UPDATE Monday June 8th, 2026:

To listen to the trial, click on the link below. If the trial is available to watch on video, we’ll post the link here too. The trial begins at 10:00 AM each morning.

https://occourtsapp.occourts.org/aci/checkin-results?dept=CX101

Using multiple independent analytical methods, those analyses consistently converge on the same conclusion: the Basin’s safe yield is substantially greater than 7,650 AFY—conservatively no less than 14,300 AFY and approximately 15,400 AFY. – Indian Wells Valley Technical Working Group

June 6th, 2026

Indian Wells Valley California

The Indian Wells Valley’s Comprehensive Adjudication Phase 2 trial begins on June 8th, 2026. The trial will be held at the Superior Court in Orange County, Judge William D. Claster presiding. The trial is expected to last for 3 weeks so bookmark https://Roadrunner395.com for regular updates during the entire month of June.

Should the Indian Wells Valley Water District prevail in the “safe yield” trial, residents of the IWV and the district’s ratepayers could save or recover millions of dollars in expenses and damages related to the Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP), the Groundwater Authority’s “replenishment fee” and the AVEK pipeline project. Customers of the water district have already paid nearly $20 million in “replenishment fees” to the GA and not one drop of water has been purchased for the GA’s imported water project and pipeline.

Timeline and the Creation of the IWV Technical Working Group (TWG)

The TWG was deliberately structured to promote methodological rigor, transparency, and technical coherence. Rather than producing a single, consolidated opinion…

• SGMA passed and was signed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2014.
• July 15, 2016 Joint Powers Agreement created IWVGA Effective (Basin 6-054 SGMA Portal – Map Viewer)
• June 2017, GA Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) meets for the first time.
• January 2020 Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) approved.
• October 2020 Mojave Pistachios, Searles Valley Minerals file lawsuits against the IWV Groundwater Authority
• June 16th, 2021, IWV Water District files Comprehensive Adjudication Lawsuit vs. IWV Groundwater Authority
• Early 2022, IWV Technical Working Group (TWG) Formed.
• December 5th, 2023, IWVWD Press Release: New Analyses Show Significantly More Water Available in IWV
• January 2025 IWVWD, SVM score major court victory over IWVGA in adjudication fight (Phasing Order upheld)
• September 15th, 2025, Phase 1 Decision: The Court finds that the Navy’s federal reserve water right is 2,008 AFY
• June 8th, 2026, Phase 2 trial begins

The “Safe Yield” in the IWV Groundwater Basin is between 14,300 and 15,400 acre-feet per year – Indian Wells Valley Technical Working Group (TWG)

The IWV Technical Working Group experts will present evidence and testimony that the Safe Yield in the basin is conservatively 14,300 acre-feet per year and as high as 15,400 acre-feet per year.

The Groundwater Authority’s experts will attempt to make the case that many historical studies form the basis for a safe yield estimate of 7,650 acre-feet per year. Furthermore, the Groundwater Authority fixed the safe yield at 7,650 acre-feet per year in models developed after the Groundwater Sustainability Plan was adopted.

The original model used to develop the GSP, called the DRI 2-D Model, has vanished.

SGMA 10th Anniversary – The Road to Sustainability is Filled with Potholes

On November 18th, 2024, the California Natural Resources Agency sponsored an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the passage of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Former Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into law, which was sponsored by former assemblyman Roger Dickinson of the California State Assembly.

As keynote speaker, Brown touted the law as “democracy in action” while saying “we all need rules”. Most of the 6-hour video is filled with state water officials congratulating themselves for overcoming the challenges of bringing up over 160 new Government Sustainability Agencies that would manage groundwater basins throughout the state. Only during the last panel discussion was any mention made of the severe economic damages to be caused by SGMA.

It can be said that the medicine called SGMA is worse than the disease. The law is a bandaid covering up the fact that California has mismanaged its abundant water resources for years, and no new projects have been built since Proposition 1 was passed in 2014.

Last year, during a Water and Natural Resources committee hearing on AB 1413, State Senator Melissa Hurtado stated that SGMA was “a failed experiment, it picks winners and losers”. A study out of UC Berkely determined that over one million acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland would be fallowed, 85,000 jobs would be lost, and over $7 billion in economic losses would result from SGMA per year!

