Happy National Roadrunner Day!

July 1st 2026, National Roadrunner Day

Indian Wells Valley, California

Yes! It’s that time of the year again, and love is in the air. During this time, as we get ready to celebrate Independence Day on July 4th, we announce our Roadrunner of the Year Award!

This year, we’d like to thank the good folks at the Indian Wells Valley Water District and the hydrogeologists of the Technical Working Group for all their hard work over the last ten years. From the creation of the IWV Groundwater Authority in 2016, to the culmination of the Comprehensive Adjudication Phase 2 trial in 2026, the people at the Water District have been looking out for their neighbors in the Indian Wells Valley.

It’s your Water District, and more than any other government agency, state or local, it’s been the Water District that has been on your side. The Water District’s stated mission has always been to provide the cleanest water at the lowest possible cost to you, with no hidden agendas or misrepresentations. It’s that simple.

To the Board and Staff of The Indian Wells Valley Water District:

The people you serve are truly fortunate to have you in their corner during The Great Indian Wells Valley Water War. You’ve stood in opposition to the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority, the City of Ridgecrest, Kern County, Inyo County, San Bernardino County and the California Department of Water Resources and you did the right thing by filing the adjudication lawsuit on behalf of your customers and residents in Ridgecrest, as well as for the people of the IWV who live in the county, Trona and Inyokern. This is a very big deal in the history of water in California.

Thank you to the staff at the District! You’re all professionals and your team stepped in and stopped the GA from trying to force a $25 million bond down your throats, and you, with the sound legal advice of your attorney, Jim Worth, filed the absolutely necessary lawsuit against the GA. Your board members were subjected to endless unwarranted insults and lies from the Ridgecrest City Council as well as the two attorneys for the GA, City Attorney Keith Lemieux and the former Deputy Counsel Phill Hall of Kern County, who like a rash that won’t go away, abruptly left his employ at the county only to join Keith Lemieux’s law firm.

SGMA is a failed experiment, it picks winners and losers, and it’s a recipe for fraud and corruption.

Indian Wells Valley Water District Board Members and Staff

• Mallory Boyd, Director
• Stan Rajtora, Director
• Ronald Kacinski, President
• David Saint-Amand, Director
• Charles Griffin, Director
• Renee Morquecho, General Manager/Secretary of the Board
• Jim Worth, IWV Water District Attorney
• Justin Thompson, Chief Engineer
• Tyrell Staheli, Chief Financial Officer
• John Svika, Operations Manager
• Isabel Tejeda, HR Specialist/Clerk of the Board
• George Croll, Special Projects, former General Manager (not pictured)

Indian Wells Valley Technical Working Group and Expert Witnesses

We celebrate the expert witnesses and the Indian Wells Valley Technical Working Group for not only for the work you’ve done while working on the TAC and protecting the private property water rights of your clients but for banding together as a team in order to properly and accurately (i.e. with metaphysical certitude) determine the “Safe Yield” of the Indian Wells Valley groundwater basin.

Congratulations on your certain success in making the case for the Water District and for the forthcoming decision by Judge Claster in the Phase 2 trial. You are all undoubtedly in the top tier of full-time professional hydrogeologists in the state of California if not the nation. On behalf of the people of the Indian Wells Valley, we wish all of you the best in your future endeavors.

The TWG’s Organization and Approach

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.

In 2022, the TWG Parties, together with the Mojave Pistachios parties, formed a technical working group (“TWG”). The TWG was formed to assist the Court in resolving the Phase 2 safe yield issue by applying accepted hydrogeologic principles and multiple independent analytical methods. The TWG was organized and operated to carry out those objectives in a manner consistent with standard groundwater adjudication practice.

The TWG was deliberately structured to promote methodological rigor, transparency, and technical coherence. Rather than producing a single, consolidated opinion, the TWG coordinated multiple independent analyses addressing safe yield—using different analytical tools, datasets, assumptions. Each participant was responsible for developing and defending his or her own
analyses while participating in iterative peer review and coordinated evaluation with other TWG members. That structure was intended to bound uncertainty, test internal consistency, and ensure that conclusions were grounded in basin-wide physical behavior rather than in any single model or method.

