Welcome to the Great Indian Wells Valley Water War ™

“Whiskey is for drinkin’ and water is for fightin'” – General David Saint-Amand*

The word for the day is “confiscatory” and this is the “NAWS China Lake” Post

October 29, 2026 (Originally Published at 10:49 a.m. Pacific Time)

UPDATED: November 1, 2026

Editorial Opinion by Mike Sinnott, Publisher of Roadrunner395.com

Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and the Indian Wells Valley in California

Don’t say that President Dwight David Eisenhower didn’t warn you about this over 65 years ago.

Introduction

This will be a Post that develops the thesis on how the assertion of a Legal Doctrine called federal reserve water rights by the Department of War, a sovereign, combined with SGMA, California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, leads to revolt. It may be a small, unnoticed revolution, but it’s a revolt, nonetheless. Are you not yet entertained?

You’ll have to think for yourself on this one, some of it is creative narrative writing and some of it is fiction. What is the truth? Shhhh. Secret City.

Publisher’s Note: This report also gives me the opportunity to share some background on the history of China Lake as the birthplace of the Military Industrial Complex. I’ll bet you didn’t know that did you…

* Publisher’s Note: I’ll be pulling selected quotes from our Generals, Ron Kicinski, Stan Rajtora, David Saint-Amand, Mallory Boyd and Chuck Griffin as time permits, and Lt. General and Chief Strategist James Worth’s comments will be particularly helpful and informative, and they’ll be added immediately. (What are your middle names gentlemen?)

History 101, The American Revolution

You will recall that in 1776, the signers of the Declaration of Independence had some issues with the King of Great Britain, and they had a Tea Party and won. General George Washington, a Founding Father and signer of the Declaration of Independence, went on to become the first two-term President of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797.

George Washington

Portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart in 1797. Oil on canvas, 95 x 60 inches.

This full-length portrait of George Washington was painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1797, the final year of his presidency. While other artists had depicted Washington as a military leader, Stuart became the first portraitist to paint an authoritative image of Washington as the country’s first president. Washington holds a sword in his left hand, alluding to his past military service, but appears in civilian clothes, emphasizing the fact that he had resigned his commission as a military leader. A book entitled Constitution and Laws of the United States leans against the table leg. The portrait was installed in the White House in November 1800. During the War of 1812, First Lady Dolley Madison famously saved the portrait from near-certain demise. Before vacating the premises on August 24, 1814, Mrs. Madison ordered that official papers and the Washington portrait should be saved from British hands. The painting returned to the White House after it was rebuilt in 1817. Washington served as the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. The first president was in office from April 30, 1789 until March 4, 1797.

Then, many years later, General Dwight David Eisenhower led the United States to a great victory, along with our allies Great Britain and France (and Russia), in the war that followed the Great War and referred to as World War Two. General Eisenhower went on to become the President, and he also served for two terms, from 1953 to 1961. (We put Russia in parathesis to note that Russia was an example of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Nazi Germany was the enemy.)

Patton’s “Americans Love to Fight” Speech

George S. Patton’s 1944 speech to the U.S. Third Army is a famous example of his ability to inspire troops, declaring that “Americans love to fight” and rejecting the idea that the U.S. wanted to avoid war

As the allies bombed the hell out of Berlin and entered the city, declaring “V” Day at the end of hostilities, General George S. Patton made it known he would’ve preferred to go through to Russia and sack Joseph Stalin like “crap through a goose”, and perhaps he would have been given the chance had he not died in a hospital after a suspicious minor traffic collision while not wearing a seat belt, which hadn’t been invented or mandated yet.

What a different world we might live in today had the reincarnated General Patton been in charge back then instead of President Eisenhower, who was the commander of the allies. What if President Donald John Trump didn’t walk down the golden elevator?

The thought that President Trump was nearly assassinated before he became the 47th President of the United States is horrifying if you are reminded that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would be in charge today, and hopefully today you’ll understand that the four aforementioned traitors, along with the “Fake News” mainstream media, declared half the country, all patriotic American citizens, as the enemy:

War is When Your Government Tells You Who the Enemy Is

Revolution is When You Figure Out That Marxist-Islamists and the CCP Are Your Enemies (MAGA is the Revolution)

The following is some serious digression from our topic of federal reserve water rights, but it’s necessary to remind everyone that when the State of California passes a law that infringes on your property rights, while providing sanctuary to millions of illegal aliens, not to mention the fact that foreign owned corporations are buying farmland in the San Joaquin Valley like there’s no tomorrow, there must be some acknowledgement of these issues as contributing factors to California’s water “crisis” and why we are confronted today by a “ruthless and monolithic conspiracy“.