Video is timestamped to begin with the keynote speech of governor Brown with a short introduction by Karla Nemeth, the Director of the California Department of Water Resources:

The Agenda can be viewed here: AGENDA It’s well worth watching if you’re strategizing how to fight SGMA and DWR while they destroy farmers and agriculture communities throughout the state.

Flashback to 2020

Press Release: October 2, 2020 – Searles Valley Minerals and Mojave Pistachios file lawsuits against the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority

Searles Valley Mineral also filed a lawsuit against the IWVGA this week, with claims that the new [replenishment] fee increases would push “Searles Valley Minerals out of business after more than 140 years of operation. Searles is a pillar of the Trona and Ridgecrest communities, providing jobs and economic benefits to these communities since we were founded in 1873,” said Burnell Blanchard, Vice President of Operations for Searles Valley Minerals. “We’ve maintained our workforce through natural disasters, a global pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis. Now, we face the threat of closing our doors and putting hundreds of people out of work because the Authority has refused to recognize our long-established groundwater rights.”

Fast Forward to 2026

Searles was diplomatic when it announced it was shutting down over half of their business last February. The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority’s “replenishment fee” was the last straw. Searles refused to pay the “replenishment fee”. So did Mojave Pistachios. The only “large pumpers” in the IWV paying the fee are the customers of the Indian Wells Valley Water District.

How Big is the Pie?

Hydrogeology is the branch of geology concerned with water occurring underground or on the surface of the earth.

If you’re interested in geology and hydrogeology, the Indian Wells Valley in California is the place to be. It’s one of the most complex and fascinating groundwater basins in California. The valley has been studied for decades by scientists who’ve been monitoring, hypothesizing and debating about the hydrogeology since the beginning of the last century, well before the passage of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).

Conversation and public comments by politicians about Comprehensive Adjudication lawsuits and “groundwater in storage” have been condensed into one simple metaphor; How big is the pie and how are the pieces of the pie allocated among the many owners of the pie (who are the holders of the water rights).

The Pie is recharged (inflow) and pumped (outflow) and if too much water is pumped over the inflow, it’s called overdraft. SGMA won’t allow groundwater pumpers to extract any more groundwater than what’s called the “Safe Yield”, otherwise undesirable results will occur from overdraft, chief among them wells running dry and land subsidence.

In order to achieve sustainability by 2040, the Groundwater Authority intended to import water into the basin via a pipeline called AVEK. This was the intention of the GA from day one. The “science” didn’t matter. It was generally accepted that the valley was in “critical overdraft”. The verdict was in the day the Government Sustainability Agency (GSA) called the IWV Groundwater Authority was created.

The TAC vs. the TWG and the “Safe Yield”

This is what the Comprehensive Adjudication Phase 2 trial is all about. It’s the ultimate hydrology test in a court of law. In this case, the hydrogeologists that will testify during the trial are some of the best in the business. All of them, both the plaintiff’s experts (IWV Technical Working Group – TWG) and the experts for the defense (For all intents Stetson was the TAC, or the Technical Advisory Committee), have a stake in the outcome.

The TAC was comprised of eight members representing various interests including large agriculture, business interests, domestic well owners, and wholesaler and industrial users. All TAC members were required to have a formal education and experience in a groundwater-related field while also understanding the technical aspects of the Basin or similar basins in California. The District, Mojave Pistachios, Meadowbrook, and Searles each had their own representative on the TAC: Tim Parker represented the District; Wade Major represented Mojave Pistachios; Eddy Teasdale represented Meadowbrook; and
Adam Bingham represented Searles.11 Tim Parker and Eddy Teasdale are the same experts testifying in this Phase 2 trial. Anthony Brown is the founder and CEO of Aquilogic, where Wade Major is employed, and occasionally attended TAC meetings. (p. 18, TWB Brief)

California water laws include a well-tested definition of “Safe Yield”, which must use scientific methods to analyze and validate or test the data. That’s why the DRI 2-D model is so important. A week ago, we learned that the model is missing, it “vanished”. Subsequent versions of the DRI model are called GSA/DRI 2020 and GSA/DRI 2025. Both of them used a fixed value for the safe yield, i.e. 7,650 acre-feet per year derived from the figure in the missing model.

