A river doesn’t run through it. That’s the sad story in Bakersfield, California. But there’s a growing and powerful movement underway to rewater the Kern River.
Until recently, many Bakersfield residents didn’t even realize that the dry river bed once contained a healthy river that flowed into some of the largest lakes in the western US – Kern, Buena Vista, Goose, and Tulare (Pa’ashi) Lakes. But, during the wet winter of 2023, the flow of the river couldn’t be controlled by Lake Isabella Reservoir, and the Kern re-established itself all the way to the California Aqueduct on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.
From its headwaters near Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the lower 48 states, the Kern makes its way through a dramatic river canyon (part of which has Wild and Scenic River status) until it reaches the San Joaquin Valley floor, where practically all of the river’s flow—over 700,000 acre-feet per year, on average—has been removed for agricultural and municipal use, for over half a century. Bakersfield’s population—over half a million people—is denied the benefits that flow from a living river, including access to swimming, fishing, and other forms of river recreation, recharge of the groundwater drinking supply, and other public goods. City residents use a 30- mile-plus- long riverside bicycle and pedestrian parkway alongside a dry river.
FOR has a long history of involvement on the Kern, including Wild and Scenic River campaigns and hydropower project relicensings. Currently, our river restoration experts are serving as technical advisors to Bring Back the Kern, a terrific organization of local volunteers working with other groups to rewater the river. In 2022 BBK and its partners sued the City of Bakersfield in state court over its violations of the public trust doctrine and California Fish and Game Code §5937, which require protection of public trust resources and maintenance of fish populations in “good condition” below dams. After 2023’s high flows, the plaintiffs won a court ruling to prevent the river from drying up; when this decision was overturned on appeal, the result was a massive fish kill.
