A Bank for California’s Most Basic Currency

“Massive Farm Owned by L.A. Man Uses Water Bank Conceived for State Needs” (Dec. 19) should have explained that the only water that flows into the Kern Water Bank is voluntarily put there by those to whom the water belongs. Not a drop of water is stored that isn’t bought and paid for by a participating public agency. Neither the Monterey agreement of 1994 nor the Kern Water Bank expanded any water rights in the state.

Efforts like the Kern Water Bank are helping to meet an ever-increasing demand for water by a growing population. The Kern Water Bank provides the flexibility to increase the efficiency of both using and moving water throughout California. Because the Kern Water Bank exists, 308,000 acre-feet of water have been diverted to environmental purposes, through the environmental water account. Water also flows from groundwater banks to meet urban needs in Southern California. Isn’t this what environmental interests in our state have advocated for years?

With the state’s population growing at the rate of 600,000 per year, absent projects like the Kern Water Bank, how are these new citizens’ needs going to be met? Your article attempts to tarnish the tremendous benefits that have accrued to the state by the Monterey agreement and the Kern Water Bank. How sad.

Mike Wade

Executive Director

California Farm Water

Coalition, Sacramento

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I read your article several times, and still I am shaking my head in disbelief. Let me see if I have this straight. The state bought this land containing Kern River water in an aquifer to create the Kern Water Bank. The state turned it over to a bunch of local farmers in 1994 who are controlled by Stewart Resnick, one of the wealthiest men in L.A. He became the second-largest farmer in the U.S. after the Kern Water Bank windfall.

If we have to buy any of this water for public use, I feel like we will be paying installments on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Charles Moreland

Whittier