A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
September 11, 2008
2. Supply –
Editorial:
Best water deal won't flow from courtroom
After nine years of legal maneuvering over rights to pump water from the Valley's underground aquifer, Antelope Valley water districts, cities, farmers, property owners and others go back to court next month for a new phase of trial - but still no conclusion is in sight.
It's time for the Valley's leaders to stop this slow, costly, cumbersome attempt to rely on a judge to solve the Valley's water problem and solve it themselves.
Farmers and
The proposal is to allow pumping to continue at current rates while an independent expert monitors well levels. If well levels drop, that would indicate what's called an overdraft, in which more water is being pumped out than is replenished from rain or other sources. Water districts, farmers and other well users then could meet again to agree how necessary cutbacks in pumping should be shared.
Using observations of well levels, taken over several years, would provide hard evidence that well pumping is too great, as opposed to the theoretical calculations of replenishment rates advanced - and disputed - by numerous studies over past decades.
Collecting data on well levels could mean no final apportionment of well pumping rights for 10 years or so, but the court battle is unlikely to provide a final resolution before then, at the rate it is progressing.
The groundwater legal battle began in 1999 with a lawsuit filed by Bakersfield-based Diamond Farming, asserting that it had first rights to pump from the groundwater basin beneath its east
Another lawsuit was filed in 2004 by attorneys for the county's Waterworks District 40, which supplies water for much of the Valley, saying they were trying to ensure a safe supply for customers and protect the underground water basin.
Now, scores of parties are involved, including water suppliers, farmers, municipalities and individual landowners. A class of landowners who don't own wells has been certified as a party to the lawsuit, as has a separate class of small landowners who pump small amounts of water.
The next phase of the trial, starting Oct. 6, will focus on whether the Valley's aquifer is one continuous flowing underground stream, or whether it is separated into underground pools that function independently of one another. The significance is whether a farmer's well in Littlerock draws down well levels in
Valley farmers are worried the water litigation, technically called adjudication, could lead to drastic cutbacks in their water use and thus their crop acreage. Farmers say their wells are not showing the drop that would occur if the aquifer were being pumped too heavily.
What's needed is an equitable settlement based on hard data.#
http://www.avpress.com/n/10/0910_s7.hts
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