County of Mono v. City of L.A. CA1/4

BACKGROUND

I. 2020 Leases The history of how Los Angeles secured the rights to water from Mono and Inyo Counties in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains and exported it via aqueduct is well documented in prior decisions, and we need not repeat it here. (See County of Inyo v. City of Los Angeles (1981) 124 Cal.App.3d 1, 3–4.) We pick up the story in 2010, when Los Angeles approved a set of

2 substantively identical leases (2010 Leases) governing about 6,100 acres of land Los Angeles owns in Mono County. Los Angeles deemed the approval of the leases to be categorically exempt from CEQA review because they involved the use of existing structures or facilities with no or negligible expansion of use. (Los Angeles Guidelines for the Implementation of the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970, art. III, Class 1, ¶14; Cal. Code of Regs., tit. 14, § 15301.)2 The 2010 Leases include various provisions concerning water. In one section devoted to water supply, the leases state that they are “given upon and subject to the paramount rights of [Los Angeles] with respect to all water and water rights” and that Los Angeles reserves “all water and water rights . . . together with the…