Taking it one step further, what is it that people don’t understand when President Trump has said repeatedly for many years that the radical Islamist terrorist regime in Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon? What do you think the Iranians would do with it the minute they have one? They’d set off a nuke in San Diego, LA or San Francisco and the water crisis would disappear, and we’d have plenty of groundwater to sustain a much smaller population.

Publisher’s Note: I digress a lot here I know. Water Wars are much simpler to explain but the crisis parallels exist and are real.

Taking it another step further, what is it that the radical Democrat party, and many establishment Republicans, don’t understand when President Trump says if we don’t have borders, we don’t have a country. Has anyone noticed that our World War Two allies, Britain and France, have fallen to radical Islamist jihadism and their countries have been overrun by immigrants that hate them? This is not to say that immigration is the problem, but illegal immigration is a problem and we can thank Soros for all of it.

Furthermore, it’s not the education system with a bunch of angry students burning Paris to the ground that’s the problem; the problem is patently obvious. They let millions into their countries purposefully; it was all planned and the Marxist-Islamists have taken control. Who is behind this? Soros? Russia? Iran? Klaus Schaub? Larry Fink? The CCP? The Democrat “Socialists”. How about all of the above?

Do you think that coddled students in America’s hallowed universities and colleges have any reason to be burning down cities and towns across the land? Other than the high cost of tuition needed to pay all those tenured professors, no.

Do you know why American boys can’t get into the UC system without getting their penises cut off? Do you know where Janet is today? Janet who? Janet Napolitano is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Berkeley Institute for Security and Governance (BISG) at UC Berkeley!! Isn’t that ridiculous? Not only is she the Director, but Berkeley also created the Institute for her! I’m sorry to have to say this, but Janet Napolitano, the first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under Obama, is a adjective-noun deleted. Use your imagination. A lifelong bureaucrat and politician, Napolitano is the perfect persona for our axe to grind. As the former Arizona Secretary of State and Governor, she was the first DHS secretary under Obama.

It’s not Elon Musk that’s the problem (though he could be the anti-Christ), it’s “No Kings” protestors, pink-haired community college English teachers, assorted useful idiots, authoritarian former city managers, career bureaucrats and career politicians that are the problem. All the bases have now been covered. So, who is the real enemy?

Muhammad is the number one name given to babies born in Britain and probably in France too. Fortunately for them, they don’t have “birthright citizenship”, but we can look forward to a million and a half offspring of Chinese tourists returning to our American homeland from China as they start turning 18 years old, which is right about now.

China’s “birth tourism” has been infiltrating our country for at least two decades thanks to people like Gavin Newsom and Nancy Pelosi looking the other way while the University of California under former DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano welcomed the influx of hundreds of thousands of Chinese students with visas during her term as the President of the UC system.

So there, digression has run full circle. Now, let’s get back to the purpose of this screed.

What good is “sustaining” groundwater if you can’t feed the people, legal or illegal? How does it make any sense that over one-fifth of California’s farmland in the San Joaquin Valley, i.e. “the breadbasket for the World”, will be fallowed because the farmers can’t extract the groundwater under their land, land that they need to grow the food to feed the people? Are you a bunch of idiots (speaking to Jerry Brown and California’s Democrat state legislators, and Karla Nemeth, the Director of the California Department of Water Resources). And yes, they’re all bat-crap crazy idiots!

SGMA is a man/he/she/it-caused water crisis and an economic disaster. End of story.

Welcome to the Great Indian Wells Valley Water War ™

What is the Great Indian Wells Valley Water War ™ in California all about? It’s a war worth fighting, the principles involved are no different than the war of revolution in 1776, but this war will be fought in the courts with no guns or missiles.

We have the greatest Constitution in the world, written by some of the most brilliant thinkers of our times, and we will ultimately add President Donald J. Trump near the top of the list of the greatest presidents in the history of our country, the United States of America. He’s not an orator like JFK, but he’s authentic and speaks straight to the point, and he’s been channeling JFK in some very interesting ways during his term as number 47.

President Trump has secured the border and the deportations and self-deportations are now around 2 million since he took office, and the deportees are consuming water and food produced in their own countries. Didn’t he say he’d help fix California’s water crisis and “turn-on” the water instead of flushing it out into the ocean? We’ll see about that.

Currently, the combatants are the attorneys on both sides, with the U.S. Military, the State of California’s Department of Water Resources, along with their allies, the City of Ridgecrest’s assorted bureaucrats, the well-funded radical environmental lobby at the Sierra Club, evil globalist ideologues from UNESCO as the foot soldiers and their attorneys, fighting it out with a handful of non-essential citizens, small farmers with names such as Mojave Pistachios, and old men with bad backs barely surviving on meager Social Security rations (like the publisher of Roadrunner395.com), and finally, the Indian Wells Valley Water District and Lt. General Worth strategizing against all of the bad guys.