Anthony Brown’s Qualifications

The District designated Anthony Brown of Aquilogic as a non-retained expert for Phase 2. His testimony will address foundational groundwater concepts; his experience on the IWVGA Technical Advisory Committee (“TAC”) compared to the TWG; Aquilogic’s analysis of groundwater in storage; and Aquilogic’s shallow well analysis. (p. 25, TWG Brief)

Mr. Brown has an extensive 35-year history in hydrology. His work includes groundwater resource assessment, water budgets, safe and sustainable yield estimations, groundwater modeling, evaluation of undesirable results, and preparation and review of GSPs under SGMA. He has qualified as an expert five times in federal court and ten times in state court and has been retained as an expert in water-rights disputes in 11 California basins, while providing SGMA consulting in more than 40 California basins. (Ex. 200.) (p. 37 TWG Brief)

Mr. Brown will testify that his experience serving on the IWVGA’s TAC—“one of the most disappointing processes [he’d] ever been involved in” (Brown Depo., 142:23–143:19) – differed materially from his subsequent experience participating in the TWG, particularly with respect to how technical input was developed, vetted, and incorporated into substantive decision
making.

The Missing Model and Navy’s Federal Reserve Water Right

What we have coming up in Phase 2 is a disagreement on the baseline assumption that the Indian Wells Valley’s Safe Yield is 7,650 acre feet per year. The Safe Yield was based on an average of multiple studies leading up to 2016, and ultimately, the figure that was plugged into the “Navy’s” DRI 2-D Model which has “vanished”.

It’s also the number that the GA and the Navy concluded was the Navy’s “federal reserve water right” – 7,650 AFY.

As a result, any groundwater pumped by the “large pumpers” in the valley in excess of 7,650 acre feet per year would be assessed a Replenishment Fee which would be used by the GA to buy “Table A” water from the California State Water Project so that it could be imported to the valley via the new AVEK pipeline, a $400 million 50 mile long project extending the existing AVEK pipeline that currently terminates in California City.

In Phase 1 of the trial, Judge William D. Claster decided that the Navy was only entitled federal reserve water rights to 2,008 acre feet per year, not the entirety of the safe yield figure of 7,650.

Who Do You Trust? The GA or the “Large Pumpers”?

IWV Groundwater Authority Press Release: April 18th, 2025

We’ll pull one sentence from the above press release to save you the time of actually opening and reading it. Suffice it to say, you can call it misinformation, propaganda or plain old unadulterated bullshit. The press release was issued in the wake of the AB 1413 legislation and violations of the Brown Act by the City of Ridgecrest last May.

“The adjudication lawsuit is a tactic for the water district to claim more water rights after a Groundwater Sustainability Plan approved by the state in 2022 found that the total sustainable yield for the Indian Wells basin is only 7,650 acre-feet per year – considerably less than the roughly 20,000 acre-feet per year that is being overdrafted today.“

This statement is patently false. First, the overdraft, using the current pumping and recharge, is roughly 20,500 acre-feet per year less the recharge of 7,650 acre-feet per year. The overdraft, using the GA’s numbers, is approximately 13,950 acre-feet per year.

Furthermore, if the Technical Working Group is correct, the overdraft is 20,500 acre feet per year less the recharge or safe yield of 14,300, or conservatively 7,200 acre-feet per year using the TWG’s numbers, and that number includes current pumping by the farmers in Inyokern.

It’s outlandish to say that the Water District is trying to claim more water rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. They’re trying to save their ratepayers millions and millions of dollars in unnecessary fees and an unnecessary $400 million pipeline while protecting everyone’s water rights.

The water district’s adjudication lawsuit wasn’t a tactic, it was a necessary legal action to force the Navy to the table in order to establish Navy’s federal reserve water right, which ultimately was decided to be 2,008-acre feet per year by Judge Claster in Phase 1. The GA illegally allocated the entire safe yield of 7,650 to the Navy.

Furthermore, the parties to the comprehensive adjudication are collectively called large pumpers; Searles Valley Minerals, Mojave Pistachios, Meadowbrook and the IWV Water District. The large pumpers needed to establish the size of the pie in Phase 2.

Water District Responds – June 20th, 2025

Water District board members have said they believe if it’s proven that the basin has more water and recharges with more water annually — and if farming is reduced in the valley — there may be no need for an imported water pipeline to support the valley’s current needs. Read that again. “No need for an imported water project”.

