Imagine a Day Without Water: Cal Water hosts tour of treatment plant in northwest Bakersfield

Oct. 20—Many Americans have found themselves in recent years without adequate water for drinking and sanitation — including residents of Flint, Mich., Jackson, Miss., and even closer to home in East Porterville in Tulare County.

Thursday was Imagine a Day Without Water, a national day of action designed to focus attention on how precious our water supply is. In honor of the day, California Water Service invited local news organizations to tour its Northwest Bakersfield Treatment Plant and learn more about the local water supply and the city's immense and complex water system.

"We want Bakersfield folks to know they don't have to worry about having a reliable supply of safe, clean water when they turn on the tap," said Cal Water District Manager Tammy Johnson.

The plant in the city's northwest treats surface water that is supplied through an agreement with the city of Bakersfield, Johnson said. It comes from the Kern River, is detoured into the Beardsley Canal, and finally is routed through a large pipeline to the treatment plant.

For security purposes, water officials asked that the location of the plant not be published.

Depending on what kind of water year the region is experiencing, sourcing Bakersfield's municipal water supply can "depend on a lot of contracts, a lot of partnerships and source-water purchasing," Johnson said.

"When people look at our rates, it's hard for them to understand how much work physically goes into making sure we're delivering water to the tap."

As she spoke, Johnson was seated next to a tank — built partly underground — that stores 3 million gallons of water. At another Cal Water location, as much as 12 million gallons can be stored at any given time.

"We have almost a thousand miles of (water) mains, just in the local Cal Water system," she said.

That's nearly the distance from Bakersfield to Seattle, Wash.

Another 630 miles of mains crisscross the city of Bakersfield's service area. But that's not all.

"We have more tanks in our system (in Bakersfield) than any other system Cal Water owns," Johnson said.

Besides the Kern River — which has not been a strong water source in recent years — another important source of local drinking water is groundwater, pumped to the surface for municipal use.

A third important source of municipal water is the Kern Water Agency's Improvement District No. 4, which routes about 20,500 acre-feet of water per year to the local municipal system. That's water that is coming from outside Kern County, via the State Water Project.

According to climate projections, there's a high degree of probability that drought conditions will continue during the coming winter. Which means Cal Water will again be relying on groundwater to a higher degree than is optimum.

"At Cal Water, we have definitely been looking ahead to the drought forecasts for this winter. The NOAA Climate Prediction Center is projecting lower-than-average precipitation and higher-than-average temperatures across most of California during the winter months," Ken Jenkins, the company's water resource sustainability officer said in an email.

"We are using these projections to plan ahead for 2023 and are continually monitoring supply and demand to determine the appropriate measures that need to be taken to ensure Bakersfield continues to have a reliable supply of water."

Fortunately, Bakersfield residents have cut water use by 9 percent compared to 2020 use rates.

Yvonne Kingman, a Cal Water spokeswoman, said they appreciate the continuing efforts by local water users to reduce water use amid the worsening drought.

"Their conservation actions are critical to our efforts and help prevent the need to move into higher stages of our Water Shortage Contingency Plan at this time," she said. "We have a robust conservation program that we encourage customers to take advantage of to help reduce their water use and support their conservation efforts."

Cal Water currently anticipates remaining in Stage 2 of the contingency plan, which includes mandatory watering day limits and increased water waste penalties.

"If conditions change from what we expect, we will respond accordingly," Jenkins said. "We actually have a cross-functional team within Cal Water that has been meeting regularly since mid-2021 to plan for continued dry conditions and take actions needed to maximize local supplies and identify the availability of other supplies. This team continues to meet regularly so that we remain prepared."

Cal Water customers can find lots of tips and incentives to save water at drought.calwater.com.

Steven Mayer can be reached at 661-395-7353. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @semayerTBC.