In Bakersfield, many push for bringing back the flow of the long-dry Kern River

The Kern River cascades from the Sierra Nevada in a steep-sided canyon, coursing through granite boulders, and flows to the northeast side of Bakersfield. “It’s sad to think that we’re allowing our natural resources to be taken away to that degree where it’s killing the environment, it’s killing the natural process of our land, the watershed.” Miguel Rodriguez, organizer of Bring Back the Kern, at the Rocky Point weir, the second point where water is taken from the Kern River and diverted into the Kern Island Canal and the Carrier Canal at the Panorama Vista Preserve in Bakersfield. “We need our water back.” :: Bill Cooper grew up knowing a very different Kern River. Others have pointed to the lyrics from “Kern River Blues,” the final song by the late, locally raised country singer Merle Haggard, who sang: Well, they used to have Kern River Runnin’ deep and wide Then somebody stole the water Another politician lied Adam Keats, a water lawyer representing environmental groups, said people who want water in the river have the law on their side, specifically through the public trust doctrine, the principle that certain natural resources must be preserved for the public. And a big reason, he said, is that people are “done with the impossibility of it all, the impossibility of putting water back in the river.” Keats said the water is going to cash crops that benefit a select few, based on “water rights that are legacies from a period long ago that was founded upon theft, oppression and ripoff.” The Kern River is a “poster child,” Keats said, and there are many other rivers and streams throughout California in the same situation.