Two challengers hoping to win seats this November on the Kern County Water Agency board of directors were both moved to run because of the Kern River. “The more I started hearing about different topics, the constraints on the flows of the river, I thought this doesn’t make sense. Why can’t we find a better way? That’s what drove me here,” said Daneya Williams, a Kernville resident and manager of Whitewater Voyages. She is vying for the Division 2 seat, which covers a huge swath of eastern Kern County, held by incumbent Laura Cattani, a longtime local rancher. Cattani, who has served on the board since 2021, responded to SJV Water’s interview requests that her schedule did not allow for an interview in time for this story. The other challenger, who’s vying for incumbent Tammy Johnson’s Division 4 seat, is Mary Parada, a Spanish professor at California State University, Bakersfield.