Kern River spurs challengers to seek seats on water board

Two challengers hoping to win seats this November on the Kern County Water Agency board of directors were both moved to run because of the Kern River.

“The more I started hearing about different topics, the constraints on the flows of the river, I thought this doesn’t make sense. Why can’t we find a better way? That’s what drove me here,” said Daneya Williams, a Kernville resident and manager of Whitewater Voyages.

She is vying for the Division 2 seat, which covers a huge swath of eastern Kern County, held by incumbent Laura Cattani, a longtime local rancher.

Cattani, who has served on the board since 2021, responded to SJV Water’s interview requests that her schedule did not allow for an interview in time for this story.

The other challenger, who’s vying for incumbent Tammy Johnson’s Division 4 seat, is Mary Parada, a Spanish professor at California State University, Bakersfield.

After moving to Bakersfield from Chicago, where the river is a vibrant part of that city’s life, Parada said she was perplexed by the perpetually dry Kern River bed. She got involved with local group Bring Back the Kern and started learning about the river and other water issues.

“I learned more about the river and about this agency and problems around transparency, accountability and representation and that got me fired up,” she said.

Bring Back the Kern, is a local public interest group dedicated to increasing flows in the Kern River through Bakersfield. The group is also suing the City of Bakersfield for how it operates the river.

The Kern County Water Agency is heavily involved in that lawsuit as a “real party in interest” because it owns rights to high flow water on the Kern River.

Both challengers stressed the need for more transparency and community involvement at the agency, which they noted is partly funded through public taxes so the public should have greater consideration.

“It’s a great organization,” Williams said of the Kern County Water Agency. “But it needs to broaden its horizons in terms of accepting more views from the public and listening to more people.

“The future is looking so different, in terms of population, technology and climate.”

The agency needs fresh perspectives on how to meet the challenges of that future, she said.

Both acknowledged that serving on the Kern County Water Agency board would come with a “high learning curve.”

“It is daunting and I know there’s much to learn,” Parada said. “But this is part of the problem. The public doesn’t know about this board and it has such a big impact.”

Johnson, Vice President of Operations for California Water Service, was appointed to the Division 4 seat in December 2025 but was no stranger to the agency having worked in urban water for more than 40 years.

Even so, she said, she went through 40 to 50 hours of orientation to learn about the Kern County Water Agency after her appointment.

“It’s no joke,” she said of the time commitment required of board members. She learned about water policies, contracts, exchanges, funding, law, history and much more in order to get a clear understanding of agency operations.

On top of that basic training, she has made a point to attend water district meetings within Division 4 boundaries, which covers the entire southwest corner of Kern, from Highways 58 and 99 all the way to the county line.

“You have to get yourself out there and work with the ag districts and learn their priorities,” she said. “And I make myself available to anyone if people want to sit down and talk. Especially about conflicting priorities.”

Johnson said because of her background in urban water, she does bring a more consumer-oriented, perspective to what she acknowledged was an “ag-centric” board.

She said she appreciates that the challengers for the two director seats became interested in water through the Kern River, but the public also needs to understand the current and future demands on the river.

“The priority is drinking water, it has to be,” she said. “I see that growing, not diminishing.”

CalWater is the main domestic supplier for Bakersfield and uses a mix of Kern River and groundwater for its two treatment plants.

Looking into the future 20 or 30 years, she said, with access to groundwater tightening under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, “Bakersfield will be more dependent on surface water supplies from the Kern River.”

Before serving on the Kern County Water Agency, Johnson managed the CalWater’s Visalia district and served on the Tulare County Water Commission and Greater Kaweah Groundwater Sustainability Agency.

“That gave me experience in understanding the entire process so when I understand what the issues are, the terminology and the technical reports,” she said. 

The Kern County Water Agency is also one of three agencies that make up the Kern River Groundwater Sustainability Agency

Both Parada and Williams said they are up for the challenge of delving into the agency’s various duties and will bring their own skills to the table. 

Williams has spent more than 20 years managing retail stores with $5 million-plus in sales and more than 100 employees, according to her website. She juggled all aspects including budgets, accounting, human relations and vendor relations.

In that time, she’s also guided river tours and been certified in swift-water rescues.

Parada said learning is what she does for a living, noting that earning a doctorate, which she has in hispanic linguistics, what you learn is how much you need to learn.

“My life is built around curiosity and analytical skills,” she said. Now that her children are older, she said she will have the time to devote those skills to the Kern County Water Agency.

“I feel like there’s a lot of room for improvement at the Kern County Water Agency,” she said. “People can become complacent and take a paternalistic approach to the public when, in fact, they are funded in part by taxes. But there doesn’t seem to be an urgency for dialogue with the public.”

If nothing else, she and Williams said, they hope their candidacies spark greater interest in the agency.

Two other director seats are also up for election this year, though neither has a challenger.

Those are the Division 5 seat held by Bill Wulff, Jr. who used to run the water treatment plant under the agency’s Improvement District No. 4; and the Division 1 seat held by Jay Kroeker, a longtime farmer in western Kern County.

Agency basics

The Kern County Water Agency manages $371 million in funds and employs 55 people.

It is one of the most powerful water boards in Kern and, as the second largest contractor for State Water Project water, it wields a lot of clout statewide as well.

It administers the state contract on behalf of 13 mostly agricultural water districts called member units, which pay the agency a fee for that service.

The agency also treats and provides wholesale supplies to urban water purveyors serving large sections of east Bakersfield. 

It is one of six entities that control the massive Kern Water Bank and runs its own Pioneer Groundwater Bank separately.

The agency also controls the movement of significant amounts of water into and out of the county through its Cross Valley Canal, which can move water east and west from the California Aqueduct, connecting to numerous other canals all the way to central Bakersfield.