The
Sacramento River is an important watercourse of
NorthernNorthern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
and
CentralCentral California, sometimes referenced as Mid-State, is an area of California south of the San Francisco Bay Area and north of Southern California...
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The largest river in California, it rises on the eastern slopes of the
Klamath MountainsThe Klamath Mountains, which include the Siskiyou, Marble, Scott, Trinity, Trinity Alps, Salmon, and northern Yolla-Bolly Mountains, are a rugged lightly populated mountain range in northwest California and southwest Oregon in the United States...
, and after a journey south of over 400 miles (643.7 km), empties into
Suisun BaySuisun Bay is a shallow tidal estuary at in northern California, USA. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, forming the entrance to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, an inverted river delta...
, an arm of the
San Francisco BaySan Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
, and thence to the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
. The river drains an area of about 27500 square miles (71,224.7 km²) in the northern half of the state, mostly within a region bounded by the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada known as the
Sacramento ValleyThe Sacramento Valley is the portion of the California Central Valley that lies to the north of the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta in the U.S. state of California. It encompasses all or parts of ten counties.-Geography:...
. Its extensive watershed also reaches to the volcanic plateaus of Northeastern California, and a tiny portion of southern
OregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
.
The river has been an important transportation route since the time of the region's first inhabitants, who appeared about 12,000 years ago. Hundreds of distinct tribes sharing regional customs and traditions inhabited the Sacramento Valley, receiving little disturbance from the first foreign visitors to see the river. One of these early explorers,
Gabriel MoragaGabriel Moraga a Spanish army officer, son of José Joaquín Moraga a member of Juan Bautista de Anza's expeditions to California, was one of the first Europeans to explore California's Great Central Valley . He led expeditions of Spanish soldiers into the valley, becoming its first explorer...
, gave the river the Spanish name,
Rio de los Sacramentos, which was later shortened and anglicized into
Sacramento. The Sacramento's waters were once abundant in fish and other aquatic creatures, notably one of the southernmost runs of
chinook salmonThe Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, is the largest species in the pacific salmon family. Other commonly used names for the species include King salmon, Quinnat salmon, Spring salmon and Tyee salmon...
in
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. The original natives of the Sacramento Valley drew upon the vast natural resources of the watershed, which had one of the densest American Indian populations of California.
In the 19th century, the Sacramento was changed forever by the
discovery of gold in the Sierra NevadaThe California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
, which led to an enormous population influx of American settlers. Overland trails such as the
California TrailThe California Trail was an emigrant trail of about across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California...
and
Siskiyou TrailThe Siskiyou Trail stretched from California's Central Valley to Oregon's Willamette Valley; modern-day Interstate 5 follows this pioneer path...
followed the Sacramento,
PitThe Pit River is a major river draining from northeastern California into the state's Central Valley. The Pit, the Klamath and the Columbia are the only three rivers in the U.S...
,
FeatherThe Feather River is the principal tributary of the Sacramento River, in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. The river's main stem is about long. Its length to its most distant headwater tributary is about . Its drainage basin is about...
,
YubaThe Yuba River is a tributary of the Feather River in the Sacramento Valley of the U.S. state of California. It is one of the Feather's most important branches, providing about a third of its flow. The main stem of the river is about long, and its headwaters are split into North, Middle and South...
and other rivers, guiding hundreds of thousands of people to the goldfields and the growing agricultural region of the Sacramento Valley floor. Intensive agricultural practices, and mining activities in both the Coast Ranges and the Sierra, contributed to chronic pollution in the Sacramento and the destruction of many of its habitats. By the late part of the century, many cities had been established along the Sacramento River, such as
SacramentoSacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
and
ReddingRedding is a city in far-Northern California. It is the county seat of Shasta County, California, USA. With a population of 89,861, according to the 2010 Census...
.
Since the 1950s the hydrologic systems of the watershed have 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's water is used heavily for
irrigationIrrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
purposes and today serves much of Central and Southern California through the canals of giant federal water projects. While now providing the water supplies of over half of California's population, these changes have left the Sacramento nearly bereft of its natural state and have caused the decline of its once-abundant fisheries.
Course
The Sacramento's source waters rise in the volcanic plateaus and ranges of far northern California as two streams – the Upper Sacramento and
PitThe Pit River is a major river draining from northeastern California into the state's Central Valley. The Pit, the Klamath and the Columbia are the only three rivers in the U.S...
. The main stem rises in the shadow of
Mount ShastaMount Shasta is located at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California and at is the second highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth highest in California...
and flows south through the Klamath Mountains, past
Mount ShastaMount Shasta is a city in Siskiyou County, California, located at around 3,600 ft on the flanks of Mount Shasta, a prominent northern California landmark. The city is less than southwest of the summit of its namesake volcano...
,
DunsmuirDunsmuir is a city in Siskiyou County, California, United States. The population was 1,650 at the 2010 census, down from 1,923 at the 2000 census. It is currently a hub of tourism in Northern California as visitors enjoy fishing, skiing, climbing, or sight-seeing...
and
LakeheadLakehead is a census-designated place in Shasta County, California. Lakehead sits at an elevation of . The 2010 United States census reported Lakehead's population was 461....
for about 72 miles (115.9 km). However, the river's true headwaters lie far to the northeast, as the 315 miles (506.9 km) Pit River, which is formed by streams flowing southwest from the
Modoc PlateauThe Modoc Plateau lies in the northeast corner of California as well as parts of Oregon and Nevada. It is a mile-high expanse of lava flows with cinder cones, juniper flats, pine forests, and seasonal lakes. The plateau is thought to have been formed approximately 25 million years ago...
. The two rivers join in the waters of Lake Shasta, a giant reservoir formed by the
Shasta DamShasta Dam is an arch dam across the Sacramento River in the northern part of the U.S. state of California, at the north end of the Sacramento Valley. The dam mainly serves long-term water storage and flood control in its reservoir, Shasta Lake, and also generates hydroelectric power...
. The upper Sacramento is only the main stem by name: the flow of the Pit into the lake, 4269 cuft/s, is nearly four times that of the Sacramento's 1191 cuft/s.
From the dam the Sacramento winds south through foothills and leaves the mountains near
ReddingRedding is a city in far-Northern California. It is the county seat of Shasta County, California, USA. With a population of 89,861, according to the 2010 Census...
, the first large city on the river. Many small and moderate-sized tributaries join the river from both east and west including Clear, Cottonwood, Cow, Thomes, Ash and Battle Creeks. As the river meanders into the Central Valley a large portion of its flow is diverted into a pair of irrigation canals at
Red BluffRed Bluff is a city in and the county seat of Tehama County, California, United States. The population was 14,076 at the 2010 census, up from 13,147 at the 2000 census....
. The Sacramento continues south, receiving Mill Creek near
TehamaTehama is a city in Tehama County, California, United States. The population was 418 at the 2010 census, down from 432 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Tehama is located at ....
, and Stony and
Big ChicoBig Chico Creek originates on Colby Mountain, located in Tehama County, California. The creek flows to its confluence with the Sacramento River in Butte County...
creeks a bit southwest of
ChicoChico is the most populous city in Butte County, California, United States. The population was 86,187 at the 2010 census, up from 59,954 at the time of the 2000 census...
. The river then passes
ColusaColusa is the county seat of Colusa County, California. The population was 5,971 at the 2010 census, up from 5,402 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
, and receives Butte Creek about 3 miles (4.8 km) west of the
Sutter ButtesThe Sutter Buttes are a small circular complex of eroded volcanic lava domes which rise as buttes above the flat plains of the Central Valley of California in the United States. The highest peak, South Butte, reaches about above sea level. The Buttes are located just outside of Yuba City,...
, a group of isolated volcanic hills in the middle of the Sacramento Valley.
