Why does the salinas river flow north

Once established, it has the ability to out-compete and completely suppress native vegetation. Any control of this invasive plant will have a direct impact on the quality of this habitat and preventing the further proliferation of Arundo downstream. Landowners and wildlife along the Salinas River are threatened by two major, interconnected problems: Proliferation of the invasive weed Arundo donax, and the high risk of the river flooding valuable land in wet years. Salinas Valley Water Project.

Salinas River Arundo Control Program. The atypical drought-breaking rains of the winter of — restored the river's flow to its lower northern reaches in January In when the river was first discovered by non-Native peoples via the Portola expedition, it was reported by them as being a "river watering a luxuriant plain" filled with fish weighing 8 to 10 pounds 3.

As of the end of , the river had been transformed into little more than a dry bedded run-off feature for the majority of its length. Nonetheless, with sufficiently heavy rains, and on rare occasions, this now normally dry runoff feature is still capable of quickly transforming itself back into a fast flowing river. In rainfall induced flood conditions, it can at times measure over a mile in width. During the 20th century, such flood conditions are reported to have generally occurred approximately once every 3 to 10 years.

The last similar flooding event along the river was reported in The current most typical dry or zero flow state of the majority of the river may be more the result of human activity than of any recent changes in weather patterns. Rainfall patterns of recent years in the Salinas area have not significantly changed from historical average rainfall patterns; the year average annual rainfall in Salinas is Recent increases in water use, primarily in the agricultural sector, and the damming of the river and its tributaries may be contributing factors causing the now mostly dry condition of the riverbed.

The Monterey County Water Resources Agency currently operates a water usage monitoring program which requires that all agricultural water users self-report annually on the estimated amount of groundwater pumped from the shrinking Salinas Valley aquifer.

This is in contrast to some areas of the country where various water authorities both monitor, and also regulate water usage by agricultural water users. The previous ecosystem of the Salinas River, which once included steelhead trout, and numerous other species throughout the full length of a once year-round flowing river, has clearly been drastically impacted in recent years by the expanding heavy demands of agricultural water use in the Salinas Valley, and the resulting most typical dry-river conditions.

The ancient geological history of the Salinas River is currently held by tectonic plate theory to most probably be rather unique amongst the many rivers of the North American Western Seaboard. The discovery of the great submarine canyon at the mouth of the Salinas River, the Monterey Canyon is the primary basis for this theory of what is now held to be the most probable and singular ancient geological history for the Salinas River.

The uniquely long and deep submarine Monterey Canyon, located at the mouth of the Salinas River dwarfs all other such canyons along the Pacific edge of the North American continent.

Still, the known flow-properties of the Salinas River in no way seem to indicate a river capable of creating such a large submarine outflow canyon. For these reasons it is now theorized that at one point, probably many millions of years ago in the Miocene epoch , due to tectonic plate drift as currently calculated, the river was then most probably located in the vicinity of what is now current day Los Angeles, and at that time may have served as the ancient mouth of the then Colorado River.

The Salinas River is also thought to have drained prehistoric Lake Corcoran , which once occupied much of what is now California's Central Valley about , years ago, prior to the valley developing an outlet via the Carquinez Strait into what is now San Francisco Bay. At the time of man's first appearance along the California coast approximately 13, years ago, during the latter part of the Pleistocene epoch , and on up until the age of the European discovery and exploration of Alta California , the Indigenous peoples who lived along the Salinas River were the Rumsen in the northern Salinas Valley , and the Salinan in the southern Salinas Valley.

The Chalon and Esselen peoples also lived in areas adjacent to the river. The Salinas river was first sighted by Europeans on September 27, As was the practice of the Spanish government in the New World at the time, soldiers and priests were then typically sent out on such colonizing expeditions. The Mission San Antonio de Padua was also established during this same time period in the Salinas valley, but not on the river itself.

These three missions were a part of the chain of 21 missions , then commissioned by the Spanish government in what is now the American State of California. All three of these missions remain to this day, the Soledad mission having evolved into the city of Soledad , and the San Miguel mission having evolved into the unincorporated village of San Miguel. As a result of the San Francisco earthquake , the river mouth at Monterey Bay was diverted 6 miles south from an area between Moss Landing and Watsonville to a new channel just north of Marina.

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