with oak, Much of the valley’s prairie was alder, cottonwood and willow. The monotonous, dreary and frequently river abounds with beaver and fish. unpleasant. It appealed to few It is a location suitable for a mission, explorers and fewer would-be set- although there would also have to tlers. be a presidio.” Among its earliest visitors was There were also abundant water Kings River runoff, such as this roaring Captain Gabriel Moraga and his supplies, fertile nearby soils and suf- through Cedar Grove, directly depends straggling band of Spanish soldiers. ficient aboriginal souls—the area’s upon each year’s Sierra snowpack. 5 The river's divine designation cent of average, only to be followed Other canals soon followed. did nothing to enhance first impres- by an 11-year span that included The first two of substance included sions of much of what would become eight below-average years, includ- the first version of the Fresno the Kings River service area. Those ing a critical six year drought, which Canal, commissioned in 1870 by who first saw the country consid- began in 1986-87. A.Y. Easterby and carried out by ered it to be desert and of little or no In dry years, then as now, water Moses J. Church and the Lower value except for naturally watered supplies were insufficient to fully Kings River Ditch, now known as areas along the Kings and other riv- irrigate the nearly 1.1 million acres the Lemoore Canal. The canals ers. On the Kings’ lower reaches of highly productive farmland that brought Kings River water to were the wetlands of the Fresno is watered from the Kings. Since Easterby's property (east of where Slough-Summit Lake country and reservoir capacity is generally insuf- Fresno was established in 1872) via Tulare Lake that teemed with lush- ficient to accommodate all runoff in Mud and Fancher creeks. Between ness and life. Otherwise the plains wet years, losses to the water-defi- 1872-74, the Fresno Canal was were devoid of vegetation, except cient service area through Kings enlarged and became capable of for seasonal grasses. River flood releases equate to 200,000 conveying water onto more of the In 1850, Lieutenant George H. acre-feet per year. immense, previously uncultivated Derby, a U.S.