Water industry leaders gathered in Bakersfield for the 10th annual Kern County Water Summit at the Dignity Health Convention Center, focusing on what organizers described as the most ambitious water plan in California history.
The plan sets a statewide water supply target of 9 million acre-feet by 2040. Joel Metzger described the scale of that goal, saying, “So, what is 9-million acre feet? That is the equivalent of two Shasta reservoirs, the largest reservoir in our state, or 18 million homes.”
Metzger, seven months into his job, discussed what was described as a new era of water planning for the state, including a plan backed by Senate Bill 72 to modernize actions needed after recent rainfall and flooding.
“It would be a game-changer for California in terms of water supply, reliability and certainty on planning for things like crops and development and environmental flows and things of that nature,” Metzger said.
Keynote speaker Joaquin Esquivel highlighted Kern County’s progress since the last time he attended the summit in 2022, when the region was in a drought. Esquivel credited collaboration that helped the Kern County water basin avoid probation.
“For all the challenges that we have there is a lot of progress being made and a lot of innovation happening in the water space in California,” Esquivel said.
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The summit is put on by the Water Association of Kern County.