County of Inyo v. City of Los Angeles

We have before us the appeal of the County of Inyo from the second interim pumping rate order directed to the City of Los Angeles by the Sacramento Superior Court.

This litigation focuses primarily on the obligation of the City of Los Angeles to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) as a prerequisite to increasing its extraction of subsurface water from the Owens Valley. Basin. By our decision of June 5, 1973 (sub nom. County of Inyo v. Yorty, 32 Cal.App.3d 795 [ 108 Cal.Rptr. 377 ]), we held that the proposed increase of extraction was a “project” within the purview of CEQA. In the exercise of our original jurisdiction to issue prerogative writs (Cal. Const., art. VI, § 10), we ordered issuance of a peremptory writ of mandate directing the City of Los Angeles to prepare an environmental impact report (“EIR”) and to complete proceedings required by CEQA.

Secondarily, the litigation requires the establishment of an interim rate of groundwater extraction pending the lawsuit’s ultimate resolution. Because the' computation of an interim extraction rate required an evidentiary inquiry, we referred the matter to the Sacramento Superior Court for the…