BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Non-profit water agency talks conservation, education, and storage. Jenny Holtermann, the executive director of the Water Association of Kern County, joined Mike Hart on 23ABC's Good Morning Kern County to discuss several topics concerning water in the valley.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
With much of the attention lately on immigration and budget issues, one topic that always remains at the top of the list in Kern County and statewide is water. Joining me in studio B this morning is Jenny Holterman, the executive director of the Water Association of Kern County. Thanks for coming in this morning. Truly appreciate it. OK, when we're talking about the WAKC, first of all, for those who may be unaware of how many different organizations we have in the county when it comes to water, what does the WAKC do?
So, the Water Association of Kern County we are a local nonprofit, and we just focus on water education and outreach. So basically we host different seminars, conferences, tours, and try and just educate people about the issues -- that are happening related to -- water when it comes to conservation and Kern County's abilities.
Now, with so many different recharge ponds and different water banking projects, where are we today compared to 25 years ago?
We have come a long way. I would say at least every water district now in Kern County has some kind of banking project, recharge project to help store water in these, you know, hard times. We have water in the winter, but we don't always have water during the summer. So if we can store that excess water we have, then we can go a long way.
What was the what was in your estimation the initial resistance to that, or was there resistance when it came to building these projects? You see them now everywhere.
Well, just the cost associated with a lot of these and the regulation about building them, the red tape, and all of those fees that go into making these projects happen um, but they help, and the need that they feel is great.
When you're talking about conservation efforts, you always come back to education, and it's not just in that area, but in many areas. When it comes to water, you recently had a tour of the water treatment plant. What was the reason behind that, and what was the reaction?
So in the summer, we like to focus on different tours of different facilities, um, in Kern County, and doing the treatment plant was something that we don't always get to see, is the urban supply of water and how that water gets to our ta,p and the availability of that. So it really was eye-opening to see the process that water comes from and where that water comes from to get to all of our houses.
You know, one of the big projects in recent years, of course, was the update we call the update to the Lake Isabella Dam and everything that it did. We've had a couple of good water years, one while they were finishing up the renovations to the dam right now. How do you see that now as we move forward, and its ability now to hold, well, I mean obviously from holding more water?
So the state is not building new reservoirs or areas in a rapid fashion. So any way we can help our current ones and redo them to be able to store more is going to be the best way to go in the future. So by helping that dam to be able to store capacity. We hadn't been able to store capacity for a very long time, really does help us for these drier summers to be able to use that water later on and we have areas like the water bank that can store more water than they can at Lake Isabella, um, so all of these projects do help us to get through.
The water bank, of course, many people may have seen on Enos Lane, right there between Stockdale Highway down to I-5 real quick, you talked about education and whatnot. You have another event coming up in the future.
Yes, so all summer long we focus on different seminars, um, and tours. So in the coming months we will have tours, um, and workshops. So we have speakers coming from the US Bureau of Reclamation, and we'll even have a Sigma workshop, which is the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act that was passed 10 years ago -- and how that's gonna affect our urban folks and our agriculture folks.
Fantastic. We'll bring you back for more on that. Sounds great, Jenny Holterman. Thank you for coming in this morning. -- truly -- appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
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