WHO OWNS THE RIVER?

A Yowlumne Yokuts basket weaver tells the story of her family, who were the first people in the San Joaquin Valley to make a life along the flowing Kern River.

For centuries, the Tubatulabal tribe lived along the banks of the north and south forks of the Kern River in the Kern River Valley. Despite a massacre, starvation and land swindles, they are still there.

The Kern River’s flows on the valley flow are governed by a slew of court orders, decrees, contracts and agreements going back more than 150 years.

An ongoing lawsuit aims to get water back into the riverbed through Bakersfield under a concept known as “the Public Trust doctrine.”