Part 1: As we journey the length of the San Joaquin River, one question will not go away. Is it possible that the fate of this one river in the most productive agricultural region in the world, California’s Central Valley, offers a chance to restore the historical balance between nature and the mark of humans on the land?

The Valley and the Lake is a four-part Film Odyssey focused on water issues, conflicts and hopes in California’s Central Valley, the breadbasket of the world and also the most human altered landscape on the planet.