North Kern Water Storage District was organized in 1935 and comprises approximately 60,000 acres of predominately agricultural land north of the City of Bakersfield, west of Highway 99, and east of the cities of Shafter and Wasco. The District adopted its “Project Report” in 1950 and implemented the described improvements shortly thereafter.
Fundamentally, the Project provided for the District to purchase the right in perpetuity to all water accruing under various Kern River “pre-1914” water rights. Because the River rights purchased by North Kern were largely “junior” and subject to large swings in yield depending on River hydrology, the Project also described a series of projects focused on “re-regulating” these highly variable supplies for the primary purpose of “maintaining economic pumping lifts” for landowners within the District. Re-regulation was primarily to be accomplished through construction and operation of “recharge/spreading ponds” to maximize the capture of wetter year River supplies accruing to the rights, and groundwater wells to “recover” previously recharged water in drier years when surface supplies accruing to the rights were limited. Later (in the 1960’s) the District contracted with the United States to acquire “conservation storage” capacity in Lake Isabella as a means to further re-regulate its Kern River supplies. Isabella “surface storage” is used by the District to supplement “groundwater storage” associated with the District’s recharge and recovery activities.
To supplement its “base” Kern River supplies described above, the District entered into an additional Kern River water supply contract with the City of Bakersfield in 1976. Although the “basic term” of this contract expired at the end of 2011, the contract continues pursuant to “extension term” provisions and is expected to continue to provide water supplies to the District in the future. In addition to its Kern River supplies, the District uses water when available from Poso Creek and makes beneficial use of other supplies available directly or through exchange from State Water Project and Federal Central Valley Project sources.
The water supplies described above have allowed the District to maintain a positive long-term water supply balance.
Since 1980 North Kern has also administered, operated, and provided supplemental surface water supplies (independent of the District’s Kern River supplies) to the Rosedale Ranch Improvement District (RRID). RRID is comprised of about 10,000 acres most of which is developed for agriculture but experiencing a conversion to urban land uses. North Kern and RRID share management and operating personnel but rely on separate water supplies and are financially independent.
In 1950 the District completed a “project report” and subsequently implemented one of the first “conjunctive use” projects in California to optimize the use of highly variable Kern River water supplies within the District. Pursuant to this project, the District acquired the perpetual right to water accruing to various pre-1914 Kern River water rights and developed facilities to recharge (spreading ponds/recharge basins) and recover (wells) water associated with these rights. Since its inception North Kern has employed storage, recharge, recovery, exchange and transfer programs to optimize the use of water supplies. North Kern is fully developed to irrigated agriculture (although urban development is occurring at its southern boundary), with almonds and grapes accounting for over 60% of the cropped acreage. North Kern deliveries are principally accomplished through an open canal, gravity system, although many smaller canals have been replaced with pipelines.
The District was originally segregated almost equally into “Canal Irrigated” lands that received essentially all of their supplies from the District under both wet and dry conditions, and “Pump Irrigated” lands that where originally required to supply water under all conditions through their own private wells. Over time, however, these land designations were re-titled “Class 1” and “Class 2”, respectively, and almost all current Class 2 lands have now been connected to the District system, primarily to allow these lands to take District surface water in wetter years rather than operating their wells.
Historical surface water supplies of North Kern have ranged from less than 10,000 acre-feet (AF) in a “very dry” year to nearly 400,000 AF in a “very wet” year. Owing to the highly variable Kern River supply, North Kern has historically managed and regulated available surface water supplies from times of surplus (“wet” years) to times of need (“dry” years). This regulation has been accomplished, to a large extent, through use of the underlying groundwater storage. During “wet” years on the Kern River, significant deliveries of surface water are made to irrigation and groundwater recharge basins for groundwater recharge and storage of surface water in the underlying aquifer. For the purpose of groundwater recharge, North Kern principally makes use of over 1,500 acres of recharge basins. In “wet” years, more than 200,000 AF of water has been directed into recharge basins for replenishment of the groundwater aquifer and storage. During “dry” years, deliveries of surface water to irrigation are greatly reduced and groundwater pumping is significant. Extraction of stored surface water in the ground by the District’s 100 wells has ranged from zero to more than 100,000 AF in one year. North Kern has successfully and sustainably operated its conjunctive use project for over 60 years.
