The Kern River is the Heart of Bakersfield – But It Needs Some Love

The Kern River on January 31, 2024, when the river was flowing.

It’s hard to believe that it could happen in the year 2024, but earlier this month the City of Bakersfield turned off the Kern River, causing a massive fish die off. The river shutoff was ostensibly to do maintenance in the river channel and to save the water for future supply needs.

“People who care about their rivers would never do this,” said attorney Adam Keats, who represents Bring Back the Kern, one of the local groups working to restore the river. “Other cities with rivers maintain their infrastructure without killing the entire river.” 

Friends of the River has a long history working on the Kern River, and our river restoration experts advise Bring Back the Kern and other groups in the litigation against the City of Bakersfield, based on the Public Trust doctrine and Fish and Game Code 5937, which requires dam operators to maintain good conditions for fisheries below their facilities  (see last month’s article).

In October 2023 the plaintiff coalition, which also includes Water Audit California, Kern River Parkway Foundation, Kern Audubon Society, Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity, won a preliminary injunction by Kern County Superior Court Judge Gregory Pulskamp requiring the City of Bakersfield to keep enough water in the river to sustain fish populations.  The fish had been reestablished in the lower Kern River after 2023’s epic runoff that allowed for continuous flow connecting the upper watershed with the lowest reaches of the Kern. Unfortunately, in May of this year, the 5th District Court of Appeal stayed the injunction.  So while the case works its way through the courts, that means the City can cut off flow in the river at its discretion.

As a result, the final bell was rung for the fish in the river this summer.  At the end of August, the City shut off the water to the channel to save water in case this upcoming winter does not provide enough water for next year’s demands.  But this tragic step did not go unnoticed. Major news outlets documented the drying up of the river and the massive die-off of fish (SJV Water, LA Times). The City defended the dewatering and also stated that they needed to perform “maintenance” on the river bed to remove vegetation and silt build up.  In the past, this maintenance destroyed much of the riparian vegetation and resulted in a public outcry. Both the shutting off of the water and the proposed work are being investigated by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (see link).

CSU Bakersfield professor Dr. Rae McNeish and several of her students have been monitoring flow and the biology of the Kern River, and have been documenting the on-going fish kills due to the loss of flow. Credit: Rae McNeish.

The City claims that it’s tried to keep the water flowing through much of the urban area, but has run out of its share of the river flows (see SJV Water News, September 11, 2024).  The City is not the only water right holder, but it does manage the river through the reaches between the First and Second Points of Measure, including several weirs that divert water for both the City and for water districts including Kern Delta, North Kern, Buena Vista Water Storage District and the Kern County Water Agency. “The City Attorney’s office and City Council have been doing everything in our power to keep water in the river and, at the same time, make sure we don’t get sued for violating our contracts,” City Attorney Ginny Gennaro stated at a recent City Council meeting.

Map of the Kern River through the reaches managed by the City of Bakersfield. From “Kern River Flow and Municipal Water Program - Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report.” City of Bakersfield, August 2016.

The Kern River, when the City allows it, flows through the heart of Bakersfield.  During the big winter of 2023, the flow of the river couldn’t be controlled by Lake Isabella and the Kern re-established itself all the way to the California Aquaduct on the west side of the Valley. Historically, the Kern flowed into multiple lakes, Kern Lake, Buena Vista Lake, Goose Lake, and Tulare Lake or Pa’ashi. Most current residents in Bakersfield and the Southern San Joaquin Valley don’t realize that the Kern was once a healthy river that supplied these ecologically and culturally important lakes and marshes.

“Still, until Pa’ashi made its return this year, many people across the valley didn’t even know about it or its fellows: Buena Vista Lake, Goose Lake, and Kern Lake. Why this insistence on forgetting the lake and its power, its implacable ability to return? I believe it is an example of what Indigenous and anti-colonial scholars have called ‘colonial unknowing’” (from Underhill 2023 citing Vimalassery et al, 2016 definition of ‘colonial unknowing”).

People in the city can see full canals behind fences that are even now filled from the Kern River water.  Most of the larger canals historically were natural channels that diverged from the river as sands and sediments formed the Kern River Delta and the river split into multiple channels.  ..[GB1] 

“Year after year 'the sandy material eroded by the river from its mountain watershed has been deposited in San Joaquin Valley below the point at which the river emerges upon the plain.  New channels have been constantly forming while old ones were being obliterated, and the delta region thus built up extends 20 to 25 miles toward the south and west, terminating in a great semicircle formed by Kern and Buena Vista lakes and the upper portion of Buena Vista Swamp.  The central portion of this delta is generally referred to as Kern Island. The flow of water in many of the delta channels is now under control, and they are classed as canals.” (Grunsky, 1898)

These sloughs and marshy channels were stripped of their ecological values and became the canals of those that straightened them and removed all the vegetation.  So even though these canals receive more regular flows then the lower Kern River, they are not available for either people to recreate or for nature to provide any ecological services to fish and wildlife.

Early Kern River Delta Map from Grunsky 1898.

This summer’s dewatering of the Kern River, and the resulting fish kill, is a tragedy, and a violation of California’s public trust and fish protection laws. Friends of the River and the plaintiff coalition is  working through the time consuming litigation process to prevent this from happening again and instead ensure that the Kern River once again becomes the “Heart of Bakersfield” with year-round flows and a healthy ecosystem – a living river that people can enjoy.  In the meantime, all of us involved in the effort will continue to document the results of the City’s mismanagement and continue our efforts to show some love for the heart of Bakersfield.