How long is the American River in Northern California?
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The American River (Río de los Americanos during the period before 1847 ruled by Mexico) is a 120-mile-long river in California that runs from the Sierra Nevada mountain range to its confluence with the Sacramento River in the Sacramento Valley. Via the Sacramento River, it is part of the San Francisco Bay watershed. This river is fed by the melting snowpack of the Sierra Nevada and its many headwaters and tributaries, including the North Fork American River, the Middle Fork American River, and the South Fork American River.
American River
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The North Fork American River is the longest branch of the American River in Northern California. It is long from its source at the crest of the Sierra Nevada, near Lake Tahoe, to its mouth at Folsom Lake northeast of Sacramento. Prior to the construction of Folsom Dam the river was about longer making for a total length of .
North Fork American River
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The Maidu, Miwok, Nisenan, and Wintun peoples inhabited the American River in Sacramento for at least 5,000 years before Spaniards and Americans settled the region, although human habitation in Northern California is believed to date back as much as 12,000 years. They utilized the vast amount of resources of the American River for shelter, clothes, baskets, and other goods before Europeans arrived in the late 18th century. The Nisenan called the river "Kum Mayo", meaning "roundhouse river".
American River
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The Middle Fork American River is one of the three main branches of the American River in Northern California. The river flows from its headwaters in the Sierra Nevada, in a generally southwest direction, to join the North Fork American River near Auburn.
Middle Fork American River
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The Russian River, a southward-flowing river, drains 1,485 square miles (3,846 km) of Sonoma and Mendocino counties in Northern California. With an annual average discharge of approximately 1,600,000 acre feet (2.0 km), it is the second-largest river (after the Sacramento River) flowing through the nine-county Greater San Francisco Bay Area, with a mainstem 110 miles (177 km.) long.
Russian River (California)
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The All-American Canal is an 80-mile (130 km) long aqueduct, located in southeastern California. It conveys water from the Colorado River into the Imperial Valley and to nine cities. It is the Imperial Valley's only water source, and replaced the Alamo Canal, which was located mostly in Mexico. The Imperial Dam, about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Yuma, Arizona on the Colorado River, diverts water into the All-American Canal, which runs to just west of Calexico, California before its last branch heads mostly north into the Imperial Valley. Five smaller canals branching off the All American Canal move water into the Imperial Valley. These canal systems irrigate up to 630,000 acres (250,000 ha) of crop land and have made possible a greatly increased crop yield in this area, originally one of the driest on earth. It is the largest irrigation canal in the world, carrying a maximum of 26,155 cubic feet per second (740.6 m/s). Agricultural runoff from the All American Canal drains into the Salton Sea.
All-American Canal
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In the coastal and southern parts of the state, and much of the Sacramento River system, the primary threat is rain floods in the November–April wet season. Oceanic "atmospheric river" or Pineapple Express storms can generate massive precipitation in a short period (often up to 50 percent of the total annual rainfall in just a few storms). This requires a certain safety margin to be maintained in reservoirs, which are often not allowed to capacity until late April or May. Shasta Lake, California's largest reservoir, is limited to approximately 71 percent of capacity in the winter in order to control rain flooding. Levees along Northern California rivers, such as the Sacramento and American rivers, are quite generously sized in order to pass large volumes of floodwater.
Droughts in California
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The boundaries of California were defined by Spanish claims of Mexico, as part of the province of Alta California. The northern boundary of Spanish claims was set at 42 degrees latitude by the Adams–Onis Treaty of 1819. The states of Nevada and Utah, also originally part of Alta California, also use that line for their northern boundaries. The southern boundary, between California and Mexico, was established by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican–American War in 1848. The line is about 30 miles north of the former Alta California southern boundary. The eastern boundary consists of two straight lines: a north-south line from the northern border to the middle of Lake Tahoe, and a second line angling southeast to the Colorado River. From that point, south-southwest of Davis Dam on Lake Mohave, the southeast boundary follows the Colorado River to the international border west of Yuma. The eastern and south-eastern boundaries were decided upon during the debates of the California Constitutional Convention in 1849.
Geography of California
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When it was open, the California Aqueduct Bikeway was the longest of the paved paths in the Los Angeles area, at long from Quail Lake near Gorman through the desert to Silverwood Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains. This path was closed in 1988 due to bicyclist safety and liability issues. It is expected to remain closed indefinitely due to the continued liability issues and an increased focus on security, especially after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Two major river systems drain and define the two parts of the Central Valley. Their impact on the California Aqueduct is both direct and indirect. The Sacramento River, along with its tributaries the Feather River and American River, flows southwards through the Sacramento Valley for about . In the San Joaquin Valley, the San Joaquin River flows roughly northwest for , picking up tributaries such as the Merced River, Tuolumne River, Stanislaus River and Mokelumne River.
California Aqueduct
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Historically, the American River, like many other rivers in California, were modified by the dams of beavers, until European trappers removed many of the beavers from their native habitat for their fur. Since the California Gold Rush was centered in an area that included the American River basin, it was one of the earlier California rivers to be populated, beginning at Leidesdorff Ranch, owned by William Leidesdorff. Water was used to drive grist mills. Gold miners dredged the riverbed and constructed diversion dams for hydraulic mining. Mining activity caused sediment and mercury waste to accumulate in the rivers. The Natoma Company completed its Folsom Powerhouse in 1895 and began delivering power 22 miles (35 km) away to the city of Sacramento to power a streetcar system.
American River