Tuolumne River Trust Celebrates Opening of California’s Newest State Park

We are thrilled to celebrate the grand opening of Dos Rios, California’s newest State Park. This project, initiated by Tuolumne River Trust (TRT) over twenty years ago, offers a vision of the future where restoration and recreation seamlessly come together.

On Wednesday, June 12th, the park officially opened to the public. A symbolic handing off of a giant key from TRT and River Partners to California State Parks marked the event, witnessed by state and local leaders, key partners, and community members.

Governor Gavin Newsom expressed, “Our state parks are a point of pride and inspiration for Californians and visitors from around the world. Today, we celebrate the opening of Dos Rios – our first new State Park in a decade – which creates new outdoor recreation opportunities for Central Valley communities, provides habitat for threatened and endangered wildlife, and advances the state’s innovative efforts to combat the climate crisis using nature-based solutions.” 

Located about 8 miles west of Modesto in the San Joaquin Valley, the approximately 1,600-acre Dos Rios property is the largest public-private floodplain restoration project in California to restore habitat for threatened and endangered wildlife at the Tuolumne and San Joaquin Rivers. 

California’s Central Valley once boasted 4 million acres of floodplains, but by the mid-1800s, 70% of these ecosystems were transformed for agricultural use. The devastating floods of 1997 highlighted the need to let rivers flood naturally, creating an opportunity to integrate parks and recreation with flood management.

Dos Rios’s transition from a working ranch to a public park has been a long time in the making. In the early 2000s, TRT’s Executive Director Patrick Koepele began seeking private landowners who shared a vision for wetland restoration. After several years of TRT’s diligent work, Patrick met the Lyons family, and the seeds of an innovative partnership began to germinate. 

The Lyons family, Central Valley farmers, had a conservation ethic already threading through their agricultural lives. Bill Lyons Sr, a third-generation farmer, worked with the US Fish and Wildlife Service on the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge, and the family had initiated ecological projects of their own. As one example, they grew alfalfa and forage mix to benefit the threatened Aleutian Cackling Goose. Due in part to the work of the Lyons family and others along the goose’s migratory route, this species recovered and is now off the endangered species list—a rare reversal.

Once the Lyons family committed to returning Dos Rios Ranch to its pre-agricultural character, purchasing the land took ten years. This sense of time and labor is imbued with the logic of the river itself: A slow, steady trickle of work turns into a flowing project, endlessly interconnected with many collaborators along the way. In partnership with River Partners, TRT raised $22 million to purchase the ranch by 2012. This collaborative effort has secured a future for the diverse species and ecosystems of the valley floodplain.

“Seeing Dos Rios officially open after two decades of dedicated effort fills me with immense pride and gratitude. This park represents the culmination of countless hours of hard work, collaboration, and unwavering commitment to restoring a vital piece of California’s Central Valley floodplains. Every visit, every educational tour, and every bike ride through the park contributes to our ongoing efforts to protect these vital ecosystems for future generations. I couldn’t be more thrilled to share this incredible resource with our community,” Patrick shares. 

While the trees are still young, we envision a future where gallery forests of Valley Oaks and Cottonwoods provide habitat for thousands of birds. Visitors will enjoy biking through riparian forests, paddling on the river, and fishing in the serene waters. Our goal is to connect local communities with the great outdoors, nurturing a lifelong relationship with nature.

The collaborative creation of Dos Rios speaks to networks of support that play out over expansive timescales and geographies with many species, ecosystems, and human communities in partnership throughout the watershed. This collective energy connects whole ecosystems and supports river health from the Central Valley to the San Francisco Bay and beyond.