Newsom announces three new Central Valley state parks in Fresno

Gov. Gavin Newsom used Earth Day in Fresno to pitch a major expansion of California’s park system, including a new San Joaquin River Parkway park upriver from the city that state officials say could expand access in one of the state’s most park-starved regions.

The State Parks Forward plan would add three new state parks, lift California’s total to 283 parks, and expand existing parks by 30,000 acres by the end of the decade. California State Parks called it the biggest expansion of the system in decades. Newsom made the announcement on the banks of the San Joaquin River near Fresno, at the site of one of the planned parks, and said the effort was designed to help more children and families connect with California’s natural beauty.

For Fresno and the broader Valley, the most immediate proposal is the San Joaquin River Parkway park, a roughly 874-acre site that would incorporate part of the San Joaquin River Conservancy’s 22-mile parkway in Fresno and Madera counties. The site is currently owned by the conservancy and sits immediately upriver from Fresno in a stretch of river corridor flanked by public properties with access on both sides of the San Joaquin River. State officials described it as a vital corridor with broad public, local and state support.

The other two parks would extend the effort beyond the Fresno area. Feather River Park would be in Yuba County and would become the first state park in that county. Dust Bowl Camp would preserve a former migrant farmworker camp near Bakersfield tied to The Grapes of Wrath, adding a historic site in Kern County to the system. Together, the three projects give the Valley a bigger role in a state park network that has often been concentrated elsewhere.

Newsom also pointed to legislation he signed in 2025, SB 630 and AB 679, which he said would speed up the acquisition of high-value properties for future park growth at little to no cost to the state. The administration framed the move as a response to federal threats and as an investment in recreation and conservation, while also emphasizing state access programs that have expanded in recent years.

The announcement built on the state’s recent park growth at Dos Rios, which was dedicated on Earth Day 2024 and opened to the public on June 12, 2024. That 1,600-acre site was described by the state as California’s largest public-private floodplain restoration project and its first new state park in a decade.