Twenty-five miles (40 km) southeast of Colusa near
Fremont LandingFremont Landing was a former settlement in Yolo County, California, United States. It was located on the Sacramento River east-southeast of Knights Landing, at an elevation of 26 feet .-History:...
, the Sacramento incorporates the flow of its largest tributary, the
Feather RiverThe Feather River is the principal tributary of the Sacramento River, in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. The river's main stem is about long. Its length to its most distant headwater tributary is about . Its drainage basin is about...
, which descends from the Sierra Nevada to the northeast. About 10 miles (16.1 km) downstream, it flows into the city of
Sacramento, CaliforniaSacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
and receives the
American RiverThe American River is a California watercourse noted as the site of Sutter's Mill, northwest of Placerville, California, where gold was found in 1848, leading to the California Gold Rush...
, its second largest tributary. Here the river splits into two: the main stem and the artificial
Sacramento Deep Water Ship ChannelThe Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel is a canal from the Port of Sacramento in Sacramento, California to the Sacramento River, which flows into San Francisco Bay. It was completed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1963...
. Both waterways continue south through the lowlands, eventually to rejoin in the
estuaryAn estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near
Rio VistaRio Vista is a city located in the eastern end of Solano County, California in the San Francisco Bay Area, on the Sacramento River, in the Sacramento River Delta region. The population was 7,360 at the 2010 census....
.
The mouth of the Sacramento is on
Suisun BaySuisun Bay is a shallow tidal estuary at in northern California, USA. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, forming the entrance to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, an inverted river delta...
near
AntiochAntioch is a city in Contra Costa County, California. Located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area along the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, it is a suburb of San Francisco and Oakland. The city's population was 102,372 at the U.S...
, where it combines with the
San Joaquin RiverThe San Joaquin River is the largest river of Central California in the United States. At over long, the river starts in the high Sierra Nevada, and flows through a rich agricultural region known as the San Joaquin Valley before reaching Suisun Bay, San Francisco Bay, and the Pacific Ocean...
, south of the
Montezuma HillsThe Montezuma Hills comprise a small range of low-elevation hills at the northern banks of the Sacramento River Delta in Solano County, California. The Montezuma Hills are bounded by the Sacramento River on the south and east; the Montezuma Slough on the west and roughly by California State Route...
. The Sacramento is nearly a mile (2 km) wide at its mouth. The joined waters then flow west through the tidal marshes of Suisun Bay, the
Carquinez StraitThe Carquinez Strait is a narrow tidal strait in northern California. It is part of the tidal estuary of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers as they drain into the San Francisco Bay...
,
San Pablo BaySan Pablo Bay is a tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of San Francisco Bay in northern California in the United States. Most of the Bay is shallow; however, there is a deep water channel approximately in mid bay, which allows access to Sacramento, Stockton, Benicia, Martinez, and...
and
San Francisco BaySan Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
, whereupon the river's waters finally join the Pacific in the
Golden GateThe Golden Gate is the North American strait connecting San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. Since 1937 it has been spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge...
just to the north of San Francisco.
Discharge
The Sacramento River's average annual
dischargeIn hydrology, discharge is the volume rate of water flow, including any suspended solids , dissolved chemical species and/or biologic material , which is transported through a given cross-sectional area...
is about 30000 cuft/s, carrying over 22000000 acre.ft of water each year, making it the second largest river on the Pacific coast of the continental United States.
The U.S. Geological Survey has
stream gaugeA stream gauge, stream gage or gauging station is a location used by hydrologists or environmental scientists to monitor and test terrestrial bodies of water. Hydrometric measurements of water surface elevation and/or volumetric discharge are generally taken and observations of biota may also be...
s on several locations along the Sacramento River. The ones currently in operation are at Delta (near the source at Mount Shasta), at
KeswickKeswick is a census-designated place in Shasta County, California. Keswick sits at an elevation of . The 2010 United States census reported Keswick's population was 451.-Geography:...
(near Redding),
ColusaColusa is the county seat of Colusa County, California. The population was 5,971 at the 2010 census, up from 5,402 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
(about halfway down the river),
VeronaVerona is an unincorporated community in Alameda County, California. It is located on the Western Pacific and the Southern Pacific Railroads north of Sunol, at an elevation of 315 feet ....
, and
FreeportFreeport, California is a census-designated place located approximately 7.5 miles south of downtown Sacramento on California State Route 160. Freeport lies on the eastern banks of the Sacramento River in Sacramento County. The population was 38 at the 2010 census.-History:Nearly all goods...
. At the Delta gauge, which began operation in 1945, the average annual discharge was 1191 cuft/s. At Keswick, after receiving major tributaries such as the Pit, the river's flow increases to 10120 cuft/s. The Colusa gauge recorded an annual mean of 11640 cuft/s from 1946 to 2009. At Verona, downstream from the Feather River confluence, the Sacramento's flow rises to 17470 cuft/s. The final gauge, at Freeport, sits just downstream of Sacramento; it recorded an average flow of 23490 cuft/s from 1949 to 2009. The USGS also operates many other gauges, including at Sacramento and Rio Vista, but the data recorded at these stations is more spotty.
Sacramento River monthly discharges at FreeportFreeport, California is a census-designated place located approximately 7.5 miles south of downtown Sacramento on California State Route 160. Freeport lies on the eastern banks of the Sacramento River in Sacramento County. The population was 38 at the 2010 census.-History:Nearly all goods...
(cfs)
Watershed
The largest river in California, the Sacramento River's watershed covers a majority of the northern portion of the state and is situated almost entirely within California's boundaries, except for a small portion of
Goose LakeGoose Lake is a large alkaline glacial lake located in the Goose Lake Valley on the Oregon-California border. The north end of the lake is in Lake County, Oregon and the south end is in Modoc County, California. The mountains at the north end of the lake are part of the Fremont National Forest...
's upper drainage basin that extends into southern
OregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. Almost the entire basin lies between the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range on the east and the Coast Ranges and Klamath Mountains in the west. The Sacramento's longest tributary, the Pit River, has the distinction of being one of three rivers that cut through the main crest of the Cascades; its headstreams rise on the western extreme of the Basin and Range Province, east of major Cascade volcanoes such as Mount Shasta and
Lassen PeakLassen Peak is the southernmost active volcano in the Cascade Range. It is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc which is an arc that stretches from northern California to southwestern British Columbia...
. The other two are the
Klamath RiverThe Klamath River is an American river that flows southwest through Oregon and northern California, cutting through the Cascade Range to empty into the Pacific Ocean. The river drains an extensive watershed of almost that stretches from the high desert country of the Great Basin to the temperate...
and
Columbia RiverThe Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
.
By discharge, it is the second-largest
contiguous U.S.The contiguous United States are the 48 U.S. states on the continent of North America that are south of Canada and north of Mexico, plus the District of Columbia....
river draining into the Pacific, after only the Columbia River, which has almost seven times the flow of the Sacramento. The
Colorado RiverThe Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...
, which reaches the
Gulf of CaliforniaThe Gulf of California is a body of water that separates the Baja California Peninsula from the Mexican mainland...
just south of the U.S. Mexico border near the southeast part of the state, is far larger than the Sacramento by both length and drainage area but has a slightly smaller flow. After the Colorado and San Joaquin, it has the third-largest drainage basin in California. The Sacramento, when combined with the Pit, is also one of the longest rivers in the United States entirely within one state—after
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
's
KuskokwimThe Kuskokwim River or Kusko River is a river, long, in Southwest Alaska in the United States. It is the ninth largest river in the United States by average discharge volume at its mouth and seventeenth largest by basin drainage area.The river provides the principal drainage for an area of the...
and
TexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
'
TrinityThe Trinity River is a long river that flows entirely within the U.S. state of Texas. It rises in extreme north Texas, a few miles south of the Red River. The headwaters are separated by the high bluffs on the south side of the Red River....
.
