California's Ghost Lake is a Looming El Niño Disaster

What the film says

1. The Tachi name for the lake is Pa'ashi.

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2. In high water the lake overflowed north toward the San Joaquin River, in 19 of 29 years from 1850 to 1878; by 1899 it was dry except for residual wetlands and occasional floods.

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3. Floods prompted construction of Terminus, Success and Pine Flat dams on the Kaweah, Tule and Kings rivers.

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4. A 14.5-mile levee protects Corcoran and a dual prison complex holding about 8,000 incarcerated men; a federal estimate put potential flood damage at $6 billion.

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5. In 2023 the state funded raising the Corcoran levee about 4 feet, from 188 to 192 feet above sea level.

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6. Robert Jeff, vice chairman of the Santa Rosa Rancheria Tachi Yokut Tribe, supports bringing the lake back ('Water brings life').

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7. A conceptual proposal submitted to state officials in 2025 would acquire nearly 24,000 acres near Kettleman City for a lake with a 2,280-acre wetland zone and about five constructed islands, at a preliminary cost of nearly $1 billion; it could become a state park.

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8. Landowners include Sandridge Partners (Vidovich family), J.G. Boswell Co. and the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts (11,240 acres, nearly half); none had publicly endorsed it.

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9. On July 9, 2026, NOAA's CPC gave an 81% chance of a very strong El Niño in October–December 2026, which would rank among the largest since 1950.

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10. Daniel Swain reported that the August 2026 ECMWF forecast gave 70–100% odds of above-average California winter precipitation and of December–February ranking among the wettest 20% of winters.

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11. Steve Haugen of the Kings River Water Association said El Niño has never been a sure thing, noting the 2015–16 'Godzilla' El Niño largely missed the central Sierra.

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12. Engineer John Ennis says subsidence has shifted the lake bottom about seven miles south and east, and that 500,000 acre-feet could flood Corcoran and the prisons under 6 to 10 feet of water.

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13. An Amec Foster Wheeler report found three flood zones near Corcoran merging, which could put the high-speed rail line under up to 16 feet of water in a major flood.

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14. Ennis: 'It was fine when the lake bottom, and all the floodwater, was just Boswell's problem. But that's not the case anymore.'

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15. In April 2024 the State Water Board placed the Tulare Lake Subbasin on probation, the first ever, citing subsidence among other issues; Corcoran's levees had been raised twice in a decade.

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16. On June 9, 2026, the El Rico GSA voted to join a single subbasin-wide groundwater plan.

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17. Tulare Lake was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi by surface area.

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18. After upstream dams were completed, Tulare Lake partly reappeared in 1969, 1983, 1997 and 2023.

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