Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 30, 2007
5. Agencies, Programs, People
IMPERIAL VALLEY LITIGATION:
Water cases to flood court
By Darren Simon, staff writer
After a two-year delay, a series of lawsuits over one of the most hotly debated water pacts in the Imperial Valley’s history is about to return to court.
At stake is not only the 75-year water pact — the Quantification Settlement Agreement — but also a question of whether water remains a public resource in the Valley, Imperial Irrigation District officials say.
“What it comes down to is whether IID is the trustee of
To some farmers who are part of a local organization called the Imperial Group, it’s a question of whether the IID board in signing the 2003 QSA negotiated a pact that best serves the interest of both landowners and the Valley as a whole.
“Our fight is to keep the water rights pertinent to the land,” said Mike Morgan, a local farmer and a leading member of the Imperial Group.
Come Sept. 14 all parties involved in QSA litigation will be back in the Sacramento Superior Court to discuss how to move forward with the legal battle.
THE HISTORY
In 2003, the IID Board of Directors was a signing party along with state and federal authorities and other water agencies to the QSA, a far-reaching water pact that cut both the state’s and the Valley’s Colorado River supply.
The action was meant to prevent future water wars between water agencies across states that depend on the
IID officials who signed the QSA said it was the best way to protect the Valley’s water supply into the future, but from the outset there were critics of the water deal.
As the district sought court validation of the QSA, the Imperial Group filed a lawsuit challenging the district and the water pact.
Morgan said the litigation is not meant to remove the district as the governing entity that holds the water rights in trust. What the litigation does seek, he said, is to have those water rights tied to the land rather than to the public.
He acknowledges that would equate to water privatization.
“People shouldn’t fear privatization,” Morgan said, adding if water rights were tied to the land that would serve as better protection of the Valley’s water rights.
“It secures the water staying in the Valley,” Morgan said, adding the farming community would look to build up local communities rather than sell the water as some IID officials have alleged.
IID Director John Pierre Menvielle disagrees.
He said there are those farmers, in particular those with the Imperial Group, who want to control the water supply so they can sell it.
Menvielle said it is critical that the QSA lawsuits move forward.
“The sooner we get going the better off we will all be,” he said.
THE COORDINATED CASES
The litigation filed by the Imperial Group was not the only legal challenge to the QSA.
There was other litigation brought by
Eventually the cases were all joined into what has become known as the coordinated QSA cases.
Two years ago the coordinated cases came to a halt as one of the water lawsuits filed by
The county’s effort to seek an appeal is what led to the delay and it was just earlier this year that its appeal was dealt with by a state appellate court that dismissed the matter.
Morgan said as the QSA cases move forward he is looking to see a settlement reached with the district that would bring about a renegotiated QSA — one that would increase the value of the Valley’s water supply.
Kelley said it is time to bring the QSA debate to a close.
“It’s important no matter what side of this question you are on that there be a definitive resolution,” Kelley said.
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