San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water Dist. v. San Gabriel Valley Water Co. CA4/2

INTRODUCTION

All the parties involved in this appeal are water utilities, claiming groundwater

pumping rights to the Rialto Basin located in southwestern San Bernardino County. In

2 1961, the parties, or their predecessors, agreed to a stipulated judgment, the 1961 Decree,

establishing a plan for groundwater pumping rights within the Basin.

In February 2015, the San Bernardino County Superior Court granted a

preliminary injunction, limiting the groundwater pumping rights in the Basin to a

maximum of 2,520 acre-feet per year by appellants and defendants2 during drought years,

as provided under the 1961 Decree. Appellants argue that plaintiffs and respondents3

have not shown the likelihood of success on the merits and have failed to prove

imminent, irreparable, or any harm caused by appellants’ pumping. Appellants urge that

“California uses more groundwater ‘than any other state and overdrafts as much as 1.4 million acre feet in a normal year.’ But what is groundwater? And what is overdraft? Groundwater is water that seeps into the ground and collects in the spaces between the grains of gravel, sand, silt, or clay, or settles into fractured rock. . . . The unsaturated…