More than 20 people showed up at Bakersfield’s City Council meeting Wednesday night to vent their frustration with a suddenly dry Kern River and ask what more the city can do.
The city’s response was hat they should go to the ag districts with river rights.
After Council Member Andrae Gonzales led a choreographed Q&A with city staffers to show that Bakersfield had run through its share of river water by the end of August, City Attorney Ginny Gennaro jumped in.
“I’ll be even more blunt,” she said. “Go to Kern Delta (Water District) and tell them about why you want water in the river. Go to North Kern (Water Storage District) and be as direct with them as you have been with us.”
After the city’s rights petered out last month, staff explained, the bulk of the river’s water is now gong to those districts, who take it out of the riverbed east of Manor Street.
“The City Attorney’s office and City Council have been doing everything in our power to keep water in the river and, at the same time, make sure we don’t get sued for violating our contracts,” Gennaro concluded.
It was an unsatisfactory response to attendees who have spent years advocating for water in the river.
“We’re here, we’re talking to you,” said Kelly Damian, a member of Bring Back the Kern, which is suing to get the city to study the environmental impact of its river operations. “We’ve signed petitions, written songs, done art projects, submitted photos, gone to court, sent emails, spoken to the state Water Resources Control Board and come to City Council. Our message is very clear: We want our river back.”
But the people need help from the council, she said. She beseeched council members to work collaboratively with the public and reach out to those other agencies and ag districts with river rights to find solutions that don’t always end by sacrificing the river.
Council Member Eric Arias acknowledge the city could have done a better job explaining to the public how the city’s water right controls its ability to provide flows in the river. The city had issued a press release on Sept. 3 stating flows would be cut in order for it to work on the Bellevue Weir at the Park at River Walk on Stockdale Highway.
But even if that work weren’t needed, the city’s share of river water under its right all but ceases at the end of August, city Water Resources Director Kristina Budak explained.
Still, Arias was dissatisfied with the outcome.
“More than 3,000 dead fish is a failure,” he said, in reference to comments by Rae McNeish, a California State University, Bakersfield biology professor who’s been studying the river through this summer. She said she and her students had counted more than 3,000 dead fish within the 1.5 mile Bakersfield Environmental Studies Area, which includes the river from about Calloway Drive to Coffee Road.
Arias made a referral to staff for the city to create a standing committee including Water Resources, the Parks Department and possibly other departments and invite public groups to collaborate on river issues.
Attorneys representing Bring Back the Kern and co-plaintiff Water Audit California in the ongoing lawsuit against Bakersfield, have argued that the contracts and agreements involving river water that the city is honoring actually come second to the Public Trust Doctrine, which holds that the state owns all natural resources in trust for the public. And the state must put those resources to the highest beneficial use – which includes the environment and public access.
Bakersfield bought rights to the river back in 1976 along with the entire river bed and its banks. It also owns or operates six weirs that control water through the river from near Hart Park out to about Enos Lane. With those rights and facilities, it inherited a complex set of rules on how much water to deliver to each of the other rights holders, including Kern Delta, North Kern, Buena Vista Water Storage District and the Kern County Water Agency.
That set of rules is known colloquially as “the law of the river.”
In 2022, Bring Back the Kern and several other groups sued Bakersfield saying it must study those river operations under the Public Trust Doctrine. That lawsuit is ongoing.
Related to that suit, a preliminary injunction mandating the city keep enough water in the river for fish was issued in fall 2023. But it was paused in May 2024 after agricultural water districts with rights to the river appealed the injunction to the 5th District Court of Appeal.
A hearing on the appeal has not been set. Meanwhile, the lawsuit seeking a study is continuing in Kern County Superior Court.