The major drainage basins bordering that of the Sacramento are that of the Klamath in the north, the San Joaquin and
MokelumneThe Mokelumne River is a river in Northern California. The Upper Mokelumne River originates in the Sierra Nevada mountain range and flows into Pardee Reservoir and then Camanche Reservoir in the Sierra foothills. The Lower Mokelumne River refers to the portion of the river below Camanche Dam...
to the south and the
Eel RiverThe Eel River is a major river system of the northern Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. Approximately 200 miles long, it drains a rugged area in the California Coast Ranges between the Sacramento Valley and the ocean. For most of its course, the river flows northwest, parallel to the...
in the west. The
Russian RiverThe Russian River, a southward-flowing river, drains of Sonoma and Mendocino counties in Northern California. With an annual average discharge of approximately , it is the second largest river flowing through the nine county Greater San Francisco Bay Area with a mainstem 110 miles ...
also lies to the west and the endorheic (closed)
Honey LakeHoney Lake is an endorheic sink within the Honey Lake Valley located in northeastern California, near the Nevada border. Summer evaporation reduces the lake to a lower level of 12 km² and creates an alkali flat....
and
Eagle LakeEagle Lake is a lake in Lassen County approximately 15 miles north of Susanville, California. It is the second largest natural lake entirely in the state of California, United States....
basins to the north. On the east side are many endorheic watersheds of the Great Basin including the
Truckee RiverThe Truckee River is a stream in the U.S. states of California and Nevada. The river is about long. Its endorheic drainage basin is about , of which about are in Nevada. The Truckee is the sole outlet of Lake Tahoe and drains part of the high Sierra Nevada, emptying into Pyramid Lake in the Great...
and
Carson RiverThe Carson River is a northwestern Nevada river that empties into the Carson Sink, an endorheic basin. The main stem of the river is long....
. Parts of the Sacramento watershed come very close to, but do not extend past, the border of California and
NevadaNevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
.
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 agricultural lands of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The highest point is
Mount ShastaMount Shasta is located at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California and at is the second highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth highest in California...
, a
stratovolcanoA stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a tall, conical volcano built up by many layers of hardened lava, tephra, pumice, and volcanic ash. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile and periodic, explosive eruptions...
that stands 14104 feet (4,298.9 m) high, near the headwaters of the Sacramento River. Subsidence caused by wind erosion and other phenomena slowly caused the land in the delta to sink for years; many of the delta islands would be underwater if not for the maintenance of the
leveeA levee, levée, dike , embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels...
s that keep them dry. Many of the "islands" are now up to 25 feet (7.6 m) below the surrounding water. The Sierra Nevada generally decreases in height from south to north—from 10000 to 11000 ft (3,048 to 3,352.8 m) near
Lake TahoeLake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. At a surface elevation of , it is located along the border between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America. Its depth is , making it the USA's second-deepest...
, east of the American River, to just 6000 feet (1,828.8 m) as they merge into the Cascades and Modoc Plateau in the Lassen Peak area; however, on the west side, the Coast Ranges area is the opposite, increasing from 2000 to 3000 ft (609.6 to 914.4 m) in the south to just shy of 10000 feet (3,048 m) in the north. The volcanic plateaus in the northeast, which comprise relatively flat terrain, typically lie at elevations of 3000 to 5000 ft (914.4 to 1,524 m). Most of the Sacramento Valley is below 300 feet (91.4 m) in elevation; in its lower course, the Sacramento River drops only about 1 foot (0.3048 m) per mile.
Most of the Sacramento River's valley is intensely cultivated, with some 2000000 acres (8,093.7 km²) of irrigated farmland. Medium to dense forests occupy most of the mountains, many of which lie on U.S. Forest Service lands. Sparse grasslands and
high desertThe Oregon High Desert is a region of the U.S. state of Oregon, located east of the Cascade Range and south of the Blue Mountains, in the central and eastern parts of the state. Divided into a southern region and a northern region, the desert covers most of five Oregon counties and averages above...
stretch to the north. Along with the agrarian base, the basin is also home to about 2.2 million people, almost half of whom live within the Sacramento metropolitan area. Other important cities are
ChicoChico is the most populous city in Butte County, California, United States. The population was 86,187 at the 2010 census, up from 59,954 at the time of the 2000 census...
,
ReddingRedding is a city in far-Northern California. It is the county seat of Shasta County, California, USA. With a population of 89,861, according to the 2010 Census...
,
DavisDavis is a city in Yolo County, California, United States. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area...
and
WoodlandWoodland is the county seat of Yolo County, California, located approximately northwest of Sacramento, and is a part of the Sacramento - Arden-Arcade - Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 55,468 at the 2010 census.Woodland's origins trace back to 1850 when California...
. The Sacramento River watershed covers all or most of
ShastaShasta County is a county located in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The county occupies the northern reaches of the Sacramento Valley, with portions extending into the southern reaches of the Cascade Range. As of the 2010 census, the population was 177,223, up from 163,256...
,
TehamaTehama County is a county located in the northern part of the U.S. state of California. It is bisected by the Sacramento River. As of 2010 its population was 63,463, up from 56,039 as of 2000. The county seat is Red Bluff.-History:...
,
GlennGlenn County is in the California Central Valley. As of 2010, it had a population of 28,122. The county seat is the city of Willows.-History:Glenn County was formed in 1891 from parts of Colusa County. It was named for Dr. Hugh J...
,
ButteButte County is a county located in the Central Valley of the US state of California, north of the state capital of Sacramento. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 220,000. The county seat is Oroville. Butte County is the "Land of Natural Wealth and Beauty."Butte County is watered by the...
,
PlumasPlumas County is a county located in the Sierra Nevada of the U.S. state of California. The county gets its name from the Spanish words for the Feather River , which flows through the county. As of the 2010 census, the population 20,007, down from 20,824 at the 2000 census...
,
YubaYuba County is a county located in the U.S. state of California's Central Valley, north of Sacramento, along the Feather River. As of the 2010 census, its population was 72,155. The county seat is Marysville. Yuba County is part of the Greater Sacramento area.-History:Yuba County was one of the...
,
SutterSutter County is a county located along the Sacramento River in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California, north of state capital Sacramento. Sutter County is part of the Greater Sacramento CSA....
,
LakeLake County is a county located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of California, north of the San Francisco Bay Area. It takes its name from Clear Lake, the dominant geographic feature in the county and the largest natural lake wholly within California...
and
YoloYolo County is a county located in the northern part of the U.S. state of California, bordered by the other counties of Sacramento, Solano, Napa, Lake, Colusa, and Sutter. The city of Woodland is its county seat, though Davis is its largest city....
Counties. It also extends into portions of
SiskiyouSiskiyou County is a county located in the far northernmost part of the U.S. state of California, in the Shasta Cascade region on the Oregon border. Yreka is the county seat. Because of its substantial natural beauty, outdoor recreation opportunities, and Gold Rush era history, it is an important...
,
ModocModoc County is a county located in the far northeast corner of the U.S. state of California, bounded by the state of Oregon to the north and the state of Nevada to the east. As of the 2010 census, its population was 9,686, up from 9,449 at the 2000 census. The current county seat is Alturas, the...
,
LassenLassen County is a county located in the northeastern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 34,895, up from 33,828 at the 2000 census...
,
LakeLake County is a county in the high desert south central region of the U.S. state of Oregon, so named for the many lakes found within its boundaries, including Lake Abert, Hart Lake Reservoir, and Goose Lake. While Lake is among Oregon's largest counties, it is sparsely populated with 7,895...
(in Oregon),
SierraSierra County is a county located in the Sierra Nevada of the U.S. state of California, northeast of Sacramento on the border with Nevada. As of the 2010 census the population was 3,240, down from 3,555 at the 2000 census. The county seat is Downieville....
,
NevadaNevada County is a county located in the Sierra Nevada of California, in the Mother Lode country. As of 2010 its population was 98,764. The county seat is Nevada City.-History:Nevada County was created in 1851 from parts of Yuba County....
