The News Review:

- Gaming the water system
- Broward Palm Beach County consider $363 million reservoir
- Dry year spurs DWR message: conserve water

Gaming the water system
Contra Costa Times
Here among the tumbleweeds sand and scrub 15 miles west of Bakersfield the gush of crystal-clear water appears as curiously out of place as the great blue herons cruising along the bank’s six-mile canal. The Kern Water Bank which was owned by the state Department of Water Resources from 1988 to 1995 is now in the hands of Kern County interests and is 48 percent owned by Westside Mutual Water Company a private water company controlled by Beverly Hills billionaire Stewart Resnick. It is 32 square miles of desert where one natural river and two artificial ones pass: the Kern River which originates in the southern Sierra Nevada; the California Aqueduct which carries Delta water more than 400 miles to a reservoir in Riverside County; and the Friant-Kern Canal which takes water to valley farmers from behind a dam on the San Joaquin River. “We have lots of water conveyance facilities that bring water past the Kern Water Bank” said Jonathan Parker general manager of the Kern Water Bank Authority. “That makes this location pretty unique. “In wet years the water bankers deposit water from the rivers into ponds where it percolates into the Kern River’s alluvial fan.

Broward Palm Beach County consider $363 million reservoir
Sun-Sentinel.com
Also the politics of divvying up water makes it a “very difficult very touchy situation” said Ken Todd Palm Beach County’s water resources manager. “n the surface it sounds like a really good idea. Store water instead of wasting it” Todd said. “The name of the game is to do this in a very cautious manner. The new reservoir would be built in Palm Beach County likely near a similar reservoir west of Royal Palm Beach.
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Dry year spurs DWR message: conserve water
Paradise Post
This year with drought continuing the department is focusing on educating the public about water shortage issues including well maintenance. Part of the education includes a couple of presentations explaining the difference between Ridge residents’ fractured rock supplies of water and the valley’s aquifer wells. Though much of the Ridge relies on the Paradise Irrigation District’s surface water storage deep wells tap into fractured rock water supplies in many areas outside the district. The difference being that when one fractured rock well is low it doesn’t necessarily mean a neighbor’s well will be low too as is common in wells in the valley McKillop said. A meeting Advertisement yld_mgr. place_ad_here(“adPosBox”); about this type of water source will be hosted by the Golden Feather Community Alliance Wednesday May 27 at 6:30 p.