What is the San Joaquin River?
Q: What is the San Joaquin River?
A: The San Joaquin River is one of the two major rivers of California in the United States. It is 330 miles (530 km) long and is the second longest river in California, after the Sacramento River.
Q: Where does it begin and end?
A: The San Joaquin River begins on the west Sierra Nevada Mountains and flows west and north to its end at San Francisco Bay, at the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Q: How large is its basin?
A: The basin of the San Joaquin River is about 32,000 square miles (82,879 square kilometers) in size.
Q: What are its three largest tributaries?
A: The three largest tributaries of the San Joaquin River are the Merced, Tuolumne, and Stanislaus rivers.
Q: How much of it has been taken away for irrigation?
A: Over 60 miles (97 km) of the river has been taken away for irrigation so that now 95 percent of its flow below Friant Dam is dry except during floods.
Q: What kind of pollution affects it? A: The San Joaquin River suffers from pollution caused by pesticides, selenium, and many other toxic materials which are carried into San Francisco Bay.
Q: What project has been started to restore it? A: One of the largest projects in the American West has been begun to restore the San Joaquin River - an agreement signed between Friant Dam users and US Department Of Interior which would reduce pollution below Friant Dam.