,
PlacerPlacer County is a county located in both the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada regions of the U.S. state of California, in what is known as the Gold Country. It stretches from the suburbs of Sacramento to Lake Tahoe and the Nevada border. Because of the expansion of the Greater Sacramento,...
,
El DoradoEl Dorado County is a county located in the historic Gold Country in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and foothills of the U.S. state of California. The 2010 population was 181,058. The El Dorado county seat is in Placerville....
,
SacramentoSacramento County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Sacramento, which is also the state capital. As of 2010 the county had a population of 1,418,788....
,
SolanoSolano County is a county located in Bay-Delta region of the U.S. state of California, about halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento and is one of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. The county's population was reported by the U.S. Census to be 413,344 in 2010...
and
Contra CostaContra Costa County is a primarily suburban county in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 1,049,025...
Counties. The river itself flows through Siskiyou, Shasta, Tehama, Butte, Glenn, Colusa, Sutter, Yolo, Sacramento, Solano and Contra Costa, often forming boundaries between the counties.
The Sacramento River watershed includes large areas of forests such as the
MendocinoThe Mendocino National Forest is located in the Coastal Mountain Range in northwestern California and comprises 913,306 acres...
and
Trinity National ForestTrinity National Forest was established as the Trinity Forest Reserve by the U.S. Forest Service in California on April 26, 1905 with . It became a National Forest on March 4, 1907. On July 1, 1908 it gave up some acreage to California National Forest. In 1954 it was combined administratively with...
s in the Coast Ranges, Shasta and
Lassen National ForestLassen National Forest is a national forest of 1,700 square miles in northeastern California. It is named after pioneer Peter Lassen, who mined, ranched and promoted the area to emigrant parties in the 1850s.- Overview :...
s in the southern Cascades and the
PlumasPlumas National Forest is a 1,146,000-acre United States National Forest located in the Sierra Nevada, in northern California.-Geography:...
,
TahoeTahoe National Forest is a U.S. National Forest located in the state of California, northwest of Lake Tahoe. It includes the peak of Sierra Buttes, near Sierra City, which has views of Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta. It is located in parts of six counties. In descending order of forestland area...
and
Eldorado National ForestEldorado National Forest is a U.S. National Forest located in the central Sierra Nevada mountain range, in eastern Eldorado National Forest is a [[U.S. National Forest]] located in the central [[Sierra Nevada |Sierra Nevada]] [[mountain range]], in eastern Eldorado National Forest is a [[U.S...
s on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The watershed also has
Lassen Volcanic National ParkLassen Volcanic National Park is a United States National Park in northeastern California. The dominant feature of the park is Lassen Peak; the largest plug dome volcano in the world and the southern-most volcano in the Cascade Range...
, which covers 106000 acres (429 km²) centered around Lassen Peak, the southernmost Cascade volcano.
Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation AreaThe Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area is a United States National Recreation Area in northern California. It has a total of of land, which is divided into three units, Whiskeytown, Shasta and Trinity. The recreation area was established in 1965 by the United States Congress. The...
, which is over 200000 acres (809.4 km²) in size, straddles much of the upper Sacramento and
TrinityThe Trinity River is the longest tributary of the Klamath River, approximately long, in northwestern California in the United States. It drains an area of the Coast Ranges, including the southern Klamath Mountains, northwest of the Sacramento Valley...
Rivers, centering around three popular man-made lakes–Shasta Lake,
Trinity LakeTrinity Lake, previously called Clair Engle Lake, is a lake on the Trinity River formed by the Trinity Dam and located in Trinity County, California, The dam was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The lake has a capacity of , making it one of the largest reservoirs in California. The lake's...
and
Whiskeytown LakeWhiskeytown Lake is a lake in Shasta County in northwestern California, about west of Redding. The lake is in the Whiskeytown Unit of the Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area. It has a capacity of and is formed by Whiskeytown Dam on Clear Creek...
. Many other state parks and recreation areas lie within the watershed.
Geology
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 PlateThe Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At 103 million square kilometres, it is the largest tectonic plate....
colliding with the
North American PlateThe North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland, Cuba, Bahamas, and parts of Siberia, Japan and Iceland. It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia. The plate includes both continental and oceanic crust...
caused the formation of the Sierra Nevada. Although mountains had existed as early as 100 million years ago in this region (before then the land was probably submerged under the Pacific), they were worn by
erosionErosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
, and the present-day range was 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 PlateauThe Modoc Plateau lies in the northeast corner of California as well as parts of Oregon and Nevada. It is a mile-high expanse of lava flows with cinder cones, juniper flats, pine forests, and seasonal lakes. The plateau is thought to have been formed approximately 25 million years ago...
, through which the
Pit RiverThe Pit River is a major river draining from northeastern California into the state's Central Valley. The Pit, the Klamath and the Columbia are the only three rivers in the U.S...
flows.
Mount ShastaMount Shasta is located at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California and at is the second highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth highest in California...
and
Lassen PeakLassen Peak is the southernmost active volcano in the Cascade Range. It is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc which is an arc that stretches from northern California to southwestern British Columbia...
are among the numerous
Cascade Range volcanoesThe Cascade Volcanoes are a number of volcanoes in a volcanic arc in western North America, extending from southwestern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California, a distance of well over 700 mi ...
that still stand in the area.
As the Sierra rose, the ancestors of the Sacramento's east side tributaries and numerous glaciations carved deep canyons in the mountains, depositing massive amounts of silt between the Sierra Nevada and the Pacific, slowly building up the floor of the Sacramento Valley. The Sacramento River did not form until multiple
terraneA terrane in geology is short-hand term for a tectonostratigraphic terrane, which is a fragment of crustal material formed on, or broken off from, one tectonic plate and accreted or "sutured" to crust lying on another plate...
s were formed and smashed into the North American Plate from the Pacific Plate about 3 million years ago. The resulting geologic folding pushed up the California Coast Ranges and
Klamath MountainsThe Klamath Mountains, which include the Siskiyou, Marble, Scott, Trinity, Trinity Alps, Salmon, and northern Yolla-Bolly Mountains, are a rugged lightly populated mountain range in northwest California and southwest Oregon in the United States...
, enclosing the Sacramento Valley and forcing the streams within to flow south instead of west and forming the ancestral Sacramento River. It is believed that the river once had its outlet in
Monterey BayMonterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean, along the central coast of California. The bay is south of San Francisco and San Jose, between the cities of Santa Cruz and Monterey....
(forming the 300 miles (482.8 km) Monterey Submarine Canyon when sea levels were lower during the Ice Ages). While the Coast Ranges are young by geologic standards, only a few million years old, the Klamath Mountains reached their present form some 7.5 million years ago.
The Monterey Bay outlet of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers was blocked off 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 (804.7 km) north to south and was at least 1000 feet (304.8 m) deep. About 650,000 years ago the lake catastrophically overflowed, draining into San Francisco Bay and creating the
Carquinez StraitThe Carquinez Strait is a narrow tidal strait in northern California. It is part of the tidal estuary of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers as they drain into the San Francisco Bay...
, 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 Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. For thousands of years, this inland sea would periodically reform during times of intense flooding, the most recent being the
Great Flood of 1862The Great Flood of 1862 or Noachian Deluge was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862. It was preceded by weeks of continuous rains that began in Oregon in November 1861 and continued into January 1862...
. Dams and canals that control the river now prevent this phenomenon from occurring in most years.
History
The Sacramento River and its valley were one of the major American Indian population centers of California. The river's abundant flow and the valley's fertile soil and mild climate ensured enough resources for hundreds of groups to share the land. Most of the villages were small. Although it was once commonly believed that the original natives lived as
tribeA tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...
s, they actually lived as
bandsA band society is the simplest form of human society. A band generally consists of a small kin group, no larger than an extended family or clan; it has been defined as consisting of no more than 30 to 50 individuals.Bands have a loose organization...
