San Joaquin Valley

State election law enforcers recommend a $16,000 penalty against former Oakdale Irrigation District board member Al Bairos for violating campaign finance requirements and failing to cooperate with investigators.

Water flowing from Isabella Lake serves as a refreshing reminder that the Kern River does run through Bakersfield — sometimes, anyway, and not always because there’s been a recent abundance of rain or snowfall. … It may be worth noting that the Kern is running not because this has been a particularly wet year (it hasn’t been), but because of work the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is doing to shore up a dam upstream.

Tulare’s water system failed to meet state water drinking standards, city officials reported in a letter sent to residents this week. It could take three years to completely clear the cancer-causing contaminant from Tulare’s water supply, city officials said.

In California’s San Joaquin Valley, one of the most productive farming regions in the nation, an estimated 150,000 people are stuck living with contaminated drinking water. … The good news: Help is available to many of these small community water systems, provided they can merge with a neighboring utility that has clean water.