“We the people” are their enemy in the water wars. Do they love you or the “community” or the Delta Smelt? Hell no. Don’t be stupid.

Here’s One Seven Ways President Trump Can Help Resolve California’s Water Crisis.

President Trump, please call off the dogs at the DOJ and have them withdraw from the Indian Wells Valley’s Comprehensive Adjudication lawsuit. The Navy at China Lake has all the water it needs and can always get more if they need it.

Tell the Army Corps of Engineers that the GA can’t build the AVEK pipeline, it’s infeasible and unnecessary, they need to rebuild the China Lake Golf Course (Yes! We want more golf courses!) before they do anything else.

Ask Congressman Vince Fong to spike any requests for Water Resource Development Act funding and join in a lawsuit by the farmers to sue the State of California and SGMA under the 5th Amendment “takings” clause.

And somebody, please contact the FBI for a full investigation of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority for the many crimes they’ve committed as well as a Conspiracy to Commit Fraud.

The San Joaquin Valley needs to recover from over-reliance on groundwater during a 25-year megadrought. Every indication says it’s over, “climate change” is a scam Felicia, and it’s not even in the top ten of the most important issues to Americans. We’re not going to “lose the Sierra snowpack”.

Build the reservoirs, make it rain and the water crisis is solved President Trump, thank you very much. Maybe the megadrought will teach Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix the lesson that they can’t survive on imported water with unrestrained growth and slave labor from third world countries building houses everywhere. There are way too many people living in the deserts anyway. Send all of the illegals back to their home countries. Now.

And finally, please stop the nuts who are trying to control the weather with geoengineering weather modification technology that’s been around for 50 years (developed and tested at China Lake).

SGMA is confiscatory legislation, the “MIC” is taking your groundwater illegally

confiscatory /kən-fĭs′kə-tôr″ē/ adjective

1. Relating to or effecting confiscation.
2. Being or imposing an excessive or unreasonable tax or cost. “confiscatory taxes; a confiscatory police.”
3. Effecting confiscation; characterized by confiscations.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

SGMA enables locally established Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSA) to impose restrictions on the amount of water that property owners may extract from under their land. Over-pumping of groundwater can lead to “undesirable results” affecting adjacent properties and those property’s water tables. Among the damages are land subsidence and wells running dry.

However, SGMA is so restrictive, the amount of groundwater under the ground isn’t considered when imposing pumping restrictions. The only number that matters, called the “Safe Yield”, is how much water can be extract after any natural recharge is added and whether the extraction is still causing the water table to decline. This is called “overdraft”. Sometimes overdraft causes undesirable results, and many times it doesn’t. Old shallow wells fail or run dry. Replace them with new, deeper wells.

We’ve included a portion of President Dwight David Eisenhower’s farewell speech to the nation below, setting the stage for the Revolt. Emphasis is ours throughout his speech.

Prepare for even more digression.

On January 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the establishment of a “military-industrial complex.”

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. (Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, etc.)

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peace time, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations. (WTF! Now you know why we’re up to our eyeballs in debt. Trump didn’t do that.)

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. (e.g. the grave implications for the “community” of Ridgecrest).

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. (That’s for sure!)

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. (An alert and knowledgeable citizenry is the exact opposite of everyone in Ridgecrest who’s on Facebook)

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. (Here it comes in spades)

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government. (How much will all those Data Centers cost?)

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop (William B. McLean), has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories (Michelson Lab, NAWS China Lake) and testing fields (managed by Navy Region Southwest). In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research (Desert Research Institute). Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. (Ask Dr. McKenna of DRI for his expert opinion)

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. (Truth!)

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. (Tech Oligarchs)

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society. (MAGA)

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we-you and I, and our government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage ($400 million AVEK pipeline). We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow. (Pass the SAVE Act!)

Does the Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake ring a bell?

This may sound farfetched, but isn’t he talking about the birthplace of the Military Industrial Complex and The Grand Experiment of civilians and military living in one community working together in support of the Warfighters?