, or family groups as small as twenty to thirty people. The Sacramento Valley was first settled 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 the
ShastaThe Shasta are an indigenous people of Northern California and Southern Oregon in the United States. They spoke one of the Shastan languages....
, Modoc, and
AchomawiThe Achomawi are one of eleven bands of the Pit River tribe of Native Americans who lived in northeastern California, USA....
/Pit River Tribes of the volcanic plateaus in the north; the
WintuThe Wintu are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun . Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin...
and
HupaHupa, also spelled Hoopa, are a Native American tribe in northwestern California. Their autonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinookwa, meaning "People of the Place Where the Trails Return." The majority of the tribe is enrolled in the federally recognized Hoopa Valley Tribe; however, some Hupa are...
in the northern Klamath and Trinity mountains; the
NomlakiThe Nomlaki are a Wintun people native to the area of the Sacramento Valley, extending westward to the Coast Range in Northern California. Currently one person speaks Nomlaki...
,
YukiThe Yuki are a Native American people from the zone of Round Valley, in what today is part of the territory of Mendocino County, Northern California. Yuki tribes are thought to have settled as far south as Hood Mountain in present-day Sonoma County...
,
PatwinThe Patwin are a Wintun people native to the area of Northern California. The Patwin were a southern branch of the Wintun group and native inhabitants of California from 1,000 up to 4,000 years....
, and Pomo of the Coast Ranges; the
YanaThe Yana people were a group of Native Americans indigenous to Northern California in the central Sierra Nevada Mountains, on the western side of the range. The Yana-speaking people comprised four groups: the Northern Yana, the Central Yana, the Southern Yana, and the Yahi...
,
AtsugewiThe Atsugewi are Native Americans residing in what is now northern California, United States. Their traditional lands are near Mount Shasta, specifically the Pit River drainage on Burney, Hat, and Dixie Valley or Horse Creeks. They are closely related to the Achomawi and consisted of two groups...
,
MaiduThe Maidu are a group of Native Americans who live in Northern California. They reside in the central Sierra Nevada, in the drainage area of the Feather and American Rivers...
, Konkow, and
NisenanThe Nisenan, also known as the Southern Maidu and Valley Maidu, are one of many native groups of the Central Valley. The name Nisenan, derives from the ablative plural pronoun nisena·n, "from among us"...
in the Sierra and their western foothills; and the
MiwokMiwok can refer to any one of four linguistically related groups of Native Americans, native to Northern California, who spoke one of the Miwokan languages in the Utian family...
in the south.
Life for Native Americans in the Sacramento Valley was relatively simple and involved little violence. Little agriculture was practiced; most were hunter-gatherers and fishermen. Settlement size ranged from small camps to villages of 30–50 permanent structures. As with tribes in the
San Joaquin ValleyThe San Joaquin Valley is the area of the Central Valley of California that lies south of the Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta in Stockton...
and throughout much of California, the
acornThe acorn, or oak nut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives . It usually contains a single seed , enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne in a cup-shaped cupule. Acorns vary from 1–6 cm long and 0.8–4 cm broad...
was a
staple foodA staple food is one that is eaten regularly and in such quantities that it constitutes a dominant portion of a diet, and that supplies a high proportion of energy and nutrient needs. Most people live on a diet based on one or more staples...
. The historic abundance of
white oakQuercus alba, the white oak, is one of the pre-eminent hardwoods of eastern North America. It is a long-lived oak of the Fagaceae family, native to eastern North America and found from southern Quebec west to eastern Minnesota and south to northern Florida and eastern Texas. Specimens have been...
s in the Sacramento Valley was capable of supporting a large population. American Indians usually pounded the acorns into flour, which they used to make bread and cakes. Despite the prevalence of acorns in their diet, they also consumed a variety of other foods—wild roots, seeds, berries, and
gameGame is any animal hunted for food or not normally domesticated. Game animals are also hunted for sport.The type and range of animals hunted for food varies in different parts of the world. This will be influenced by climate, animal diversity, local taste and locally accepted view about what can or...
that included fish, deer, rabbits, and birds. The natural abundance of the Sacramento River and its valley, along with the San Joaquin, probably once supported most of California's original 275,000–300,000 Native Americans.
The first outsiders to see the river were probably the members of a
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
colonial-exploratory venture to Northern California in 1772, led by Captain
Pedro FagesPere Fages Beleta , nicknamed L'Ós , was a soldier, explorer, and the second Spanish military Governor of Las Californias Province of New Spain from 1770 to 1774, and the Governor of Las Californias from 1782 to 1791.-Life:...
. The group ascended a mountain, likely in the hills north of
Suisun BaySuisun Bay is a shallow tidal estuary at in northern California, USA. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, forming the entrance to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, an inverted river delta...
, and found themselves looking down at 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 MoragaGabriel Moraga a Spanish army officer, son of José Joaquín Moraga a member of Juan Bautista de Anza's expeditions to California, was one of the first Europeans to explore California's Great Central Valley . He led expeditions of Spanish soldiers into the valley, becoming its first explorer...
, 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 the
Blessed SacramentThe Blessed Sacrament, or the Body and Blood of Christ, is a devotional name used in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Catholic Churches, Old Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches, to refer to the Host after it has been consecrated in the sacrament of the Eucharist...
". 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 CompanyThe Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
(HBC) fur trappers exploring southwards from the disputed
Oregon CountryThe Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a disputed ownership region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s, with its coastal areas north from...
, starting in the 1820s. The first organized expedition, led by
Peter Skene OgdenPeter Skene Ogden , was a fur trader and a Canadian explorer of what is now British Columbia and the American West...
, arrived in the area of
Mount ShastaMount Shasta is located at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California and at is the second highest peak in the Cascades and the fifth highest in California...
in 1826. By this time, California was under the control of
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, 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 TrailThe Siskiyou Trail stretched from California's Central Valley to Oregon's Willamette Valley; modern-day Interstate 5 follows this pioneer path...
out of several Native American paths that ran through the mountains between Oregon's
Willamette ValleyThe Willamette Valley is the most populated region in the state of Oregon of the United States. Located in the state's northwest, the region is surrounded by tall mountain ranges to the east, west and south and the valley's floor is broad, flat and fertile because of Ice Age conditions...
and the northern part of the Sacramento Valley. In the years to come, this path, which eventually extended from San Francisco to
Portland, OregonPortland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
following parts of the Sacramento,
WillametteThe Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States...
,
KlamathThe Klamath River is an American river that flows southwest through Oregon and northern California, cutting through the Cascade Range to empty into the Pacific Ocean. The river drains an extensive watershed of almost that stretches from the high desert country of the Great Basin to the temperate...
,
RogueThe Rogue River in southwestern Oregon in the United States flows about in a generally westward direction from the Cascade Range to the Pacific Ocean. Known for its salmon runs, whitewater rafting, and rugged scenery, it was one of the original eight rivers named in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act...
, 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 became one of the most significant settlers of the Sacramento River valley. In 1841, he and his men built a fortress at the confluence of the Sacramento and
American RiverThe American River is a California watercourse noted as the site of Sutter's Mill, northwest of Placerville, California, where gold was found in 1848, leading to the California Gold Rush...
s (the latter of which was actually named by him) and he was granted almost 50000 acres (202.3 km²) of land surrounding the two rivers. Naming it New Helvetia, he created an agricultural empire in the lower Sacramento Valley, attracting hundreds of settlers to 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 and made them labor in his fields.