What Was the TAC Committee Doing During the Leadup to the adoption of the GSP?

From June 2017 to the adoption of the GSP in January 2020, the TAC formally held 28 meetings.12 All of these meetings were open to the public and most were recorded with video or audio available after the meeting. During these meetings, the Basin’s physical characteristics and water budget were discussed and determined. Additionally, the District and Meadowbrook’s representatives, Mr. Parker and Mr. Teasdale, were members of the TAC’s Model Ad Hoc Group, a specialized sub-group of the TAC that held (p. 18, IWVGA/City Brief)

That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t satisfy the requirements the court needs to evaluate the science behind the model and the determination of the safe yield.

This is not merely a discovery dispute. Nor is it a disagreement among competing experts concerning assumptions or methodologies. The problem is more fundamental: the IWVGA and U.S. ask this Court to adopt a safe yield figure derived from a scientific model that no party has been permitted to examine and no expert in this case has independently evaluated—not even the experts for the IWVGA (Dr. Todd Kincaid) and the U.S. (Dr. Sean McKenna). The absence of the DRI 2-D Model deprives the Court of any meaningful ability to determine whether the 7,650 AFY figure rests on reliable hydrogeologic analysis or merely reflects assumptions embedded within an inaccessible and untestable modeling framework.

The Dog Ate My Homework

The Groundwater Authority’s closing arguments are unimpressive, immaterial and they ignore the “missing model”.

The IWV Groundwater Authority’s case rests on Validation (or lack of a Reverse Validation Action), Deference to the GA, and Rebuttal of the Safe Yield and other Physical Facts. However, the Groundwater Authority hasn’t challenged the fact that the DRI 2-D model is missing. This is a case of “the Dog ate my homework”, and it appears the GA has a serious problem on their hands. We’ll see what Judge Claster has to say about this very soon.

VI. THE COURT SHOULD ADOPT THE GSP’S SUSTAINABLE YIELD BECAUSE IT IS VALIDATED AND IMMUNE FROM CHALLENGE (p. 35 IWVGA Brief)

A. The Validation Statutes Provide the Exclusive Means for Challenging the GSP’s Sustainable Yield (p. 35, IWVGA Brief)

B. The Court Should Defer to the GSP’s Sustainable Yield Because No Party Successfully Challenged It Through Reverse
Validation (p. 37, IWVGA Brief)

VII. THE COURT SHOULD ACCORD DUE DEFERENCE TO THE GSP’S SUSTAINABLE YIELD UNDER LONG-STANDING PRINCIPLES OF DEFERENCE (p. 38, IWVGA Brief)

VIII. THE LARGE PUMPERS BEAR THE BURDEN OF REBUTTING THE GSP’S SUSTAINABLE YIELD AND OTHER PHYSICAL FACTS (p. 40, IWVGA Brief)

IX. THE COURT SHOULD ADOPT THE GSP’S SUSTAINABLE YIELD BECAUSE IT IS THE MAXIMUM QUANTITY OF WATER THAT CAN BE WITHDRAWN WITHOUT CAUSING AN UNDESIRABLE RESULT (p. 47, IWVGA Brief)

SGMA is not “democracy in action” as Jerry Brown would like you to believe.

SGMA has no “local control” as DWR would like you to believe either. For additional background information on SGMA and the inherent structural corruption built into the application of the law, please see PREVIEW.

The Word for the Day is “Corruption”:

Filed Briefs – Comprehensive Adjudication Phase 2 Trial

Briefs have been filed in advance of the Phase 2 trial. There are four briefs. We suggest you read through the Index of the Technical Working Group brief later in order to get the big picture. You can download all of the briefs below. All of the exhibits and the briefs can be found on the IWV Water District’s website: https://www.iwvwd.com/basin-adjudication-important-documents

IWV Technical Working Group (IWV Water District):

TWG’s Phase 2 Joint Trial BriefDownload

IWV Groundwater Authority and City of Ridgecrest:

IWVGA and City’s Phase 2 Joint Trial BriefDownload

United States (DOJ-Navy)

USA’s Phase 2 Trial BriefDownload

State of California

State’s Phase 2 Trial BriefDownload

Phase 2 (Safe Yield) Technical Reports and Phase 2 (Safe Yield) Technical Response Reports 

can be downloaded from the IWV Water District’s website: