A few years ago, Makram Hanna made make an investment together with relatives and two other families, buying 1,270 acres of farmland in Kings County. In 2021, pistachio trees were planted. Unfortunately, many of those trees, which have yet to produce a crop, now sit under 2 feet of water.
The return of Tulare Lake after this year’s major storms has left Hanna and his family with a big and costly problem. The floodwaters cover hundreds of acres on the farm and it is feared that many of the trees will not survive.
The lake has reappeared previously in wet years, such as 1969, 1983 and 1997. For tree crops this means they will sustain a lot of damage. And in recent years, landowners have planted more pistachio orchards around the Tulare Basin as well as other parts of the San Joaquin Valley. Some of those orchards turned out to be vulnerable when rivers swollen with runoff broke through levees and inundated farmlands.
Source: swoknews.com