Sutter's prosperity, however, indirectly led to his financial demise, and the rise of one of the most significant events in California history. When one of his employees,
James W. MarshallJames Wilson Marshall was an American carpenter and sawmill operator, whose discovery of gold in the American River in California on January 24, 1848 set the stage for the California Gold Rush. The mill property was owned by Johan Sutter who employed Marshall to build his mill...
was assigned to build a sawmill on the South Fork American River in Sutter's interests, he discovered gold in the headrace. It was not long before the secret slipped out attracting three hundred thousand hopefuls from all over North America, and even the world, to the Sacramento River in search of fortunes, kicking off the
California Gold RushThe California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
. People flocked to the region by the
Oregon TrailThe Oregon Trail is a historic east-west wagon route that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between.After 1840 steam-powered riverboats and steamboats traversing up and down the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers sped settlement and development in the flat...
-Siskiyou Trail,
California TrailThe California Trail was an emigrant trail of about across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California...
, Southern Immigrant Trail and various land and/or sea routes through the
Isthmus of PanamaThe Isthmus of Panama, also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien, is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country of Panama and the Panama Canal...
and around southern
South AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
by ship. Steamboats traveled busily up and down the Sacramento River carrying miners from San Francisco to 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
malariaMalaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
and
smallpoxSmallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
which American Indians had no immunity to. These diseases killed off a large proportion of their population within a few decades of the arrival of Sutter and the following settlers, the start of the
gold rushA gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...
, 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 reservationAn American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...
s in several places scattered around the Sacramento Valley, mainly in the Coast Ranges. In the early 1850s, several treaties were signed between the U.S. government and the Native Americans involving their relocation onto a reservation in the Sierra foothills; this promise was broken, of course. Therefore in 1863, the tribes from the area surrounding the middle Sacramento and
Feather riverThe Feather River is the principal tributary of the Sacramento River, in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. The river's main stem is about long. Its length to its most distant headwater tributary is about . Its drainage basin is about...
s, the Konkow group, were removed and marched forcibly to the Round Valley Indian Reservation near the
Eel RiverThe Eel River is a major river system of the northern Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. Approximately 200 miles long, it drains a rugged area in the California Coast Ranges between the Sacramento Valley and the ocean. For most of its course, the river flows northwest, parallel to the...
. A total of 461 people were forced from their homes, but only 277 made it to the reservation before dying of disease, starvation or exhaustion.
As mining developed from simple methods such as panning and sluicing to a new form of commercialized extraction,
hydraulic miningHydraulic mining, or hydraulicking, is a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment. In the placer mining of gold or tin, the resulting water-sediment slurry is directed through sluice boxes to remove the gold.-Precursor - ground...
, profits from the petering gold rush made a second leap, earning more profits than those miners in the early years had ever made. The city of
SacramentoSacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
, founded on the original site of Sutter's fort, began to flourish as 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 RailroadThe Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
established tracks along the river to connect California with Oregon following 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
DunsmuirDunsmuir is a city in Siskiyou County, California, United States. The population was 1,650 at the 2010 census, down from 1,923 at the 2000 census. It is currently a hub of tourism in Northern California as visitors enjoy fishing, skiing, climbing, or sight-seeing...
. It was not long after the city had reached a relatively large population of about 10,000, then the
Great Flood of 1862The Great Flood of 1862 or Noachian Deluge was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862. It was preceded by weeks of continuous rains that began in Oregon in November 1861 and continued into January 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 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
MarysvilleMarysville is the county seat of Yuba County, California, United States. The population was 12,072 at the 2010 census, down from 12,268 at the 2000 census. It is included in the Yuba City Metropolitan Statistical Area, often referred to as the Yuba-Sutter Area after the two counties, Yuba and...
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 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, however, was followed by engineering projects to try and stem the flows of water rather than defend against it. The engineering era of the 20th century on the Sacramento thus begun.
Dams and water use
In the late 19th century through the 20th, California experienced an economic boom that led to the rapid expansion of both agricultural and urban infrastructure. The Central Valley was becoming a heavily developed irrigation farming region, and cities along the state's
Pacific coastA country's Pacific coast is the part of its coast bordering the Pacific Ocean.-The Americas:Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western border.* Geography of Canada* Geography of Chile* Geography of Colombia...
and the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers were growing rapidly, requiring ways to manage the river's water to prevent flooding (and resulting economic loss) on one hand, and to ensure a consistent supply of it on the other. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state of California completed reports as early as the 1870s and 1880s that detailed the geography and water supplies of the Sacramento, Feather, Yuba and Bear rivers.
Back in 1873, Colonel B.S. Alexander of the Army Corps of Engineers had written in his surveys of the Central Valley's hydrology and irrigation systems of a great network of pumps and canals that would take water from the water-rich Sacramento River basin into drought-prone South and Central California, especially the San Joaquin Valley. The Sacramento River is often said to receive "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 [central] California's land, but only collects one-third to one-quarter of the precipitation."
During the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
in the 1930s, the first plans for statewide water engineering projects emerged backed by first the Californian, then the United States government. The
California State Water ProjectThe California State Water Project, commonly known as the SWP , is the world's largest publicly built and operated water and power development and conveyance system. The SWP was designed and is operated by the California Department of Water Resources...
and
Central Valley ProjectThe Central Valley Project is a Bureau of Reclamation federal water project in the U.S. state of California. It 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 water-rich northern...
both began their rise to reality during this period. Both began as brainchilds of the state government, but because of lack of funds, the construction work and costs were shifted to the federal U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. As the construction of dams, power plants and canals required immense labor, which was rare in the middle of the Depression, the government authorized Sacramento River dams and other structures as public works projects beginning in 1935.
Construction of
Shasta DamShasta Dam is an arch dam across the Sacramento River in the northern part of the U.S. state of California, at the north end of the Sacramento Valley. The dam mainly serves long-term water storage and flood control in its reservoir, Shasta Lake, and also generates hydroelectric power...
, the main dam on the Sacramento, started in 1938 and was completed in 1945. Capable of absorbing enormous flood flows and storing the water for use in prolonged drought as well as navigation and electricity generation, it gave inhabitants of the Sacramento Valley nearly complete control over the whims of the river. In the following decades, more dams–huge dams hundreds of feet high and capable of storing millions of acre-feet of water–were constructed on the Sacramento's main tributaries: the Pit, Feather and American.
Folsom DamFolsom Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the American River in Northern California, about northeast of Sacramento. Folsom Dam is high concrete and long, flanked by earthen wing dams...
,
Oroville DamOroville Dam spans the Feather River about northeast of the city of Oroville, California. It forms Lake Oroville, which stores water for irrigation, flood control, municipal water supply and hydroelectricity generation in California's Sacramento Valley. The dam lies in the foothills of the Sierra...
and
New Bullards Bar DamNew Bullards Bar Dam is a dam in California on the North Yuba River and forms the New Bullards Bar Reservoir, which has a capacity of . It is located near the town of Dobbins in Yuba County. The dam is operated by the Yuba County Water Agency for irrigation, drinking water and hydroelectric power...
, built in the 1950s and '60s for both the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project, are among the most important. With a firm water management system in place, the Sacramento River's flow was thus regulated and a highly controlled regime of irrigation and water diversions was able to begin.
Part of the purpose of constructing dams on the Sacramento was to regulate flows for irrigation agriculture purposes. After the river's flow was under control, two major canals serving the western side of the Sacramento Valley – the Tehama-Colusa and Corning Canals. Both starting at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam on the Sacramento, the two canals are 111 mi (178.6 km) and 21 mi (33.8 km) long respectively, and divert a total of over 3000 cuft/s from the river to serve some 100019 acres (404.8 km²) of land. A third major canal, the Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel, exists not for irrigation purposes but rather to facilitate navigation of large oceangoing ships from the Delta to the city of Sacramento. Built by the Army Corps of Engineers, the canal is 43 miles (69.2 km) long and is maintained to 30 feet (9.1 m) deep.
In 1959, construction began on the final link for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River water system, the
California AqueductThe Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct is a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines that conveys water collected from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern- and Central California to Southern California. The Department of Water Resources operates and maintains the...
