journalism Archives

Rivers

VIDEO: How the lower Kern River is divvied up

October 23, 2022

• by Lois Henry

Flows on the lower Kern River are split up among a hydra of canals starting just west of Hart Park. We talk with local experts who explain who owns those canals and where the water goes under the Law of the River. There’s a lot to learn so we’re splitting the lower Kern into two…

State System

State’s early zero-water-for-ag projection could have far reaching implications

December 13, 2021

• by Lois Henry

Storms hammering California this week will likely bump up the state’s Dec. 1 projection of zero water for agricultural contractors. But questions about how and why the Department of Water Resources made that projection – and what it means for the future – have left an unsettled wake among San Joaquin Valley agricultural water districts…

Drinking Water • Drought

VIDEO: How some valley residents cope as their homes teeter on the brink of going dry

December 6, 2021

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water reporting intern

SJV Water reporting trainee Jesse Vad traveled to rural Fairmeade and Toolville to talk to residents about what it’s like to live under the constant possibility of their homes going dry as groundwater tables dropped at the height of the 2021 drought….

Drinking Water • Drought

Summer of 2021, another dry-well-a-palooza

October 11, 2021

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water reporting intern

Phones were ringing practically non-stop at Self-Help Enterprises toward the end of this summer with valley residents all calling about the same problem: Their wells had gone dry. Employees were fielding 100s of calls a month from people whose wells had dried up, Marliez Diaz wrote in an email. Diaz is a water sustainability manager…

Drought

Water transfers helped farmers survive this year. Now, all eyes are on the coming water year

September 15, 2021

• by Jesse Vad, SJV Water reporting intern

Water transfers, trades and sales doubled this year as drought left San Joaquin Valley farmers scrambling for supplies. “This has been kind of an exceptional year for transfers,” said Sam Boland-Brien, program manager at the State Water Resources Control Board’s Division of Water Rights. Boland-Brien said he’s seen about twice the amount of transfers this…

Conservation • Drought • Federal System • Rivers • State System • Water Banking

Virtual Water Summit – May 25

April 20, 2021

• by Lois Henry

The Water Association of Kern County’s annual Water Summit is virtual this year but will still pack a punch of who’s who in the water world. The day kicks off with an update on water brought to the San Joaquin Valley via the federal Central Valley Project. The speaker will be Deputy Bureau of Reclamation…

Rivers

State will hear Kern River water rights case

April 2, 2021

• by Lois Henry

Is there water available on the Kern River and, if so, how much? Parties to the long-running river dispute will finally get a hearing by the State Water Resources Control Board on those questions, at least. The big question — who should get the water? — will have to wait. Still, this is the first…

Personalities • State System

New leaders named to Kern water districts

March 23, 2021

• by Lois Henry

The personnel deck of who’s who in Kern County water has shuffled recently at several agricultural water districts. The Rosedale-Rio Bravo and North Kern water storage districts both recently named new general managers. And the newly formed Westside Water Authority, made up of four different ag water districts, also brought on a new general manager….

Conservation • Drinking Water • Drought • Groundwater

Students find saving water “elementary”

March 16, 2021

• by Lois Henry

When a region’s groundwater is critically depleted and its dirt as hard as a frying pan, how do you refill the aquifer? Ask a fifth grader. Actually, ask the fifth and sixth grade combination class at Bakersfield’s Munsey Elementary School taught by Barbara Elrod. Elrod’s students discovered a pretty cool way to both conserve water…

Groundwater • Rivers

Double blast of lawsuits fired at proposed Kern groundwater bank

February 12, 2021

• by Lois Henry

A major water banking proposal northwest of Bakersfield that won coveted Proposition 1 funding in 2018, was hit by two lawsuits earlier this month, one claiming it is nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing intent on selling Kern River water to southern California. The City of Bakersfield and the Kern County Water Agency…

NEWS

VIDEO: How the lower Kern River is divvied up

State’s early zero-water-for-ag projection could have far reaching implications

VIDEO: How some valley residents cope as their homes teeter on the brink of going dry

Summer of 2021, another dry-well-a-palooza

Water transfers helped farmers survive this year. Now, all eyes are on the coming water year

Virtual Water Summit – May 25

State will hear Kern River water rights case

New leaders named to Kern water districts

Students find saving water “elementary”

Double blast of lawsuits fired at proposed Kern groundwater bank

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