California’s big park push

California moved to add three new state parks on April 22, a Central Valley-focused expansion that would raise the statewide total to 283. (gov.ca.gov) Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the plan on Earth Day near Fresno as part of an initiative called State Parks Forward. California State Parks said it would also seek to add 30,000 acres to existing parks by the end of the decade. (parks.ca.gov) The three proposed parks are Feather River Park in Yuba County, San Joaquin River Parkway near Fresno, and Dust Bowl Camp in Bakersfield. KTLA reported the additions would be the biggest growth of the system in decades if they are approved. (ktla.com) Feather River Park is the largest of the three sites, with nearly 2,000 acres along the Feather River in Olivehurst. California State Parks said the land is now owned by the Three Rivers Levee Improvement Authority and includes floodplain and restored habitat. (parks.ca.gov) San Joaquin River Parkway would add a state park near Fresno in a region Newsom used for the announcement itself. State officials said the new parks are aimed at communities in the Central Valley that have had less access to state parkland than other parts of California. (parks.ca.gov) Dust Bowl Camp is the smallest site, at about two acres, but it carries the most explicit historical mission. Local reporting said it preserves some of California’s last original Dust Bowl-era camp buildings and would become the state’s first park focused directly on that migrant worker history. (yourcentralvalley.com) That history reaches back to the 1930s, when the Sunset Migratory Labor Camp near Bakersfield housed farmworkers who came west during the Great Depression. Coverage in Northern California newspapers said the site helped inspire parts of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” (pressdemocrat.com) The park push also builds on Newsom’s earlier park expansion at Dos Rios, which he dedicated on April 22, 2024, as California’s first new state park in a decade. In this week’s announcement, state officials tied the new plan to California’s “Outdoors for All” and “30x30” conservation goals. (parks.ca.gov) State officials said recent laws — Senate Bill 630 and Assembly Bill 679, both signed in 2025 — are meant to speed acquisitions of high-value park land at little or no cost to the state. The next step is the acquisition and planning process needed to turn the three proposed sites into full state parks. (gov.ca.gov)