LAWSUITS FILED OR PENDING

January 2008

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Superior Court Denies Challenge to EIR for Water Acquisition from Kern County Water Banking and Recovery Program
California Water Impact Network, et al. v. Castaic Lake Water Agency, et al.

On November 19, 2007, the Honorable Judge Dzintra Janavs, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge, issued a statement of decision ruling in favor of the Castaic Lake Water Agency (CLWA) and real parties in interest Buena Vista Water Storage District and Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District (collectively: BV/RRB). In doing so, she denied a petition for writ of mandate and complaint for declaratory relief challenging the validity of CLWA’s EIR prepared as part of an approval of its 2006 Water Acquisition Project. CLWA’s 2006 Water Acquisition Project is the annual purchase of 11,000 acre-feet of water by CLWA from the BV/RRB Water Banking and Recovery Program. BV/RRB are adjacent water storage districts that together serve primarily agricultural land in the southern San Joaquin Valley, west of the City of Bakersfield. Each has rights to water from the Kern River and each has contracts with the Kern County Water Agency, a State Water Contractor, for an additional surface water supply from the California Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) State Water Project (SWP). The BV/RRB Program is a joint endeavor between these two water storage districts that involves the exchange, recharge, groundwater banking, and recovery of water by BV/RRB within the service area of BV/RRB. It also includes the sale and delivery of recovered water to third-party buyers, such as CLWA, and permits delivery by either the direct pumping of banked water or by an “in lieu exchange” of its SWP supplies.