For more information, please see: The Grand Experiment at Inyokern: Narrative of the Naval Ordnance Test Station During the Second World War and the Immediate Postwar Years, Volume 2, by Albert Christman (History of the Naval Weapons Center, China, Lake, California)

A very short history of naval aviation and groundwater at China Lake:

Searles Valley Minerals had been mining near Trona since 1873. When John Wemple Searles arrived in the area in the 1860s, he was looking for gold and silver to mine. Instead, he found a white crystalline powder, borax, in the dry Searles Lakebed. In 1873, he went into production as the San Bernardino Borax Mining Company to mine borax. Sometime before the Navy moved in, Searles dug a well in the Indian Wells Valley and they built a small pipeline from Ridgecrest to Trona, about 20 miles away.

The first airplane was flown by the Wright brothers in 1903. And then came NOTS at China Lake in 1943, following Searles Valley Minerals in local infamy. Then came the IWV Groundwater Authority in 2020, with their Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP). The authoritarian dictators at the IWV Groundwater Authority wanted you to comply with their GSP rules and they wanted you to pay a “replenishment fee” in order to buy and import water from the San Joaquin Valley!!

The Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) resulted in a slam dunk metaphysical certainty that a Comprehensive Adjudication lawsuit would to be filed. Why? Because Navy wanted it all! All 7,650 of the “Safe Yield” that is.

It’s a war and you are the enemy.

Now does it all make sense?

Publisher’s Note: In November of 1943, “the base” was established as the Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake (NOTS). My family and the Christman family, together with Harold Hockett of builder’s supply fame, as well as the Kirkbride family, dug the first well in what is now known as College Heights in 1964. This was the time when the “great exodus” was about to begin from China Lake to Ridgecrest. My father and Al Christman both worked at the Technical Information Department (TID) at China Lake.

Legal Doctrine

A legal doctrine is a framework of rules, standards, or principles derived from court decisions, statutes, or legal tradition that governs how a specific area of law is applied. Courts rely on established doctrines to produce consistent, predictable outcomes across similar cases.

Doctrine of federal reserve water rights and groundwater*

The application of the Doctrine of federal reserve water rights under SGMA was first tested by the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority on behalf of the Navy at China Lake, California. In a precedent-setting decision during a comprehensive adjudication lawsuit (Phase 1), Judge William D. Claster of the Orange County Superior Court ruled that the Navy was entitled to only 2,008 acre feet per year of federally reserved water rights, not the 7,650 acre feet it was allocated by the Groundwater Authority. Groundwater rights are different than surface water rights.

• Surface water rights are waters on the surface of the land
• Indian Reservations (Sovereign nations) and temporary Military Reservations on BLM public lands are two different things.
• Surface Water flowing between states or through Indian reservations are areas where the Doctrine has evolved
• Groundwater caselaw: Federal Reserve Water Rights has not been previously tested under SGMA and Comprehensive Adjudication. It’s unprecedented.
• Issues regarding Groundwater case law are new, for the Department of War and the State of California post-SGMA.
• Water is needed to maintain surface waters, lakes and streams, in the natural environment on public lands (Forests, Parks, BLM?)
• The Department of War is legally considered to be the sovereign nation in this case.

* The Navy at China Lake was good with 7,650 and has aggressively defended a federal reserve water right of 7,650. The Judge said no bueno, you can’t have it all, you get only what you need for your mission and the members of your tribe that live on the base.

Federal Government involvement in state laws regarding private property groundwater “rights“, aka “Sustainability“

• Codified in SGMA 10720.3
• Department of Defense federal reserve water rights shall be respected. Mandatory respect.

Enter the Department of War – Using the Nuclear Option in Water Confiscation

• Who had the idea to apply FRWR doctrine in SGMA?
• Why not assert “beneficial” rights?
• The Nuclear Option of section 10720.3 in SGMA
• First use of FRWR by DoD/DoW under SGMA –
• IWV Groundwater Authority is a Dictatorship
• Who had the idea to extend the AVEK pipeline to import water from State Water Project to IWV?
• Why is the IWV GA so hellbent on the imported water project called the AVEK pipeline?
• Why is the GSP Navy-DRI 2016 model missing?
• Why did the Navy want 7,650 when they only needed 2,008?

Conflicts of Interest Lead to Conspiracy to Commit Fraud

See the “Popcorn Post” for more details.

Why are Navy-civilian employees running for public office with apparent conflicts of interest between Navy and the city’s or the IWV’s constituents?

• Gleason
• Blades
• Endicott
• Vaughan
• Licitra

Risks of the “Legal Strategy”: If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas.

• Ron Strand (a former cop and retired city manager)
• Scott Hayman (a Chiropractor)
• Kyle Blades (a NAWS China Lake employee)
• Attorneys Lemieux, Hall and Martin K. (city attorneys), Brouchard (Officer of the Court), Vallejo (Inyo County), and McKinney the Attorney in Fact and go-between lobbyist, et al.

To Be Continued…