UPDATE September 23, 2025: Reverse Validation Action document filed – Downloadable .pdf is below.

September 21, 2025

Ridgecrest California

This post has been updated with clarification on the difference between a Comprehensive Adjudication and a Validation Action. Added the Phase One Decision as a downloadable PDF.

Reverse Validation Action Filed in Superior Court

The Indian Wells Valley Water District has revived a legal challenge to the IWV Groundwater Authority’s Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) which will likely place the entire GSP and the $400 million AVEK imported water and pipeline project in limbo.

Late last week, the IWV Water District filed a Reverse Validation Action in the Orange County Superior Court. The presiding judge is William D. Claster, and the Reverse Validation Action will focus specifically on the Groundwater Sustainability Plan which has a number of issues that must eventually be addressed.

California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) provides for a GSP to be challenged using a legal process called a Reverse Validation Action. Among other issues in a GSP, this process can be used to determine the validity of the science used to calculate the sustainable yield of any given groundwater basin. Under SGMA, the sustainable yield is defined as the amount of water that can be pumped from a basin without impacting or causing the levels of groundwater in the basin to decline over a long period of time.

Currently, the water district and others, including Searles Valley Minerals, are using the legal process called Comprehensive Adjudication, which establishes or adjudicates the water rights of property owners in a groundwater basin. The Comprehensive Adjudication of the Indian Wells Valley groundwater basin just concluded the Phase One portion of the trial which settled the question of the Navy’s federal reserve water right in the Indian Wells Valley.

The Reverse Validation Action will potentially resolve the science issues by stipulation in Phase Two of the comprehensive adjudication trial, which is scheduled to begin on June 1st of 2026.

Reverse Validation Action – A Motion Contesting the Legality and Validity of the Authority’s Actions (Below)

Issues that might be resolved in a Validation Action include the “science” used to calculate the basin’s sustainable yield as well as the type of projects that are necessary to bring the basin into compliance with SGMA and ultimately, sustainability of the basin by the year 2040.

The so-called “Replenishment Fee” and the need to purchase imported “Table A” water is in doubt due to the results of the IWV Technical Working Group’s study (see below).

The need for AVEK pipeline project is also in doubt, and the recycled water project that was included in the GSP was cancelled by the GA last year after it was determined to be infeasible.

This motion has been filed by the Indian Wells Valley Water District, confirming the water district’s status as an interested party with a “writ hearing” to be held on February 4th, 2026. The full filing document is below.

MOTION OF INDIAN WELLS VALLEY WATER DISTRICT FOR ORDER
CONFIRMING “INTERESTED PARTY” STATUS OR GRANTING LEAVE TO AMEND ANSWER

“…contesting the legality and validity of the Authority’s actions listed in the Summons.”

Safe Yield:

The Authority’s Groundwater Sustainability Plan adopted a low
sustainable yield that was opposed by all major pumpers;

Allocation to United States:

The Authority’s Groundwater Sustainability Plan
erroneously allocated the entire sustainable yield of 7,650 acre-feet to the United
States;

Replenishment Fee:

Based on the Groundwater Sustainability Plan’s allocation of
the entire sustainable yield to the United States, the Authority imposed a
replenishment fee on pumpers other than the United States and de minimis users
to fund imported water purchases; and

Proposition 218:

The Authority violated Proposition 218 (Cal. Const.,
Art. XIII D) when adopting the replenishment fee by, among other things,
requiring a majority of protests to block the fee from all parcels in the basin,
rather than requiring a majority from only those parcels on which the fee was to
be imposed

Sustainable Yield

In the case of the Indian Wells Valley groundwater basin, the sustainable yield was determined by the Groundwater Authority to be 7,650 acre feet of water per year. The IWV Technical Working Group, which was formed with the assistance of the IWV Water District, says otherwise – it’s over 14,300 acre feet per year. (See below for more info)

When the GSP was first developed, the sustainable yield of a basin was used to determine how much water may be pumped from the basin in order to meet the requirements of “sustainability” under SGMA. In addition, the GA’s Replenishment Fee, authorized via Proposition 218, was used to calculate the fee necessary to buy $50 million of “Table A” water rights from sources in the San Joaquin Valley (None of which has been actually purchased as of this date).

Comprehensive Adjudication: Phase One Decision is Final, There’s No Such Thing as “Replenishment-fee Free” Water

As a result of the completion of the Phase One portion of the comprehensive adjudication, Judge Claster determined that the Navy is only entitled to 2,008 acre feet of federal reserved water right, not the entire 7,650 acre feet sustainable yield of the basin that the Groundwater Authority originally allocated to the Navy in the GSP.

The Phase One Decision is 38 pages long and provided for download as a PDF file here:

The Navy needs approximately 1,500 acre feet of water to fulfill its primary mission, and during the Phase One trial, Navy officials testified that they have no plans for future missions or growth that would necessitate using more water. The Navy’s federal reserve water right was calculated using an average based on their historical consumption over the last 10 years.

At the time the GSP was created, the Authority, led by former Kern County Supervisor Mick Gleason, thought it was appropriate to give excess water that the Navy didn’t need or use to the water district. Unfortunately, the Navy’s “replenishment-fee free” water was credited to the water district’s customers when it wasn’t the Navy’s water to give in the first place.

The Groundwater Authority’s attorneys (and Department of Justice attorneys) were unable to convince presiding judge William D. Claster that the Navy’s federal reserve water right extended to civilians living off the base, and because the GSP granted “Replenishment-fee free” water beyond the Navy’s actual usage to the Indian Wells Valley Water District’s customers, the “credit” was improperly applied and must now be rectified or reconciled in the GSP.

