Global Courant
CORCORAN, California —
A few years ago, Makram Hanna drew his savings from years of working in real estate and decided to make a major investment along with relatives and two other families. They bought 1270 acres of farmland in Kings County and planted pistachio trees in 2021.
Many of those trees, which have yet to produce a crop, are now under two feet of water.
“It’s a disaster,” Hanna said, standing with her arms crossed beside rows of flooded pistachio trees. “Huge losses.”
Jose Pineda squeezes a handful of soil to check moisture levels as he works Makram Hanna’s pistachio orchard.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
The floodwater covers hundreds of acres on the farm. Hanna fears that many of the trees will not survive.
The return of Tulare Lake after this year’s major storms has left Hanna and his family with a costly ordeal – and many questions about how they might recover from the loss.
“To see everything we’ve worked for going into the trash is very difficult,” he said. “We have to think about the future and where we will get money from to rebuild our farm. It is very difficult.”
The lake has reappeared before in wet years, such as 1969, 1983 and 1997. And many of the flooded fields were planted with seasonal crops such as tomatoes, cotton and safflower. For these types of crops, growers can simply evacuate sprinklers and other equipment to wait out the flood.
However, tree crops take more expensive damage. And in recent years, landowners have planted more pistachio orchards around the Tulare Basin and in other parts of the San Joaquin Valley. Some of those orchards proved vulnerable as rivers, swollen with runoff, broke through levees and flooded farmlands.
A breach in the Boyett Levee flooded hundreds of acres of Makram Hanna’s pistachio farm. The breach allowed water from rising Tulare Lake, in the left foreground, to flow and flood the orchard.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
For Hanna, who commutes to the farm from his home in San Diego County each week, dealing with the flooding and saving the remaining trees is a stressful challenge.
The 68-year-old immigrated to the United States from Egypt in 1979, and he said overseeing the pistachio farm often reminds him of his childhood, when he worked summers on his grandmother’s small cotton farm.
Months ago he enjoyed walking through the rows and inspecting the trees. But lately he’s been trying to find ways to limit the damage.
“My focus is to find a solution to this disaster,” said Hanna. “What should we do not to lose everything? Because right now it looks like we’re about to lose everything.”
Of the more than 1,200 acres of pistachio trees on the farm, Hanna said, more than 800 acres are under water, while about 450 acres are dry or nearly dry.
On a recent afternoon, Hanna devised a strategy to get a diesel engine working to pump water to irrigate dry areas of the farm and keep those trees alive.
He said he struggled with other questions as well: “When the waters are going to recede. And where will we get the money to rehabilitate our ranch? And should we rehabilitate the ranch? Can it still be saved?”
If Hanna and his partners decide to remove dead trees and plant new ones, the costs would be high. Replanting a single acre of pistachios can cost about $20,000.
Hanna said the farm has liability insurance, but he doubts it will cover much of the flood damage.
He said he expects his family and their partners to bear significant losses.
“What should we do not to lose everything? Because right now it looks like we’re about to lose everything.”
— Makram Hannah
Farmer Makram Hanna stands next to his flooded pistachio orchard.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“All my savings, all my inheritance, and all my brother and sister’s inheritance, it’s all right here,” Hanna said.
For Hanna, the flood comes as a sudden shock after years of corporate success.
As a young man, he studied molecular biology at Cal State Northridge, and later did odd jobs from construction to bussing tables. He eventually started selling real estate, including auto shops and buildings on industrial estates, and also developed gas stations.
“I was living the American dream,” Hanna said. “The reality is, whatever the job, just be persistent and you’ll succeed.”
The pistachio farm isn’t Hanna’s first farming venture. He started with 40 acres of wine grapes in Madera in the early 2000s and grew it on his own until he decided to pool resources with relatives and two other families to invest in the farm near Corcoran.
Hanna said they studied the area before deciding to buy the land.
The farm was used for row crops at the time. But Hanna and his partners saw neighboring farms planted with almonds and pistachios, and they opted for pistachios.
