Tuesday May 17, 2022
SF Gate —
A 2,100-acre riverfront property once home to dairy pastures and vast almond orchards is slated to become California’s newest state park and will be regularly accessible to the public for the first time ever after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that he will allocate $15 million in the state’s revised budget toward the project.
Nestled between the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers, Dos Rios Ranch in Modesto will be California’s first state park in 13 years – the longest the state has gone without introducing a new park since the department was founded in 1927. It’s a welcome addition to the San Joaquin Valley, which has fewer state parks than any other region in the state, according to state parks director Armando Quintero.
The park will not only offer scenic views of the California landscape as it looked more than 150 years ago, but also provide restored habitats for endangered animals to thrive, such as the sandhill crane, the riparian brush rabbit and Central Valley Chinook salmon, a species that wildlife officials said had been practically decimated amid drought impacts last year.