Tule Lake is an intermittent lake, in that it is occasionally filled up then dries out. But Tule Lake has been a dry lake for practically most of its existence; this lake was simply invisible, until now. Tule Lake is also an ancient lake (has existed for millions of years), one of only twenty. So what made it become a second thought for so long until now?
This large, ancient lake was drained by the Reclamation Service as a part of the Klamath Project in 1906 to make way for farmland. As such, it has remained a desolate cracked landscape, and it was certainly kept that way during California’s bout of droughts. But with the freak events of massive amounts of precipitation brought in by atmospheric rivers, Tule Lake is making a comeback, but at the cost at nearby residents.