Farm manager Jose Pineda pauses as he tends young pistachio trees near Makram Hanna’s flooded land.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Many other farmers have made the same decision over the past two decades by planting pistachios or almonds instead of other crops. Between 2002 and 2022, California total pistachio acreage skyrocketed from 106,000 acres to 554,000 acres. In addition to being profitable, pistachios are hardy trees that can thrive with moderately saline water and soil, which is widespread in parts of the valley.
Hanna said another reason he wanted to plant pistachios is that he sees the nuts as an “eco-friendly” crop. He praised the trees’ ability to store carbon and said his farm’s water use — about 2.7 acre-feet per acre per year — was less than fields that produce tomatoes, cotton and corn three rotations a year.
Hanna said he was not aware of previous flooding on the land. However, a map of the 1983 flood shows that the property was submerged during the return of Lake Tulare.
In May, as the floodwaters rose, Hanna inspected the dike that protected the farm. It had been built by farmers decades ago and he said an engineer told him it would break.
When the levee finally gave way on May 23, water poured through the breach into the farm, flooding the trees.
Hanna was flying back to San Diego on a commercial flight and was looking down at the area from a window seat when he saw the floodwaters pouring into his farm.
An aerial view of Makram Hanna’s flooded pistachio orchard after a nearby levee breach allowed water from Lake Tulare to flow onto the property.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“The intrusion of the water after the levee broke was violent and there was no way you could control it,” said Hanna.
As he spoke, the pond next to the orchard was filled with wading birds, including avocet and stilt. The smell of soggy mud hung in the air.
Nearby, a California Conservation Corps crew was reinforcing the levee that protects the town of Corcoran.
In the distance, the hum of an airboat could be heard from the lake. PG&E crews on airboats were removing equipment from power poles after cutting electricity in the area.
In anticipation of the flood and power outage, Hanna’s workers moved pumps and installed the diesel engine. In early June, Hanna said he was trying to have a diesel tank placed next to the engine to get some of the pumps running again.
Three weeks later, Hanna said workers were trying to repair the levee and were pumping water from the flooded part of the orchard.
Farmer Makram Hanna snaps a photo of a berm he believes was built by a neighboring farmer to keep the floodwaters from reaching a wheat field, right.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“We are not giving up. This could completely bankrupt us, but we don’t want to fail to try,” he said.
Hanna said he is thankful that a third of the farm was spared by the floodwaters, which are beginning to recede.
“I hope and pray it gets better,” he said.
Hanna, a Coptic Christian, said his wife tried to reassure him by reminding him that “it’s all tangible”. Still, Hanna said the worries are hard to escape and he has trouble sleeping.
“I only slept two hours last night,” he said. “It’s stressful. But you know, I have my family and I have my faith, and that helps. And I also have good partners.”
Aside from his own situation, Hanna said he is concerned that California has not invested enough in water infrastructure projects, such as a long-discussed plan to increase water storage with raising Pine Flat Dam.
If that dam was raised 12 feet as proposed, Hanna said, “It would make a lot of sense for everyone, for every farmer in that area.”
He said he thinks projects like this would help as climate change brings more intense flooding.
“If we had control over that water, we wouldn’t have the dire problem we’re facing now,” Hanna said.
Some other people in the area, including leaders of the Santa Rosa Rancheria Tachi Yokut tribe, have suggested setting aside some farmland for the lake to continue rather than draining it again.
But Hanna said he thinks that if Pine Flat Reservoir were expanded, more water could be stored and gradually released to replenish the area’s depleted groundwater and sustain agriculture and wildlife habitats.
“The government must take the lead and inject capital to build water projects that benefit our environment, our residents and farmers,” he said.
As he struggled with the floods, Hanna said he continued to pay farm workers. He was talking to a contractor to get a crew to prune trees and do other work.
Birds, like this great egret, forage in the water at Makram Hanna’s flooded pistachio farm.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“By the grace of God we have two fields here that are being saved,” he said. “As far as I am concerned, they are saved. So we are going to work on it.”
As for the trees that remain under water, Hanna said he doesn’t know how many could be lost.
“The reality is we have to wait and see what happens,” he said.