To achieve this, the original TWG Parties assembled a team of experienced groundwater professionals with complementary areas of expertise, including basin characterization, numerical groundwater modeling, water balance analysis, and geophysics:

• Ramboll Americas Engineering Solutions (“Ramboll”) and Parker Groundwater (Timothy K. Parker, PG, CEG, CHG) for the District;
• Krieger & Stewart Engineering Consultants (Charles Krieger, PE, and Travis Romeyn, PE) for the District;
• Luhdorff & Scalmanini Consulting Engineers (“LSCE”) (Eddy Teasdale, PG, CHG, and Will Halligan, PG) for Meadowbrook;
• Geoscience Support Services (“Geoscience”) (Johnson Yeh, Ph.D., PG, CHG, and Lauren Wicks, PG) for Searles; and
• Aquilogic, Inc. (Anthony Brown and Wade Major, MBA, PE) for Mojave Pistachios.

In early 2025, the District retained S.S. Papadopulos & Associates (“SSP&A”) (Matthew Tonkin, Ph.D., and Vivek Bedekar, Ph.D., PE) as independent consultants to review the TWG’s work, apply their own methodologies, and provide their own independent opinions.

Expert Witnesses:

• Anthony Brown
• Eddy Teasdale, PG, CHG
• Lauren Wicks, PG
• Tim Parker, PG, CEG, CHG
• Vivek Bedekar, Ph.D., PE
• Matthew J. Tonkin, Ph.D

Roadrunner Quote of the Year – Testimony from the Phase 2 Comprehensive Adjudication Trial

When asked whether the Groundwater Authority’s Technical Advisory Committee (The “TAC”) agreed by consensus that the “Safe Yield” of the IWV’s groundwater basin was 7,650 acre-feet per year, world-renowned hydrogeologist Tim Parker gave a clear, concise response that will live in hydrogeologic scientific infamy forever:

“Hogwash!” – Tim Parker, June 10th, 2026

Judge William D. Claster appeared to be amused, though we don’t know what he was thinking. We were certainly amused (actually LMAO), and therefore, our “Roadrunner Quote of the Year” award goes to Mr. Timothy Parker.

We’d also like to give an honorable mention to another superstar hydrogeologist, Ms. Lauren Wicks, who boldly stated, under oath, that the IWV’s Safe Yield was “comfortably 15,400 acre-feet per year”. She provided a brilliant analysis and description of the “Change in Storage” method that she prefers to use when determining the Safe Yield in a groundwater basin. Her testimony was so clear and concise, not only did Judge Claster appear to understand it, but we did too!

A final bit of advice to voters in Ridgecrest

Publisher’s note to the IWV Groundwater Authority: If you’re going screw the people of the IWV, the very least you could do is offer us some expert witnesses that know something about the region’s geology, or who have visited more than three times and can understand the methods used in modeling of groundwater basins that are accepted by the State of California and the Department of Water Resources.

Furthermore, instead of stipulating to a Safe Yield of at least 14,300 acre-feet per year prior to the Phase 2 trial, you relied on a guy from San Rafael, Steve Johnson of Stetson Engineers, to “hit the number” you set from the very beginning of your creation as a Groundwater Sustainability Agency. He bit off more than he could chew and never should have been hired to be the “water manager” of the IWV Groundwater Authority in the first place.

What a sad, miserable and very expensive experience it’s been watching the IWV’s Groundwater Authority, it’s board members and the attorneys, including the contractors and lobbyists, twist and turn while they squandered millions and millions of dollars and lined their pockets every step of the way.

The Phase 2 portion of the Comprehensive Adjudication trail could have been avoided entirely if the GA would have stipulated to a Safe Yield of 14,300 acre-feet per year prior to the trial while in mediation. They didn’t have any intention of mediating anything, and now you can understand why. They’ve been hiding behind a fake Safe Yield number and a groundwater model that “vanished”. They offered nothing in mediation.

At this time, we’d like to offer our condolences to the people that live in the City of Ridgecrest and say this, you voted for the people listed below, and you have the power to vote them out. Don’t make the same mistake by voting for any of these people should they ever decide to run for public office this year or in the future:

Ron Strand, Eric Bruen, Kyle Blades, Scott Hayman and Solomon Rajaratnam are all guided by self-serving personal and business interests as well as their egos.

They’re definitely NOT looking out for you.

Roadrunner’s Logic:

If you’re going to get screwed by the IWV Groundwater Authority and the Ridgecrest City Council, the least they could do is offer you a dead lizard…

Have a great National Roadrunner Day!