KDWD Newsletter April 27, 2021

Kern River Status Update

The District has issued it’s proration allocations for the summer of 2021. A copy of the proration letters that went out can be found on our website here.

The District will be holding two grower meetings. The first will be for Eastside Canal growers. That meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 28 at 10:00 at Kent Stendrup’s shop. For directions please call Dispatch at (661) 834-4653.

The second meeting will be for all Farmers, Stine, and Buena Vista service areas to discuss the start date for those systems. The meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 5 at 8:30 AM in the KDWD Boardroom. This meeting will also be available via GoToMeeting. Please contact Perry Hyatt at Perry@KernDelta.org to receive the GoToMeeting information.

Last week the Department of Water Resources updated their April Bulletin 120 (B-120) forecast for the April through July runoff of the Kern River. This forecast came in at 17% of average.

The District office remodel project is now complete and staff has moved into the building. However, due to COVID – 19 precautions, we ask that you limit in person visits to the office for the short-term. If you do visit the office masks are currently required.

To help visualize the current state of the River, the District is providing this graph that compares flow rates for the two-year periods of 2019-2020, the current period of 2020-2021, as well as other two-year periods in which the first year was below average for the Kern River. The flows for this year are estimates only and subject to revision.

Below is a list of upcoming meetings that may interest our growers. The information presented at these meetings may directly affect agricultural practices and costs.

Upcoming Meetings:

Kern River Groundwater Sustainability Agency
First Thursday of the month at 10:00 AM
The next meeting will be on May 6
To Be Determined
Kern River Watershed Coalition Authority
First Thursday of the month at 1:00 PM
The next meeting will be on May 6
To Be Determined
Kern Groundwater Authority
Fourth Wednesday of the month at 8:00 AM
Next Meeting: April 28
See website for Zoom link