Several months ago I copied an article from High Country News just for the headline. It read simply “Where the law held.” Just the thought that a law could hold made me cry. I’ve spent most of my life advocating for principles behind a law that was eroded, then stoned to death. And that was before the current administration took office. It means even more now.
I spent last Tuesday morning in Tulare County Superior Court, Dept. 2, Judge Hillman presiding. I joined two men from Alpaugh Irrigation District, the current general manager and the incoming one, whose case was being heard. Ours was the last one of the morning, preceded by cases from other departments that had been assigned to this judge for some reason. As I listened to the arguments and decisions about personal matters—small claims, an eviction, other individual civil cases—I realized that most of us need court interpreters, English-speaking people as well as those of other tongues.
I needed one, too. The judge had issued a tentative ruling, and if I’d seen it beforehand, the in-person arguments might have made more sense. Alpaugh ID had challenged Tulare County LAFCO’s approval of the petition for annexation of 13,400 acres of land into Atwell Island Water District with an exemption from CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act). It was Alpaugh’s assessment that LAFCO had not adequately evaluated Atwell Island’s application for probable environmental impacts. An EIR would have calculated the potential costs to the environment of Atwell’s plans. Atwell claimed they had no plans, despite stating in the application that one purpose of the annexation is the storage and delivery of surplus surface waters, which will require Atwell to construct infrastructure they do not currently have. If there really were no plans, the petition for annexation should have been denied.
The merits of this case are important, as well as the dirty details (obfuscation by Atwell Island, LAFCO’s flimsy evaluation): will California’s environmental protection laws be observed or skipped? It appears, however, that Alpaugh’s case will be decided not on the merits but on technicalities: a missed deadline for scheduling under CEQA’s government codes and something about reverse validation proceedings under the Code of Civil Procedure. Our efforts to get the matter reconsidered in April seem to have dropped out of sight. Another court date is scheduled for mid-December, but I don’t yet understand what will be considered. From where I sat, it appears that the annexation, however questionable, is not likely to be reversed, nor an EIR required.
Another gigantic case looms on the horizon: the adjudication of groundwater rights in the Cuyama Basin, a lawsuit for which was filed by the two carrot giants who have taken over 70% of groundwater usage there. The adjudication is essentially a technical legal mechanism to override the SGMA process, which would have required cutbacks in carrot production. The law requires the judge to construct an equitable, irrevocable plan for distribution of limited pumping rights from this highly-overdrafted aquifer. But the expectation of almost everyone, with or without legal expertise, is that carrots will win. Many residents are threatened with being economically ruined and driven off their land just by the high costs of defending their rights to pump in this proceeding. By pretending there is no substantial difference between the resident landowners and the absentee corporate giants, the weighing of “equal” rights will ignore the enormous difference between the two kinds of agriculture found in that valley, and the consequences of each for the rest of the community there. The residents of Cuyama Valley are in a fight for their lives.
Where the law held was in my home watershed of the Puyallup River, and in several other western Washington tribal watersheds. It was law guaranteeing fishing rights to tribes who had been stripped, basically, of almost every other right except the right to breathe. It took 100 years and more than two generations of dedicated activists to get the state government to realize there was a law to uphold and begin making the necessary adjustments. That’s what it took. May we learn from them.
Trudy Wischemann is a rural advocate who writes. Send her your legal thoughts c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247. This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of the Mid Valley Times newspaper.
