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Water rights claim ends truce over Santa Margarita River

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 10, 2008 at 5:51 am

From the Fallbrook Times:

A court challenge filed by an Anza-based Indian tribe has reignited one of Southern California’s longest-running water-rights disputes, an action that could tighten supplies in a vast area that takes in Camp Pendleton, Fallbrook, Murrieta, Lake Elsinore, Temecula, and its satellite horse and wine country communities.

The challenge – which surfaced recently when residents and public agencies began receiving litigation notices – has toppled the most recent truce, a six-year lull in a long fight over where and how to tap the 749-square-mile watershed of Southern California’s last free-flowing river.

The effects of reopening the 84-year-old litigation over the Santa Margarita River and its tributaries and underground basins are unclear. It is also unknown whether any fallout, which could take years to unravel, would be limited to the Anza area where the Cahuilla Band of Indians contends that rapid growth and drought conditions are straining its current and future supplies.

“That is the great unknown,” said Verne Lauritzen, chief of staff for Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone, who represents the Anza and Temecula areas. “The lawsuit has pressed forward and that’s created an urgent situation.”

Once seen as possible intermediaries in the water rights dispute, Riverside County and other public agencies are now snarled in what will likely become complex and costly proceedings.

Stone’s office had initially hoped to serve as a liaison between the tribe and Anza residents who lack a water district and other local oversight agencies. But the county was forced to step back from any intermediary role when its planning department and at least one of its ancillary agencies were drawn into the new legal actions.

“Now we’ve got our county council assessing this (litigation) on what we can and can’t do,” Lauritzen said in a recent interview. Up to that point, Stone’s office had posted lawsuit documents on its Internet site and had fielded nearly two dozen telephone calls from Anza-area residents who were recently caught off-guard by the Cahuilla water rights claim.

Read more, much much more, from the Fallbrook Village News in this comprehensive article which details the history surrounding this new round of litigation by clicking here.

May 10, 2008 · Filed Under Water Rights