Environmental activists in Bakersfield have won an initial victory in their legal fight to keep water flowing in the Kern River, which for many years was reduced to a dry, sandy riverbed. Keats said the court recognized in the ruling that California has long upheld a legal principle that public trust waters like the Kern River “can’t be sacrificed for …
Water no longer flows through the Kern River at Beach Park in Bakersfield, where people have pressed the California Department of Water Resources board to bring it back. Conservation groups are going to court to try to bring back a flowing river in Bakersfield, where for years so much water has been diverted in canals to supply farms that the …
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 …
