March for the Kern River

About 30 hardy souls marched the length of the dry Kern River bed — nine miles — from near Manor Street in east Bakersfield all the way to Stockdale Highway Saturday morning to protest the lack of water in the river.

At the start of the hike, the group filled bottles and jugs with water from the river, which ends shortly after Manor Street as it’s divvied up by a hydra of irrigation canals.

Another 40 or so hikers joined the long-haulers at the Calloway bridge in the afternoon and together they hiked the final mile to Riverwalk Park.

The event was organized by local group Bring Back the Kern, as part of its ongoing campaign to bring awareness to the river.

Bakersfield Councilman Bob Smith was among the hikers and said the river changes the town, creating a “beautiful oasis.”

The city has been working to get water in the river, he told the group, through court and other actions as well as finding ways to deliver water, when it can, through the riverbed. But for the most part, unless California has a very wet year, the riverbed has remained mostly dry through town.

There will be a hearing Dec. 9 by the State Water Resources Control Board to determine the outcome of possibly available river water that was ruled forfeited by Kern Delta Water District back in 2007. The Water Board agreed in 2010 that the river was not fully appropriated but never said how much water might be available and who should get it.

The Dec. 9 hearing will begin the process of answering those questions. The city has applied for that forfeited water and promised to run it down the river bed.

The fight to get water into the river through town has been a long and complex process. But Smith was optimistic.

“I think we will have a river,” Smith told the crowd Saturday, emphasizing “will” as he poured out the Kern River water he’d carried nine miles from where the river’s flow had stopped.