. A series of dams, dikes, channels and pump plants was constructed in the Delta to facilitate water flow from the Sacramento into this huge man-made river, which can carry up to 5834 cuft/s of water. From its origin at the Delta the canal runs some 444 miles (714.5 km) southwards through the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, providing irrigation water to farmlands along its length. The remainder is then powered over the
Tehachapi MountainsThe Tehachapi Mountains , regionally also called The Tehachapis, are a mountain range in the Transverse Ranges system of California in the Western United States...
via a 3000 feet (914.4 m) pump lift. The Aqueduct's waters, which functionally extend the Sacramento River southwards, then run on to serve the enormous populace of California's south, supplying the needs of some 22 million people.
Over the years, several other plans materialized to take water from
other drainage basins into that of the Sacramento to bolster the river's petering discharge. A successful one was the
Trinity RiverThe Trinity River is the longest tributary of the Klamath River, approximately long, in northwestern California in the United States. It drains an area of the Coast Ranges, including the southern Klamath Mountains, northwest of the Sacramento Valley...
diversion, which sent over 90 percent of the flow of that river into the Sacramento through a tunnel under the Klamath Mountains. Because of resulting ecological destruction and fish kills, less water is diverted today than a few decades ago. Others failed to take root – one of the most notorious, the
Klamath DiversionThe Klamath Diversion was a federal water project proposed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the 1960s. It would have diverted the Klamath River in Northern California to the more arid southern part of that state...
, proposed to send the entire flow of the Klamath River into the Sacramento Valley through a complex system of reservoirs, canals, flumes and tunnels. Similarly, the Dos Rios Dam project would have diverted almost the entire flow of the
Eel RiverThe Eel River is a major river system of the northern Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. Approximately 200 miles long, it drains a rugged area in the California Coast Ranges between the Sacramento Valley and the ocean. For most of its course, the river flows northwest, parallel to the...
to the Sacramento. Both projects were defeated by locals' and environmentalists' opposition, as well as, for the former, staggering costs.
Ecology
The Sacramento River and its drainage basin were originally abundant in multiple avian and aquatic species, but modern-day development has thinned populations of many species, especially riverine. The river's once-ample stretches of
riparian zoneA riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the fifteen terrestrial biomes of the earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks are called riparian vegetation, characterized by...
s and
marshIn geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
es, supported by its wide variations in flow, as well as the wetlands downstream in the Delta, have mostly been replaced by agricultural lands. The Sacramento supports 40–60 species of fish, and 218 types of birds. The basin is relatively abundant in endemic amphibian and fish species. It is surmised that between four and five million years ago, the Sacramento and
SnakeThe Snake is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean...
-
Columbia RiverThe Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
systems were somehow connected by a series of now-dry wetlands and river channels. Many of the fish in the present-day river are similar to those of the other, indicating a possible link sometime in the past. The Sacramento and San Joaquin also have the southermost runs of five species of anadromous fish.
Wildlife along the Sacramento has been hurt severely by the heavy usage of Sacramento River water for agriculture and urban areas, and pollution caused by pesticides,
nitrateThe nitrate ion is a polyatomic ion with the molecular formula NO and a molecular mass of 62.0049 g/mol. It is the conjugate base of nitric acid, consisting of one central nitrogen atom surrounded by three identically-bonded oxygen atoms in a trigonal planar arrangement. The nitrate ion carries a...
s, mine
tailingsTailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
,
acid mine drainageAcid mine drainage , or acid rock drainage , refers to the outflow of acidic water from metal mines or coal mines. However, other areas where the earth has been disturbed may also contribute acid rock drainage to the environment...
and
urban runoffUrban runoff is surface runoff of rainwater created by urbanization. This runoff is a major source of water pollution in many parts of the United States and other urban communities worldwide.-Overview:...
. Located along the
Pacific FlywayThe Pacific Flyway is a major north-south route of travel for migratory birds in America, extending from Alaska to Patagonia. Every year, migratory birds travel some or all of this distance both in spring and in fall, following food sources, heading to breeding grounds, or travelling to...
, the sprawling marshlands of the Sacramento Valley were originally an important stop for migratory birds; only a few wetlands remain today, either preserved or artificially constructed. Native bird populations have been declining steadily throughout the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Species that were once common but now are gone or endangered include the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher, Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Least Bell's Vireo, and
Warbling VireoThe Warbling Vireo, Vireo gilvus, is a small North American songbird.Its breeding habitat is open deciduous and mixed woods from Alaska to Mexico and the Florida Panhandle. It often nests along streams. It migrates to Mexico and Central America....
. Another reason for dropping numbers are the introduction of non-native species, such as the "parasitic"
cowbirdCowbirds are birds belonging to the genus Molothrus in the family Icteridae. They are brood parasitic New World birds which are unrelated to the Old World cuckoos, one of which, the Common Cuckoo, is the best-known brood parasitic bird....
, which steals the nests of other birds to use as its own.
There were once 9 species of amphibians that used the Sacramento River, but some have become extinct and the population of the others are declining drastically due to the loss of their habitat. Amphibians originally thrived in the marshes, sloughs, side-channels and oxbow cutoffs because of their warmer water, abundance of vegetation and nutrients, lower population of predators, and slower current. Encroachment of agricultural and urban land has eliminated most of this habitat. This population once included several species of frogs and salamanders; the
foothill yellow-legged frogThe Foothill Yellow-legged Frog is a small-sized frog from the Rana genus in the Ranidae family. This species can be found from northern Oregon, down California’s west coast, and into Baja California, Mexico. Both the Columbia Spotted Frog and the Cascades Frog, also part of the Rana genus, live...
and western spadefoot are listed as endangered species.
The riparian areas along the Sacramento once totaled more than 500000 acres (2,023.4 km²); today only about 10000 acres (40.5 km²) remains. Much of it consists of restored stretches, and there is also a significant amount of artificial wetland in the watershed. River control has prevented the Sacramento from its natural flooding, braiding and course-changing patterns, which are important for the maintenance of existing wetlands and the creation of new ones. Since the 1860s, the river has been mostly locked in its channel, which once could shift hundreds of feet or even several miles in a year because of floods. These wetlands originally flooded every winter and spring, but levee construction, agricultural encroachment and the construction of dams upstream have also eliminated the flooding process. Today about 100 miles (160.9 km) of the river’s riparian forests are undergoing active restoration.
Anadromous fish
Second only to the
Columbia RiverThe Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
on the west coast of the United States in
Chinook salmonThe Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, is the largest species in the pacific salmon family. Other commonly used names for the species include King salmon, Quinnat salmon, Spring salmon and Tyee salmon...
runs, the Sacramento and its tributaries once supported a huge population of this fish. Millions of salmon once swam upstream to spawn in the Sacramento; as recently as 2002 eight hundred thousand fish were observed to return to the river.
Starting in the 20th century, dam construction blocked off hundreds of miles of salmon-spawning streams, such as the upper Feather and American Rivers, and the entirety of the Pit and upper Sacramento rivers. Pollution from farms and urban areas took a heavy toll on the river's environment, and heavy irrigation withdrawals sometimes resulted in massive
fish killThe term fish kill, known also as fish die-off and as fish mortality, is a localized die-off of fish populations which may also be associated with more generalised mortality of aquatic life...
s. Since 1960, when the big pumps at the head of the
California AqueductThe Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct is a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines that conveys water collected from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern- and Central California to Southern California. The Department of Water Resources operates and maintains the...
in the Delta began their operation, the outflow of fresh water into the Pacific has been reduced to a trickle leaving the fish confused as to where to go, resulting in many generations dying off because they have not been able to find their way upstream. In 2004, only 200,000 fish were reported to return to the Sacramento; in 2008, a disastrous low of 39,000.
