Where does my water come from?
WHERE DOES MY WATER COME FROM?
When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 9
Where: Kern County Water Agency
Enroll: To enroll in this class, offered by the Levan Institute for Lifelong Learning, go online to www.bakersfieldcollege.edu /levaninstitute. The Water Agency is conducting the class free of charge. Participants must pay a $50 fee to cover transportation costs associated with the guided tour of the Kern County Water Bank. Lunch is included.
Deadline: Registration will be limited to the first 40 people to sign up by Sept. 20.
If you are like me, water is for drinking, washing and watering your lawn. News reports of water shortages provoke me to worry, but I don't really know what I'm worrying about. Stories about the wrangling over water flowing through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta suggest I should be cheering either for fish or people. When districts and cities sue each other over water rights, my eyes roll back into my head.
I know it's important. I know I should care. But these are complicated fights between lawyers and engineers. The lowly public -- people who just expect water to pour from their taps -- basically sit on the sidelines.
Occasionally we are asked to get involved. Until just a few weeks ago, California voters were being asked to approve an $11 billion bond measure on the November ballot to pay for improvements in the delta. But the measure was so filled with extraneous pork -- money for unrelated projects -- that the Legislature pulled it from the ballot before it went down to a resounding defeat.
That leaves the fragile delta in danger of crumbling in an earthquake or rupturing in spots, where toothy rodents erode levee walls. The bond measure was supposed to help shore up levee walls and create a "conveyance" -- tunnel or canal -- to take water around the delta on its way to cities and farms in Central and Southern California.
The delta's system of sloughs and canals, which drain Northern California water to the Pacific Ocean, uses pumps to divert some of the water south. But sufficient water needs to keep flowing to the ocean to keep salt water from fouling the fresh water delta and the state's drinking water supplies, and to protect delta fish. (Thus the fish-versus-people argument.)
In Kern County, urban and agricultural water users are dependent on the Kern River, the State Water Project, Central Valley Project, local streams and groundwater. To stretch these supplies in drought years, excess water percolates into underground "banks," or reservoirs, in wet years. This water can then be pumped out and used during droughts.
Are you confused yet? For those who make their living knowing this stuff, it's as simple as walking down the street. But the rest of us struggle to sort out what's really going on.
To help us sort out some of the issues, the Levan Institute for Lifelong Learning at Bakersfield College asked the Kern County Water Agency to conduct a one-day course -- Water 101 -- on Saturday, Oct. 9.
With a historical perspective, the course will explain where metropolitan Bakersfield gets its water and how it is used. Following lunch at the water agency on Rio Mirada Drive, participants will board a bus for a guided tour of the Kern Water Bank -- 20,000 acres of recharge ponds, habitat and wildlife land on Bakersfield's southwest border.
The Kern County Water Agency is facilitating the one-day course free of charge. The Levan Institute is charging participants $50 each to cover transportation costs.
Just a few facts supplied by the Kern County Water Agency explain why it is important for all of us to understand where Bakersfield's water comes from and how it is used:
* Kern County consistently ranks third or fourth in the state in value of agriculture production.
* With an average of less than 6 inches of rainfall per year, Kern County is a semi-desert region. Surface water supplies are not enough to meet the needs of citizens, businesses and farms. As a result, groundwater and the creation of underground "water banks" play an integral part in how water is managed in Kern County. In very wet years, water is recharged into the water banks; in dry years, water is pumped out to help meet local water demands.
* Most of the water districts the Kern County Water Agency serves have developed groundwater banking programs. From 1977 to 2005, local investment in banking projects exceeded $300 million.
* Roughly 850,000 acres are irrigated on the San Joaquin Valley floor.
* Water use in California is 9 percent urban, 32 percent agriculture and 59 percent environment.
* More than 25 million Californians depend on fresh water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. About $400 billion of the state's economy depends on delta water.
* Studies predict a 70 percent chance of a 6.5 or greater magnitude earthquake in the delta. This would collapse the delta's fragile levee system, destroy its ecosystem and render the main water artery for much of California "waterless" for at least 18 months.
* Environmental concerns and regulations have limited the flow of water from the delta, reducing jobs in small agricultural communities, where unemployment rates may exceed 40 percent.
Dianne Hardisty retired in 2009 as The Californian's editorial page editor. She is on the advisory board of the Levan Institute for Lifelong Learning.
