The Lake Isabella region is changing again.
For centuries, probably for millenia, the mid-mountain valley that drains the Kern River was settled by various peoples.
This dramatically changed with the discovery of gold in the early part of the 19th century and then again after the Civil War, when refugees from the war's devastation drifted westward to the open land in the west, leading to conflict in this (relatively) peaceful area.
Around 75 years ago, this part of California was changed again by the construction of the Isabella Dam, built to control the raging Kern River which had flooded Bakersfield many times.
I used to travel this area fairly frequently, when some of my family lived in the high desert area near Ridgecrest, and they would tell me about this history of the dam and the valley and how it had many stories.
More recently, the dam became damaged, and a 15-year reconstruction project required that the lake level be dramatically lowered.
Still more recently, a series of drought years lowered the lake level still further, to the point that the lake contained only a mere eight percent of its storage capacity, with the result that previously-submerged towns underneath the lake began to become visible again.
Knowing how to find these locations is a bit of an art:
"You can easily locate it by finding the foundation of the old church and a cistern that was on the hill above Brown's stable," Anderson said. "Old Kernville is between New Kernville and Wofford Heights."
Anyway, these parts of central California had been very popular from the late 19th centry through the
middle of the 20th century, as you can see in the wonderful pictures in this SFGate article. There were farms and ranches, towns with markets, churches, government buildings, and so forth. And the area was well-known for making "western" movies celebrating the (mostly fictional) cowboys-and-indians stories that were very popular and built the careers of actors like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.
Damming the river and filling Lake Isabella mostly ended this era of the region's history, although people still gather yearly for a celebration of "Whiskey Flat Days".
But last winter, as everyone knows, the rains and snows came in tremendous volume! Happily, the restoration project has finished, and the Isabella Dam is back to its intended role.
And Whiskey Flat has sunk back below the lake's surface.
Which is good, because the snow is still melting!
Mulkay, who acts as the liaison between water rights holders downstream and the Corps of Engineers, said returning full storage capacity to the reservoir will give water managers more flexibility in their water management strategies.
Considering this year's massive snowpack and huge river flows, many had predicted Isabella would be filled by mid- to late June. But a mild late spring and the Corps' decision to push larger-than-normal releases from the dam gave water managers more breathing room.
"There is still a lot of water in the snowpack," Mulkay said, "and a very conservative estimate of runoff for July and August is in the range of 350,000 acre-feet and 110,000 acre-feet, respectively.
Not sure when I'll make it back through this area again, as my family has moved and it's no longer an area I visit regularly.
Still, it's good to know that the dam is safely repaired, as I've still got family in Bakersfield!
