Kern Water Bank Legal Challenge Moves Forward

On October 2nd, a Sacramento County Superior Court Judge issued his latest ruling in the ongoing legal fight over the Kern Water Bank, a storage basin in the San Joaquin Valley.

According to the ruling, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) must redo a portion of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Monterey Plus Amendment to the State Water Contracts.  Under Monterey Plus, DWR authorized Kern Water Bank Authority, a joint powers authority, to operate and draw from the Kern Water Bank, which is recharged with State Water Project water.  The agreement has been particularly contentious because one of the entities that govern the Kern Water Bank Authority is a water company owned by Paramount Farms, a major nut producer.

The current proceedings are the second time opponents have challenged the project’s EIR.  The first round of litigation was settled when DWR drafted a new EIR, which in turn is the subject of the current challenge.

According to the LA Times, Judge Timothy Frawley had ruled in March that the EIR was valid, with the exception of the portion that dealt with groundwater from the Bank.  The October ruling clarified the implications of that finding.  In a victory for the plaintiffs, the court ruled that new EIR needed to look beyond adjacent lands and consider all the environmental impacts of operating the Bank, regardless of location.

Several other points went in favor of the defendants.  One of the plaintiffs, the Central Delta Water Agency, had argued that it was impossible to separate the groundwater portion of the EIR, and so the entire plan should be scrapped.  However, the court ruled that only the groundwater portion had to be redone.  The court also rejected Central Delta’s request that the Monterey Plus approval be revoked while the EIR is revised.  Third, the court refused to enjoin withdrawals from the Bank during the EIR review.  The Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs, said it would appeal the ruling to try to get the Bank shut down during the review.

Written by Stratecon Staff