American River Wildlife News

Three decades later came a change that would transform not just the Bailey ranch, but the entire San Joaquin Valley. A dam in the foothills to the northwest created Millerton Lake, and nine years after that — 1952 — a canal carried water from the reservoir to farming communities lining the edge of the valley from Fresno to Bakersfield.

California and the federal government had embarked on an era of building dams and hundreds of miles of canals, an ambitious engineering feat designed to capture the massive Sierra snowmelt and channel it to the state's far-flung cities and farms. It marked the beginning of California's population explosion and transformed the Central Valley into one of the richest agricultural regions in the world.

Roughly half a century after that era ended, California finds itself forced to rethink its extensive system of capturing and delivering water. The state's expanding population is part of the reason, but the effects of global climate change have given policymakers a sense of urgency.

Read more at USA Today.