SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The state Supreme Court on Monday
sided with a group of farmers that challenged an agreement
between farmers and cities to limit water use in the parched
Mojave River Basin.
In
its ruling, which is sure to make it more difficult for
California's booming cities to get the water they need
to grow, the court upheld a ruling that invalidated part
of the carefully negotiated 1993 water pact.
The
court said agreements between cities and farmers cannot
automatically supersede the state's 150-year-old water
policy, which favors landowners with the oldest water
rights. In California, the farms were generally there
first, and depend on irrigation to grow crops on eight
million acres of otherwise arid land.
''This
preserves the farmers' position at basically the top of
the water chain,'' said Robert E. Dougherty, who represented
the seven alfalfa and dairy farmers who refused to join
in the Mojave water pact. ''Cities do take a back seat.''
The
court's decision could make it nearly impossible for farmers
and municipalities to agree on wide-reaching water-restriction
measures during a drought, said Frederick A. Fudacz, a
lawyer for the Apple Valley Ranches Water Co. who argued
for the cities.
''I
think it's going to make it much more difficult to solve
these water-right lawsuits,'' Fudacz said.
The
dissident farmers argued that they should be entitled
to keep using the amount of water they've enjoyed for
decades on and under their land as long as it's not sold
or wasted. The high court agreed, saying the pact's restrictions
failed to take into account the farmers' legal water rights.
The
Mojave River, which flows mostly underground, is the only
natural source of water for Barstow and most high desert
communities in San Bernardino County. But the water has
been pumped out faster than rainfall can replenish it
in recent years, causing the water table downstream to
plunge.
Water
officials in the growing desert communities of Adelanto,
Apple Valley, Barstow, Hesperia, Victorville and other
outlying areas forecast that the basin might dry up altogether
without use restrictions, so they came up with a broad
plan.
Litigation
between several Mojave-area cities and about 1,000 farmers
and other landowners was put on hold. Two years later,
in 1993, they reached an accord that required each city
and farmer to reduce usage a certain amount in accordance
with water availability.
A
Superior Court judge signed off on the deal in 1996, saying
that allocating water based on legal priorities would
be ''extremely difficult, if not impossible.''
But
seven of the farmers objected and kept litigating.
An
appellate court reversed the lower court judge and the
California Supreme Court agreed with that ruling.
''The
impacts for California are enormous,'' Scott Slater, a
Santa Barbara lawyer and water expert. ''This case suggests
that farmers cannot automatically lose their rights.''
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