Litigants to try mediation in long-running Antelope Valley groundwater adjudication case
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on January 22, 2008 at 6:58 amFrom the Antelope Valley Press:
Attorneys involved in the Antelope Valley groundwater adjudication lawsuit returned to court Monday for the latest turn of events in the case.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Jack Komar, who is presiding over the case at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, listened again to the difference of opinions from a field of legal counselors speaking on behalf of plaintiffs, cross-plaintiffs, defendants and cross-defendants in a case initially filed in October 1999 by Diamond Farming Co. against Lancaster, the Antelope Valley Water Co., Palmdale Water District, Palm Ranch Irrigation District, Quartz Hill Water District and Mojave Public Utility District. Since its inception nearly a decade ago, that battle has grown and now involves hundreds of entities.
Komar asked San Diego-based attorney David Zlotnick for his response to some objections regarding a proposed notice intended for owners of small land parcels in the Valley, people who pump water from the ground on their property, according to the court transcript for that session.
Zlotnick represents Rebecca Willis, a Valley resident who owns 10 acres of land near 200th Street West and Avenue B - property where she doesn’t currently pump groundwater. But she entered the lawsuit about a year ago to protect her rights if she wants to pump groundwater in the future. The idea was to have Komar establish rights for a class of nonpumpers with the potential to pump, plus a separate class of small pumpers - landowners who already pump a little groundwater. Zlotnick said believes the main objection to the notice he drafted was that it “wasn’t clear enough” causing pumpers to be “treated as if they were nonpumpers” if they fail to return a response form to verify that they are already pumping.
Zlotnick said he considers the language in the notice he drafted to be adequate, and that adding “more verbiage” would make people less likely to read the notice.
Class certification is just one more issue muddying the complex battle over groundwater rights - who is entitled to pump and how much?
To read the full text of this article from the Antelope Valley Press, click here.
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