California to open first new state park in 13 years

MODESTO — At a scenic spot where two rivers meet amid sprawling almond orchards and ranchlands between San Jose and Modesto, California’s state park system is about to get bigger.

On Friday, as part of his revised May budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom is scheduled to announce that the state is acquiring 2,100 acres near the confluence of the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers to become a new state park — an area rich with wildlife and brimming with possibilities to reduce flood risk and restore some of California’s lost natural heritage.

The property in Stanislaus County, 40 miles east of San Jose and 10 miles west of Modesto, is known as Dos Rios Ranch. It will become the first new state park established since 2009, when the U.S. Army donated four miles of beaches in Monterey County to become Fort Ord Dunes State Park.

That 13-year gap in new parks is the longest since the state parks department was created in 1927.

“This will provide incredible public access,” said State Parks Director Armando Quintero as he toured Dos Rios Ranch on Wednesday, binoculars in hand. “People will be able to hike on trails, and fish and paddle the river.”

More than 68 million people a year visit California’s 279 state parks, a nationally renowned collection of spectacular beaches, ancient redwood forests and historic sites that include everything from the shores of Lake Tahoe to the summit of Mount Diablo and the Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

Environmental groups have lamented for years that former Gov. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger failed to keep pace with the growing population’s need for new parks, particularly in low-income areas, as they underfunded the state parks system and attempted to close dozens of parks to balance the state budget.

Now as California enjoys budget surpluses, Newsom’s administration says it is trying to regain momentum.

In an editorial board meeting April 29 with the Bay Area News Group, Newsom cited $548 million in new state grants announced last December to boost city and county parks, many of which were flooded with people seeking exercise during COVID lockdowns, and a new program championed by his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, to allow people to check out free state parks passes in libraries.

“My mom was a rec director, and I was a big parks advocate as a supervisor and mayor, and I’m really proud of the work we are doing,” Newsom said. “We have a number of acquisitions that we are in advanced negotiations on.”

Last year, state parks officials attempted to purchase a sprawling, hilly 50,000-acre property near Livermore to establish a new state park. The N3 Ranch extends across Santa Clara, Alameda, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties. Twice the size of San Francisco, it is home to tule elk, mountain lions, bald eagles and other wildlife.

But the owners, a Southern California family, sold the property instead at the last minute for $63 million to an East Bay businessman and rancher, William Brown.

“We got played on that. I’m still raw about it,” Newsom said.

The Dos Rios Ranch offers a different landscape but one that is also quintessentially Californian.

The riverfront property east of Interstate 5 was assembled from two former ranches used mostly to grow hay, alfalfa and other feed for dairy cows. Under the deal, River Partners, an environmental group based in Chico, purchased the two ranches for $32 million in 2012 and 2014, much of it with grants from federal and state agencies, along with private donations.

Since then the group has worked tirelessly to restore the landscape.

Workers have planted more than 350,000 trees, shrubs and other plants, including cottonwoods, willows, wild blackberry and wild rose. They altered earthen berms along the rivers that dated back to the 1930s to allow water to flood back over the banks during wet winter storms, as it did historically.

That, said Julie Rentner, president of River Partners, not only restores wildlife, such as sandhill cranes, ducks and fall-run Chinook salmon, but it also allows the water to spread out and seep slowly back into the ground, recharging aquifers and reducing flooding pressure downstream in Manteca and Stockton. She said her organization has 48 similar floodplain restoration projects ongoing between San Diego and Redding.

“The Central Valley used to have hundreds of thousands of acres like this,” she said. “When this property floods, it’s like the bayou.”

Located on the Pacific Flyway, the ranch, which now has 20-foot-high trees where flat hayfields grew 10 years ago, is a stopover for more than 250 species of migrating birds from Canada and Alaska, including the endangered Aleutian Canada Goose. It is also home to neo-tropical song birds and endangered species such as brush rabbits and Swainson’s Hawks.

“Lots of wildlife are responding,” Rentner said, ambling along one of the trails. “Birds are moving in like crazy. There hadn’t been deer on this property for 60 years. Now they are back. Can you imagine walking down this path with your kids? It’s just gorgeous.”

The state expects to take title to the land, which River Partners will donate, by the end of next year, and public access will begin in late 2023, Quintero said. Newsom’s budget will shift $5 million to draft a general plan, conduct title searches and research potential legal claims and easements, and to cover other costs.

Parking lots, restrooms, interpretive signs on trails and picnic areas should be built in less than five years, with plans after that for a campground, he added. Quintero noted that the San Joaquin Valley has the fewest state parks of any region in the state.

“It’s about owning your sense of place,” he said. “You don’t have to only go to the coast or the Sierra to experience nature. It’s all around us.”