A Validation Action will likely do so.

Thus far, the IWV Water District has paid over $17,000,000 under protest to the Groundwater Authority in the form of “IWVGA Fees” that have been assessed on their customer’s water bills.

Status Report On AB 1413 and AB 1466

The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority and the City of Ridgecrest were unable to push AB 1413 through to the finish line before the state legislature adjourned until 2026. The bill, which was introduced by California State Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-21), was met with strong opposition from a large majority of business and agricultural interests in the state, including the California Association of Realtors and the California Chamber of Commerce.

AB 1413 was ordered to the inactive file at the state legislature.

AB 1466 was passed and awaits Governor Newsom’s signature. The Indian Wells Valley Water District supported the legislation with amendments.

As a result of the recent actions by the City of Ridgecrest and the IWV Groundwater Authority, as well as the Phase One decision by Judge Claster, it should now be readily apparent that the GA’s “legal strategy” has backfired in more ways than one. For more information, please see the following:

IWV Technical Working Group Study

A Technical Working Group (TWG) composed of qualified groundwater professionals designated by parties representing more than 80 percent of the total groundwater production from the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Basin (Basin) was formed to assess groundwater storage in the Basin and evaluate other related technical questions. This paper was the subject of collaboration between these professionals applying scientific methods to estimate the total amount of groundwater and usable groundwater in storage in the Basin.

This effort required defining the physical parameters of the Basin, including its geologic and hydrologic characteristics. Three separate methodologies were considered, and the average groundwater volumes estimated from those three approaches are as follows:

1. The total volume of groundwater in storage in the Basin is approximately 66.9 million acre-feet
2. The amount of fresh groundwater in storage in the Basin is approximately 37.5 million acre-feet

It is difficult to ignore the significant differences between the current values presently being used in the GSP and the estimates developed by the TWG. The values are as follows:

Why are the TWG estimates significantly different from the GSP estimates?

Using renowned experts in hydrology, engineering and geology, the TWG estimates were determined using a comprehensive analysis of the most complete, up-to-date data sets available and state of the art analytical methodology.

Previous studies that pre-date the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act were never focused on, or intended to, determine the specific requirement of the new law. These studies sometimes analyzed only smaller portions of the valley, did not include some potential sources of recharge, and were limited by the technology available at the time.

The study performed by the Technical Working Group specifically addressed all potential sources of recharge and the entire basin storage.

In Other News, BLM-NEPA on the AVEK Project has Expired:

The AVEK pipeline project has expired* from the Ridgecrest BLM area’s NEPA project list, so the clock has to reset and it can take 1 to 5 years for the Environmental Impact Statement to be fully completed (including the public comment period). Most of the actions the BLM takes to implement its land-use plans are reviewed under the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), through various documentation of the potential environmental effects.

*Note: The environmental assessment for the AVEK project was deemed incomplete because it didn’t include four miles of electrical transmission lines that need to be constructed in sensitive desert habitat.

The first meeting with Southern California Edison was just held regarding four miles of electrical transmission lines to be constructed in order to run the pumps and the water up over the mountains from Cantil.

We’re still waiting for a substantive response from the Kern County Counsel’s Office on the Public Records Act request we filed over a month ago.

Opinion Survey – Do you like cherry pie?

As you may have heard, it’s become popular in public forums to describe the comprehensive adjudication legal process by comparing it to a pie (our favorite pie is cherry). Comprehensive Adjudication ultimately provides for the Judge to adjudicate the size of the cherry pie, and how the pie will be divided amongst the people eating the pie.

For those of you who are eating pie produced by the Indian Wells Valley Water District, you’ll be happy to know the water district is looking out for you, making sure that you get your piece of pie at the lowest possible cost per cherry.

The entire GSP has to be revisited and revised with feasible projects. This is exactly why the water district has filed a Validation Action while they continue pursuing the Comprehensive Adjudication legal process. Ultimately, these actions will finalize the allocation of the cherry pie and settle the science once and for all.

In addition, mediation is still on the table, and through mediation, many of these issues can be settled outside of the courtroom. The water district also wants to revisit the recycled water project and cooperate with the city and the Navy in order to build the new wastewater treatment facility and the secondary treatment facility needed to produce the recycled water.

Publisher’s Opinion:

Councilman Scott Hayman is now the featured image in this Post. As the Chairman of the Board of the IWV Groundwater Authority, he’s the person responsible for guiding the Authority through all aspects of compliance with SGMA and the implementation of the valley’s Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Councilman Hayman will admit that it takes “thick skin” to be the person sitting as the board chair.

After seven years as the City’s representative on the GA, Councilman Hayman will be termed-out next year, and he’s proven to be a failure as the leader of the GA as well a primary cause, together with City Manager Ron Strand, for all the acrimony unfairly heaped on the water district.

The GA’s “legal strategy”, formulated by attorneys Keith Lemieux and Phill Hall, has been an abject failure and now the chickens are coming home to roost for Kern County Supervisor Phillip Peters, former supervisor Mick Gleason and former mayors Eric Bruen and Peggy Breeden.

Hayman can’t step down soon enough, and Ron Strand can’t retire soon enough.

Documents provided below include:

The Groundwater Sustainabiltiy Plan (GSP) which was approved on January 2020.

Pros and Cons of AB 1413, description and text:

CEC – Imported Water Pipeline Project Cost Analysis