http://www.bakersfield.com/special-sections/take-our-river-back/2010/05/06/lois-henry-river-divides-agency-city.html
It could not be more clear that putting water in the Kern River was one of the goals of a series of projects proposed by the Kern County Water Agency back in 2000.
The very title of the document used to apply for $23 million in state bond money was “Kern River Restoration and Water Supply Program.”
Paragraphs like this were rife throughout the document:
“The project plans to assure through acquisition of the Lower Right and by annual water exchanges with local water districts having other Kern River Water rights, that the heart of the City of Bakersfield (from Manor Street downstream to Allen Road) will enjoy a 12 mile stretch of re-watered Kern River, at least from May through September.”
It worked. The Agency got its $23 million in taxpayer money, bought the Lower River (or Hacienda right) for $10 million from the Nickel family and built its facilities.
And that document that glowingly promised taxpayer money would help restore the river?
It’s been used over and over for the last 10 years as blanket environmental paperwork allowing Kern River water to be sold to support urban sprawl hundreds of miles away.
Meanwhile, the river remains dry.
Good deal for Kern
The Agency argues it has lived up to promises made in that 2000 document, a negative declaration.
And it has done a great deal to re-wet the river even though that was never the intent of the projects funded by the 2000 bond money, insisted General Manager Jim Beck.
“We’ve consistently demonstrated a willingness toward restoring the river as related to the Kern River Parkway plan and I feel the Agency has complied with the spirit of that negative declaration,” he said.
The Parkway plan was a collaborative agreement that put water from the Agency and the city in the river during summer. The water was already destined for river flows, the agreement simply moved it to summertime.
But the Agency pulled out of the Parkway agreement, which it heralded in the 2000 document as “landmark,” a few years after getting the bond money.
And wells that were funded with $3 million of that $23 million and were intended to put water in the river during dry years have never been used. The Agency said the city was supposed to foot the operating bill, even though the 2000 document states that in dry years, “KCWA pumps the Urban wells.” The city has said operating the wells was too expensive.
Beck said the Agency had to pull out of the Parkway agreement because water purveyors, including the city, demanded more treated water, which meant the agency had to expand its plant and pull water from other sources like the river.
“We had no choice in that matter.”
Yes, the city and others asked for more treated water which required expansion of the plant. It should be finished later this year.
The Agency, however, yanked its water from the Parkway agreement in 2006.
A curious stance
While this could all be considered water long gone under the bridge, it does serve as a curious backdrop to an even more curious stance by the Agency against the city’s latest quest to get water in the river.
About 50,000 acre feet a year of Kern River rights were deemed forfeit by an upstream water district. The city has applied to the State Water Resources Control Board for that water.
Four other agricultural water districts — including the Agency — also applied for it.
Only the city has promised to run the water down the river.
If the city gets it, that would actually help the Agency live up to promises made in its 2000 document as well as those made back in the 1970s to run excess water down the river to recharge groundwater in exchange for charging the public well and property taxes for its water treatment operation.
Yet the Agency has joined the other ag districts against the city, filing joint petitions to try and keep the state out of the Kern River and even having their attorneys work together at hearings.
Beck didn’t see it that way.
“We’re not fighting against the city,” he said. “The actions we’ve taken are to ensure we have a say in defending our rights to the Kern River Water we’ve acquired. Our decision to file a petition with the state was defensive.”
That has proved prudent, he said, as the state board found there is loose water on the river based on flood waters that escape to the California Aqueduct.
“That is of grave concern to the Agency,” he said because the Agency’s river rights, purchased from the Nickel family in 2000, are based on high flow years.
The Agency did not apply for that water, however. Its petition and application focus only on the 50,000 acre feet of forfeiture water, not flood water.
The Agency has estimated the forfeiture water may yield up to 2.279 million acre feet a year. In its application, it said it would store some of the water and use the rest for irrigation and unspecified municipal uses.
That’s a heck of a lot of water.
Not enough, apparently, to spare for the river.