DECISION ON WATER RIGHTS AWAITED COURT TO DECIDE GEOGRAPHIC LIMITS.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

PALMDALE -- Antelope Valley water districts and farmers are awaiting a judge's decision on what geographic boundaries will be set in a case that could place limits on how much well water can be pumped annually from Antelope Valley's dwindling aquifer.

During three days of hearings, attorneys presented evidence on whether the litigation should be limited to just the boundaries of the groundwater basin or be broadened to take in the watershed area, which would include mountain streams that feed into the basin.

``The main issue at the hearing was whether we could just include in this lawsuit people having rights to groundwater or if we had to include people who live in the mountains next to surface streams from which the groundwater basin gets its water,'' said Tom Bunn, attorney for the Palmdale and Quartz Hill water districts. ``The federal government is saying we need to include those folks in order to have it be a comprehensive adjudication.''

The water districts' attorneys argued that there is not much risk of someone with water rights in the mountain preventing water from reaching the groundwater basin, Bunn said.

``The water comes during storms from March to May, and you couldn't use it there in the mountain without storing it, which you are not permitted to do without a permit. Plus there is no agriculture up there and a lot of the land is owned by the national forest,'' Bunn said.

The assistant U.S. attorney who represented the federal government was out of the office Monday and could not be reached for comment.

The issue was heard in three days of hearings in Los Angeles last week before Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Jack Komar, who was appointed to hear the case by the Judicial Council of California.

It was not known when Komar will issue a decision.

The judge is overseeing the 7-year-old court case involving about a half-dozen lawsuits filed on behalf of two Kern County farming companies and a Los Angeles County waterworks district.

The litigation stems from lawsuits filed by Diamond Farming Co. and Wm. Bolthouse Farms Inc., in 1999 and 2001, against Antelope Valley water districts and government agencies. The companies were seeking priority rights to the water beneath their Antelope Valley farmland.

Last year, Los Angeles County jumped into the fray, saying, with population growing and farm irrigation up 40 percent over five years, that Antelope Valley's underground water supply is declining.

County officials filed complaints calling for adjudication, or a judicial determination of the groundwater rights of public and private parties in the Antelope Valley.

Bob Joyce, attorney for Diamond Farming, said his client wants ``whatever is necessary to retain (court) jurisdiction.''

``It has to do with whether the court has jurisdiction over the U.S. government as a necessary party to the litigation. We want to make sure we don't have a problem with jurisdiction at a later date,'' Joyce said.

Defendants in the lawsuits include the Los Angeles County waterworks district, the city of Lancaster, Palmdale and Quartz Hill water districts, Antelope Valley Water Co. and the Rosamond Community Services District.

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