Sacramento County Superior Court Makes Critical Decision for San Joaquin Valley Water

In a landmark decision for Westside San Joaquin Valley farmers on May 5, 2003, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Roland L. Candee has upheld the entitlement for some 40,000 acres within Westlands Water District to receive and use Central Valley Project (CVP) water. The ruling granted a petition filed by Baker, Manock & Jensen on behalf of landowners that the 1965 Westlands "Merger Statute" established this entitlement and that the State Water Resources Control Board cannot now require environmental mitigation as a condition for receiving project water.

We are pleased with Judge Candee's decision," said Christopher L. Campbell on behalf of the six-member Baker, Manock & Jensen team. "It is a fair and just resolution to a concern that has spanned several decades. Most importantly, we are pleased for the farmers, whose lands would have been in jeopardy had the water that they had been receiving been restricted. These farmers depend on these water deliveries for their livelihood."

In 1985, the United States Reclamation Bureau, the agency responsible for CVP water deliveries, filed a petition with the State Water Board to conform the "place of use" of its permits to the areas it had historically served. The Bureau's petition was addressed in the Bay-Delta Hearings, which were a direct response to the Board's adoption of the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan in 1995.

In the lengthy Decision 1641 in 1999, the Board decided on water right issues and water quality responsibilities for the entire Delta region including the San Joaquin River drainage and all CVP contractors including Westlands Water District. Subsequently, 11 cases challenging aspects of the Decision were filed in various counties of the State and all were eventually coordinated in Sacramento County. The coordinated cases included the case filed by Baker, Manock & Jensen on behalf of the Westlands landowners, referred to as the Anderson petitioners. That case sought to overturn the Board's decision to impose environmental mitigation on lands which had historically received CVP water but were outside the place of use outlined in the Bureau's original permit applications in the 1950s.

Baker, Manock & Jensen argued that the Board's decision was barred by the State legislation that became known as the "Merger Statute" which consolidated two pre-existing entities: Westlands and West Plains Water Storage District. The Merger Statute specifically included "all land in the water district immediately following the merger."

Judge Candee concluded that the Legislature in effect created a statutory authorization for delivery of CVP water to all lands of the combined Westlands-West Plains. In the Court's decision, the Judge stated that "(t)he legislature may not have explicitly said that the place of use under the Bureau's CVP permits was accordingly modified, but the normal and intended consequence of what the legislature did say are to require and effectuate such a place of use modification." The Judge required the State Board to modify the Bureau's permits accordingly, without regard to environmental mitigation.

"The Court's decision is the culmination of a long administrative process," said John L.B. Smith, Baker, Manock & Jensen lead trial counsel. "We have actively represented the impacted Westlands Water District landowners for the past three years in this litigation and in the administrative process before the State Board for years before that. Water issues represent an important concern for the entire state and we have committed much of our resources and expertise to our water and related practices so we can help resolve this type of issue."

Source: Baker, Manock & Jensen