Thousands of fish die as Kern River dries up in Bakersfield

Over the past three weeks, ecologist Ray McNish and his students have observed how a flowing river has suddenly dried up and turned into a dry riverbed.

While conducting biological surveys along the Kern River in Bakersfield, he noticed that water would drain into stagnant ponds and then disappear, leaving behind patches of bare sand and cracked soil.

They found some fish struggling helplessly on the shore, and hundreds of dead fish scattered along the river bank.

“We’re all very surprised by how quickly things changed,” said McNeish, an associate professor of biology at Cal State Bakersfield. “It’s really sad to see.”

The river’s sudden drying up is a blow to Bakersfield, where residents had grown accustomed to seeing water flowing through parks and under bridges after two wet winters. Some compared the rapid drying up to the effect of turning off a giant tap.

The collapse follows an appeals court ruling that cleared the way for city officials and water managers to reduce flows upstream, hold some water behind dams and divert other supplies to farms. The water shutdowns have frustrated and enraged environmental activists, who have argued in court that persistent overallocations and a rigid water-rights framework have caused great harm to the river and its wildlife.

McNeish and a group of graduate students have documented their observations of the disappearing river, and counted more than 3,000 dead fish.

California wildlife officials are now investigating whether the drying up of the river violates state law.

At left, biology graduate student Alexandra Brown and ecologist Ray McNish walk along the dry Kern River, where they found thousands of dead fish.

(Gary Kazanjian/For The Times)

“It’s evaporating so fast,” McNish said one morning last week as she walked toward two stagnant ponds along the river.

The smell of decay was wafting in the air. Dead fish were scattered on the sand, drying in the sun amid buzzing flies.

McNeish, who has examined fish carcasses since late August, has identified non-native species including bass, sunfish, bullhead catfish and mosquitofish. He and his students have also found native Sacramento suckers.

“These are some of the biggest fish I’ve ever seen,” said graduate student Alexandra Brown, as she approached several of the dead fish.

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She stopped and took a picture of a carp, about 2 feet long, glistening at the edge of a still pond. The murky water was filled with the dark shapes of other fish swimming slowly with nowhere to go.

Brown, who grew up in Bakersfield, said it was frustrating and disappointing to see so many fish stranded because of declining water levels.

“The first time we saw the fish flapping, tears came to my eyes. There was nothing we could do,” he said.

Alexandra Brown, a master’s degree biology student, measures a dead fish during a survey of the suddenly dried-up Kern River in Bakersfield.

(Gary Kazanjian/For The Times)

During his childhood, Brown loved visiting a section of the river at Hart Memorial Park in the northeast part of Bakersfield where water has long flowed. But for most of his life, the water has drained so much that the river bed in the city is usually dry.

That changes in early 2023, when historic winter storms caused the river to recede and flow through the city again.

“It’s really beautiful when you have a flowing river and you see how much comes from it,” Brown said.

“Now it looks like there are hardly any survivors,” he said. “It’s very disappointing to have so many deaths, considering how full of life it was.”

McNeish said when he began an ecological monitoring survey with his students in July, he had no idea the river’s flow would decrease so dramatically.

In late August, they noticed the water was retreating, exposing sand dunes. Since then, McNeish estimates more than five miles of the river has stopped flowing or gone completely dry.

McNeish said he hoped that He and his students are collecting data This will provide a detailed picture of how the reduction in flow has affected fish and other aquatic life, and help local authorities consider ways to avoid such ecological damage in the future.

Walking along the sandy riverbank, McNeish used a scale to estimate how much water had receded in a different pond since his last visit. He called it the “snorkel pool” because he had previously snorkeled in the clear water here and recorded video of fish. Now, the pond was murky, and a cormorant was hunting along the water’s edge.

Ecologist Rae McNeish (left) and graduate student Alexandra Brown survey a pond in the drying Kern River where researchers had previously snorkeled and recorded video of fish. They found a cormorant hunting the remaining fish in the shrinking pond.

(Gary Kazanjian/For The Times)

“There are a lot of fish caught here, and it’s a good feeding area for this bird — right now,” McNeish said.

At another spot, McNeish stopped at a dry ditch and poked her measuring instrument into tangled aquatic plants, finding dead tadpoles. Where a pond had been just days earlier, the carcasses of dozens of fish lay among clam shells on the sand.

“There was water here on Saturday,” he said.

The two headed upstream to another research site. They followed the bike path down into the river channel, where they found shallow water flowing. McNeish said water was receding at this site as well.

While McNeish and Brown were talking, a woman emerged from the bushes and introduced herself.

Bonnie Compton said she has lived along the river for more than a decade. She said she lives in a tent with her husband and is concerned about the sudden drop in water in the river and the fish dying.

