What is San Joaquin River?
[[Image:SanJoaquin watershed.png|thumb|right|250px|Map of the course of the San Joaquin River and its tributaries]] The '''San Joaquin River''' is one of the two major [[river]]s of [[California]], in the [[United States]]. At {{convert|330|mi|km}} long, it is the second longest river in California, after the [[Sacramento River]].<ref name=sjb>{{cite web|url=http://www.sanjoaquinbasin.com/san-joaquin-river.html|title=San Joaquin Basin: San Joaquin River|publisher=San Joaquin Basin|accessdate=2009-03-28|archive-date=2009-03-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326001826/http://sanjoaquinbasin.com/san-joaquin-river.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> It begins on the west [[Sierra Nevada (US)|Sierra Nevada]] Mountains and flows west and north to its end at [[San Francisco Bay]], at the [[Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta]]. Its basin, which is about 32,000 square miles (82,879 square kilometers) in size, contains mostly [[Farm|farmland]]. The river provides [[drinking water]] to over 22 million California citizens. Its three largest [[Tributary|tributaries]] are the [[Merced River|Merced]], [[Tuolumne River|Tuolumne]], and [[Stanislaus River|Stanislaus]] rivers.<ref name=nrdc>{{cite web|url=http://www.nrdc.org/water/conservation/sanjoaquin.asp|title=Restoring the San Joaquin River|publisher=Natural Resources Defense Council|accessdate=2009-03-28}}</ref> The river was once one of the richest river [[ecosystem]]s in California. However, now over {{convert|60|mi|km}} of the river is dry except during [[flood]]s, because lots of water has been taken away for [[irrigation]]. In fact, below [[Friant Dam]], a dam built in the 1940s on the San Joaquin River, 95 percent of the river's flow is dry. Much of the river is [[Pollution|polluted]], destroying the historic population of chinook [[salmon]], once the southernmost in the United States. [[Pesticide]]s, [[selenium]], and many more toxic materials are carried by the San Joaquin into San Francisco Bay.<ref name=nrdc/> Now, one of the largest projects in the American Wes