RIDGECREST, Calif. (February 13, 2025) – A recent ruling by the California Supreme Court has allowed Indian Wells Valley Water District and Searles Valley Mineral to move forward with their water rights lawsuits, or adjudication. This legal action is delaying construction of a pipeline that would address our vanishing groundwater by importing water into the Indian Wells Valley groundwater basin.
While the water district and Searles have celebrated this ruling as a “victory for the citizens,” in fact, the opposite is true. By being allowed to move forward with their lawsuits, valley residents will continue to bear the expensive costs of a lengthy groundwater adjudication process. Worse, the lawsuits delay fixing the problem of our rapidly decreasing groundwater given these adjudications can take well over 10 years to reach a conclusion, with some lasting decades.
The petition to the court was intended to avoid the costly legal fees that the water district will have to pay using ratepayer funds, and to move forward with the state-approved Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Additionally, because the water district is a member of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority that created and submitted the plan, Ridgecrest residents are also paying for the Authority’s legal costs associated with the lawsuits.
The water district’s legal tactics are holding up the plans to import water into the Indian Wells Valley basin by challenging who has rights to the water and how much water is recharged into the Basin annually. In 2020, the water district, City of Ridgecrest, Kern County, Inyo County and San Bernardino County, reviewed and approved a plan that would import water in from the California State Water Project via a pipeline. This solution was determined to be the best and most cost-effective approach to ensuring our groundwater doesn’t run out in the next 40 years.
The adjudication lawsuit filed by the water district and Searles is against all groundwater users in the Indian Wells Valley. Through adjudication, they are challenging the U.S. Navy’s federal reserve water rights and claiming there is “new scientific data” that shows there is more water in the basin than previously studied. Rather than present their findings to the Authority or the California Department of Water Resources (as required by law), they are choosing to spend ratepayer money on litigation.
Both arguments are a challenge to the state’s efforts to address water security via the State Groundwater Management Authority. The solution to build a pipeline was arrived at after a multiyear, comprehensive process that included 14 independent scientific studies and models. These studies were part of a water scarcity report prepared for the U.S. Navy by the Desert Research Institute, an independent third-party agent with 60 years of experience.
Contrary to the water district’s claims that the IWVGA is withholding public data, the water district itself reviewed and approved the data, which has been posted on the Authority website (Important Documents section and in the FAQs), or simply find it here. The data and findings are deep, reliable and comprehensive, which is in stark contrast to the “new data” offered by the water district.
The challenge to the Navy’s water rights is even more dangerous and to that end, three ranking naval officers submitted legal declarations relevant to the District’s lawsuit. Currently, the Navy only uses some of the water it is entitled to under its Federal Reserved Water Rights. If it lost rights to the water it uses, the Navy might choose to close the base, which would have a devastating effect on the community.
The IWVGA exists as a direct result of the basin’s groundwater resource not being managed properly during the past 70 years, resulting in critical levels of overdrafting. The Indian Wells Valley Replenishment Pipeline will be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and has an initial $50 million funding for construction from the federal government.
This is the only viable solution currently on the table that can significantly help address the region’s critical water overdraft levels. Any delays to the pipeline put the long-term viability of the City of Ridgecrest at risk.
