Above you see the sad truth. Boaters of the NF Kern will once again receive zero recreational flows from the settlement American Whitewater entered into with Edison, incorporated into the KR3 license mid-May 2004. (We know this because there are no eligible days left this year, and inflows at Fairview Dam never made it through the tight windows required for additional water.)

Even though 2023 is a big water year, Edison’s operations — pulling the first 600 cfs out of the river after fish flow — profoundly affect NF Kern boating opportunities. Several months of boatable days on each shoulder of this year’s massive runoff bubble will be lost, yet Edison pays no price — provides no mitigation — for its privilege to use these public waters for its private benefit. That makes six years of the last 11 with zero rec release days, and an average of just 7.4 days per year since the settlement went into effect — far less than the “39” promised by American Whitewater’s signatory to the settlement, John Gangemi. (See below.) More on that discrepancy in a future post.

Adding to boater frustration (apart from the fact the rec schedule has an unreasonably limited calendar of eligible days and requires extremely tight flow windows to trigger a potential release) is that the few unpredictable times we do get a rec release, we get very little additional water: just 1 to 300 cfs over the amount we would have had with no settlement at all. We think it obvious that AW got taken to the cleaners in the last relicensing proceeding. Gangemi’s willingness to enter into such an awful deal on the NF Kern and misrepresent its benefit to the local community — along with his close ties to his previous employer, American Whitewater — is likely why Edison hired him to represent the company in this proceeding.

KRB remains committed to represent this community according to the principles stated in its relicensing mission statement — and to make sure AW doesn’t secretly enter into such a deal with Edison once again.