“We would sit and watch the fish and enjoy the view,” Compton said.

Bonnie Compton, who has lived along the Kern River for about 10 years, says she’s upset that the water supply has been shut off and the river is drying up, causing fish to die. “We want the water back,” she says.

(Gary Kazanjian/For The Times)

“This place was starting to become really beautiful again, and now it’s turning into a desert. It’s horrible,” she said. “They’re killing the fish. They’re killing our wildlife. Everything is dying.”

Compton blamed local officials and said he suspected the water shutoffs were an effort by city workers to clear out encampments and drive out homeless people.

“This is public land and they’re taking water away from the public,” Compton said. “We want the water back.”

Their demand echoes a similar demand from environmental activists. When six environmental groups Bakersfield sued In 2022, he argued that allowing the water diversion to dry up the river violated California’s public trust doctrine, the principle that certain natural resources must be preserved for the public.

The city controls several dams where water is diverted. Some of the water is used in Bakersfield, but most of it is used by agricultural water districts to supply farms producing almonds, pistachios, grapes, oranges and other crops.

The appeals court’s ruling earlier this year put on hold a judge’s order that had been pending for months. Adequate water requirement to keep the river flowing and providing food for fish. That decision effectively allowed the river to dry up while the case is pending in Kern County Superior Court, said William McKinnon, an attorney for the Water Audit California group, which is one of the plaintiffs. Environmental groups filed a petition to the California Supreme Court to challenge that decision, but their petition was denied. was denied last month,

“Until recently, water was released into the river because Bakersfield decided to do it, but now they don’t want to do it,” MacKinnon said. “They turned off the water and all the fish died. But we’ll prosecute at some point.”

The river becoming waterless and a large number of fish dying, which was a huge problem. First reported by news website SJV Waterhas created a wave of concern in the community.

Rae McNeish (left), associate biology professor and ecologist at California State University, Bakersfield, and graduate student Alexandra Brown examine insect larvae on a piece of wood lying in the drying Kern River in Bakersfield.

(Gary Kazanjian/For The Times)

California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials received complaints and are reviewing information about the fish kills. check The department’s regional manager, Julie Vance, said it should be investigated whether state law was violated. A relevant provision, Section 5937 According to the state Fish and Game Code, the owner of any dam must allow sufficient water to pass below the dam “at all times to keep the fish stocks in good condition.”

Vance said the investigation is somewhat complicated because multiple entities control the city’s water.

“Obviously, it’s a really unfortunate situation,” Vance said. “I think everybody was really excited about having water in the river again, but it’s unfortunate that it ended up like this this summer.”

At last week’s Bakersfield City Council meeting, several residents denounced the fish kills and urged council members to return water to the river.

Kelly Damian, a spokeswoman for the group Bring Back the Kern, urged city officials to “work together to create a healthy, flowing river.”

“We want our river back,” Damien said. “It’s not an easy task. We’re facing a lot of challenges. We’re facing climate change, a huge network of canals. We’re facing a highly funded industry, but really the hardest thing we’re facing is old thinking.”

Council Member Eric Arias told residents he heard their concerns and saw a need for better communication. He suggested starting regular meetings on the topic.

“Three thousand fish dying in the river is a failure on our part, and I think we could have done better,” Arias said.

Biology graduate student Alexandra Brown measures a dead fish lying along the drying Kern River.

(Gary Kazanjian/For The Times)

The city said in a Sept. 3 news release that its water department is “reducing water flows” to complete infrastructure work on the river, including maintenance on dams and removing sediment from the channel.

Council member Bob Smith emphasized that the river’s water level has gone down because of a recent court decision.

“The water that we had, that we had rights to, we ran it for as long as we could,” Smith said.

The city has saved some supply in the Lake Isabella reservoir to prepare for a potential drought year, and most of the river’s flow is now being diverted to agricultural water districts, officials said.

Smith said he and other officials “want to get more water into the river” and “we’re going to continue to work with you toward that.”

Ecologist Ray McNish approaches a dead fish lying at the bottom of the dry Kern River in Bakersfield.

(Gary Kazanjian/For The Times)

Bakersfield City Attorney Virginia Gennaro suggested residents take their message to agricultural irrigation districts that use much of the water, including the Kern Delta Water Storage District and the North Kern Water Storage District.

“Talk to them about why you want water in the river,” Gennaro said. “Be as straightforward with them as you have been with us.”

After the meeting, Damian said he was disappointed in the council’s response.

“I didn’t hear a single city leader say they were going to actually move this issue forward,” he said. “It was performative leadership. It wasn’t real leadership.”