The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has prevailed in the legal dispute over providing irrigation water to ranch leases in Long Valley and Little Round Valley, in Mono County.
An appeals court ruled LADWP is not mandated to provide irrigation water to several ranch leases covering 6,100 acres of LADWP land. Mono County and the Sierra Club sued LADWP in 2018 over planned elimination of irrigation water on the agricultural lands. That change in historic practices would take place without completing an environmental analysis of the impacts of such a move.
The appeals court ruling reversed an Alameda Superior Court decision that found in favor of Mono County and the Sierra Club in 2021. The superior court ruled that changing lease terms in 2018 to eliminate any irrigation on the LADWP land triggered the California Environmental Quality Act, thus LADWP was required to complete an environmental report on potential impacts of the reduction in irrigation water. The district court decision also mandated LADWP continue to provide a reduced volume of irrigation water.
The First District Court of Appeal for the State of California recently reversed that ruling and the mandate for LADWP to continue to provide water to the ranch leases.
For more on this story, see the July 7 edition of The Inyo Register.
