Residents of a development hundreds of miles north of Kern County on Saturday approved a massive water rate hike in hopes of appeasing a local agency that has provided them water for the past 24 years under a convoluted exchange deal. They will go from paying about $200 a month for the base connection fee to $568 a month. The money will go to the Western Hills Water District so it can repay the Kern County Water Agency a debt of $13 million that KCWA says it owes in unpaid water charges. KCWA had said it would cut off supplies to Western Hills, which serves the Diablo Grande development in the foothills west of Patterson, by June 30 if residents didn’t agree to the rate hike. But on June 26, KCWA board members, apparently in closed session, extended that deadline to Sept. 30 to allow Western Hills to “develop an alternate supply,” according to a letter KCWA sent Western Hills on June 27.

Other Kern water news:

• SJV Water: Water agency, again, seeks to have judge booted from Kern River case