BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 The city of Bakersfield celebrated the completion of the new Kern River Canal Backup Weir with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
We previously reported on the demolition of the old weir and all the issues that it presented.<\/p>\n
Now, this new structure, located just east of the Coffee Road Bridge, allows the city’s water department to control flood water and divert Kern River flows for multiple uses.<\/p>\n
“The Kern River serves a lot of our agricultural needs and agriculture being one of the primary economies of Kern County, it’s very important so this weir acts as a river dam to back up the water so that water can be diverted through what we call the river canal out west and to other agencies,” Richard Meyer said.<\/p>\n
Meyer is a principal engineer with Meyer Civil Engineering.<\/p>\n
The new weir replaces one damaged by high flows in 2019 and again during the 2023 water year.<\/p>\n
Officials say it will reduce flood risk and enhance water management throughout the region.<\/p>\n
The project also features a new multi-use path that connects the Kern River Parkway to the Friant-Kern Canal Bike Path, providing a new recreational link for cyclists and walkers.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n
Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 The city of Bakersfield celebrated the completion of the new Kern River Canal Backup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,155,153,152,15278,15279,15280,15281,15282,15283,15284,15285],"class_list":["post-17931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-downtown","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-bakersfield-water-management","tag-coffee-road","tag-coffee-road-bridge","tag-friant-kern-canal-bike-path","tag-kern-river-canal","tag-kern-river-canal-backup-weir","tag-kern-river-parkway","tag-meyer-civil-engineering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}