In 1999, five hydroelectric dams on Battle Creek, a major tributary of the Sacramento River, were removed to allow better passage of the fish. Three other dams along the creek were fitted with
fish ladderA fish ladder, also known as a fishway, fish pass or fish steps, is a structure on or around artificial barriers to facilitate diadromous fishes' natural migration. Most fishways enable fish to pass around the barriers by swimming and leaping up a series of relatively low steps into the waters on...
s. The river is considered one of the best salmon habitats in the watershed because of its relatively cold water and the availability of ideal habitat such as gravel bars.
By the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the government blamed crashing fish populations on overfishing, especially off the Northern California and Oregon coast, which lie directly adjacent to the migration paths of Sacramento River salmon. This has resulted in a ban on coastal salmon fishing for several years since 2002. The Red Bluff Diversion Dam, although not a large dam and equipped with fish passage facilities, also presents a major barrier. Because of inadequate design, roughly 25–40% of the incoming fish get blocked by the dam each year. The dam has also become a "favorite spot" for predatory fish to congregate, feasting on the salmon that get trapped both above and below the dam. As of 2010, the salmon run has shown slight signs of improvement, probably because of that year's greater precipitation.
In 1995, a gate on the
Folsom DamFolsom Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the American River in Northern California, about northeast of Sacramento. Folsom Dam is high concrete and long, flanked by earthen wing dams...
on the American River broke open, causing the river's flow to rise by some 40000 cuft/s. The water traveled down the Sacramento and washed into the Pacific; the influx of fresh water was such that it confused thousands of anadromous fish to begin migrating up the river, thinking that the river had risen because of late-autumn storms.
Whales
Marine animals such as
whaleWhale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...
s and
sea lionSea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear-flaps, long fore-flippers, the ability to walk on all fours, and short thick hair. Together with the fur seal, they comprise the family Otariidae, or eared seals. There are six extant and one extinct species in five genera...
s are occasionally found far inland after navigating the river for food or refuge and then losing track of how to get back to the Pacific Ocean. In October 1985 a humpback whale affectionately named "Humphrey the humpbacked whale" by television media traveled 69 miles (111 km) up the Sacramento River before being rescued. Rescuers downstream broadcast sounds of humpback whales feeding to draw the whale back to the ocean.
On May 14, 2007,
two humpback whalesDelta and Dawn, also known as the Delta whales, were two humpback whales a mother and her calf, which entered San Francisco Bay in early May 2007. They swam up the Sacramento River approximately upstream from the Golden Gate, about further inland than Humphrey the Whale had gone two decades earlier...
were spotted by media and onlookers traveling the deep waters near Rio Vista. The duo, generally believed to be mother and calf (Delta, the mother and Dawn, her calf), continued to swim upstream to the
deep water ship channelThe Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel is a canal from the Port of Sacramento in Sacramento, California to the Sacramento River, which flows into San Francisco Bay. It was completed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1963...
near
West SacramentoWest Sacramento is a city in Yolo County, California. It is contiguous with Sacramento, but is separated by the Sacramento River which is also the county line, so West Sacramento is in a different county than Sacramento...
, about 90 miles (144.8 km) inland. There was concern because the whales had been injured, perhaps by a boat's propeller or keel, leaving a gash in each whale's skin. The whales were carefully inspected by biologists and injected with antibiotics to help prevent infection. After days of efforts to lure (or frighten) the whales in the direction of the ocean, the whales eventually made their way south into San Francisco Bay, where they lingered for several days. By May 30, 2007, the cow and calf apparently slipped out unnoticed under the
Golden Gate BridgeThe Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to...
into the Pacific Ocean, likely under cover of night.
Pollution
For a river of its size, the Sacramento is considered to have fairly clean water. However, pollutants still flow into the river from many of its tributaries and man-made drains or channels.
PesticidePesticides are substances or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest.A pesticide may be a chemical unicycle, biological agent , antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest...
runoff, especially
DDTDDT is one of the most well-known synthetic insecticides. It is a chemical with a long, unique, and controversial history....
, is one of the largest problems faced today, because of the valley's primarily agricultural economy. Increased erosion caused by the removal of riparian vegetation and the runoff of
fertilizerFertilizer is any organic or inorganic material of natural or synthetic origin that is added to a soil to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants. A recent assessment found that about 40 to 60% of crop yields are attributable to commercial fertilizer use...
s into the river have led to occasional algae blooms, though the water is usually cold because of the regulation of dams upstream. Other pollutant sources include
urban runoffUrban runoff is surface runoff of rainwater created by urbanization. This runoff is a major source of water pollution in many parts of the United States and other urban communities worldwide.-Overview:...
,
mercuryMercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
and even rocket fuel that was reported to have leaked near the American River from an
AerojetAerojet is an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange, Gainesville and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet is owned by GenCorp. They are the only US propulsion company that provides both solid rocket...
extraction project.
MercuryMercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
pollution created by mining and processing activities during the California Gold Rush still has a profound impact on the Sacramento River’s environment. The toxic substance was widely used by miners to separate gold from the surrounding rocks and dirt, and was disposed of by allowing it to evaporate. Most of the mercury was mined in the Coast Ranges to the west of the Sacramento River; mines in these mountains produced roughly 140,000 tons of mercury to serve the Gold Rush. When the gold rush ended, most of the mines were closed but toxic acidic water and chemicals continue to leak from within, into west-side Sacramento tributaries such as Cache Creek and
Putah CreekPutah Creek is a major stream in Northern California, a tributary of the Yolo Bypass. The creek has its headwaters in the Mayacamas Mountains, a part of the Coast Range...
. In the east, mercury that permeated into the ground has contaminated several aquifers that feed rivers such as the Feather, Yuba and American. Even the evaporated mercury posed problems – so much of it was used that significant concentrations still linger in the air in many places. Mercury pollution continues today and will probably continue for decades or centuries into the future.
In July 1991, a train derailed near
Dunsmuir, CaliforniaDunsmuir is a city in Siskiyou County, California, United States. The population was 1,650 at the 2010 census, down from 1,923 at the 2000 census. It is currently a hub of tourism in Northern California as visitors enjoy fishing, skiing, climbing, or sight-seeing...
alongside the Sacramento River. A tank car split open, spilling about 19,500 gallons of the pesticide metam sodium into the river. The chemical formed a stinking, bubbling, green glob that moved 45 miles (72.4 km) down the river, killing everything in its path. More than one million fish were killed, including at least 100,000 rainbow trout, and thousands of other aquatic creatures as well as nearby trees. Next, the green glob entered Shasta Lake, California’s largest reservoir. Fortunately, a system of aerating pipes at the bottom of the lake had been set up to dissipate the chemical, reducing it to almost nothing by the 29th, preventing further environmental destruction. The tank car carrying the metam sodium through California was of a type that the National Transportation Safety Board said had “a high incidence of failure” in accidents. Furthermore, the tank car was not labeled, so the train’s crew didn’t know that they were hauling a dangerous chemical.
See also
- Auburn Dam
Auburn Dam was a proposed dam on the North Fork of the American River east of the town of Auburn, California in the United States, on the border of Placer and El Dorado Counties. Slated to be completed in the 1970s by the U.S...
- Bass Festival
The Bass Festival, also known as Bass Derby, is held during the second weekend of October in Rio Vista, California. It is the celebration of bass coming into the Sacramento River. It features a carnival, a street fair, live bands and a bass fishing competition. It is the largest annual event in Rio...
- Delta Dawn
"Delta Dawn" is a song written by former child rockabilly star Larry Collins and songwriter Alex Harvey , best known as a 1972 top ten C&W hit for Tanya Tucker and a number-one hit for Helen Reddy in 1973.-Lyrical story:The title character is a faded southern...
- List of crossings of the Sacramento River
- List of rivers of California
- Plumas National Forest
Plumas National Forest is a 1,146,000-acre United States National Forest located in the Sierra Nevada, in northern California.-Geography:...
- United States Exploring Expedition
The United States Exploring Expedition was an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands conducted by the United States from 1838 to 1842. The original appointed commanding officer was Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones. The voyage was authorized by Congress in...
External links