WELDON, Calif. (KERO) — Flooding remains a concern around Kern County as the snowpack melts. One mountain area has been facing persistent flooding problems since March.
Ben Rudnick, who has lived in the area of Weldon and Onyx his entire life, says the problem of Fay Ranch Road in Weldon flooding goes back decades.
"We are talking about Fay Ranch Road and the flooding that happens down there. What happens is between Highway 178 and South Fork River on Fay Ranch Road, it's the old road bed," said Rudnick.
Rudnick says the property on either side of the road is owned by ranchers. Kern County Public Works Engineering Manager Alejandro Bedolla says the ranchers sometimes have issues maintaining flood control measures along their fences.
"At Fay Ranch specifically, I think that some of those berms have intersected with some of the property fences out there, and they're pretty hard to maintain," said Bedolla. "So to build the berm, we would end up using - our roads crews would use loaders and dump trucks, and we bring in material to actually reinforce those soil berms."
Bedolla says the soil berms eventually get saturated with water and become less effective. Plans to make more permanent fixes can be difficult because many entities are affected by the river.
"Irrigation canals and other culverts that might have been there before the road was, we can't necessarily interfere with any of that without causing a much bigger issue for the county itself, so we are trying to be respectful of everybody's private property," said Bedolla.
Earlier in the year, Fay Ranch Road was completely flooded, cutting the residents of Fay Canyon off for days if they didn't have vehicles that were able to pass through the water.
Weldon resident Mike Klinkenberg says the persistent flooding has been a hardship for many in his community who, like him, are seniors.
"I'm probably about average age up here, so there's a lot of people that have medical appointments, and when it gets like this is not just difficult for us, it's difficult for fire or ambulance, too," said Klinkenberg. "If we suddenly get, like, 2 weeks of 100 degrees, I don't even think a berm like this [waterlogged] will hold."
According to Bedolla, the county's work in Weldon will continue.
"We are checking on Fay Ranch daily, so we are understanding what is going on up there," said Bedolla.
Workers from the nearby ranch tried to reinforce the berm Wednesday but didn't have enough soil.
Despite being frustrated at the whole situation, Klinkenberg says that the difficulty has shown him how supportive the community of Fay Ranch Road is.
"When we had flooding and people couldn't get across, they called other people, told them where their hideaway key was, they went and fed each other's pets," said Klinkenberg. "We had people loaning each other vehicles, taking each other to Bakersfield."
