CSPA Sues to Seek Return of Kern Water Bank to Public Control

[Mike McKenzie]

Today, 2 July 2010, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) joined the Center For Biological Diversity, California Water Impact Network (CWIN), South Delta Water Agency and Central Delta Water Agency in filing a lawsuit seeking to have the Kern Water Bank returned to state control. The lawsuit against the Kern County Water Agency was filed in Kern County Superior Court.

“We're not going to stand aside and allow a few very powerful and wealthy water barons to illegally privatize a publicly funded facility worth hundreds of millions of dollars so they can reap vast profits from growing nut trees in the desert and building thousands of speculative McMansions in the wilderness,” said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. “All while our rivers and streams are dewatered, farms fallowed, and fish and wildlife plunge toward extinction.”

The water bank, a massive underground reservoir in Kern County built by the state's Department of Water Resources, was illegally gifted to powerful corporate agribusiness interests and real-estate speculators as part of the controversial “Monterey Plus Amendments” to the State Water Project system.

California's state constitution expressly forbids any agency giving away or “gifting” of state assets to private interests. The current lawsuit asserts that the Kern County Water Agency gifted the Kern Water Bank to the Kern Water Bank Authority, a public-private joint powers authority controlled by Paramount Farming Company (one of the world's largest agricultural and holding companies) and Tejon Ranch Company (the massive landholding corporation seeking to develop several new cities north of Los Angeles - including the largest development ever proposed in California).

The suit is the coalition's second in the last month over the State Water Project. The first targeted the Department of Water Resources for approving the Monterey Plus Amendments - a huge set of structural changes for how the State Water Project is managed. In one of those changes, the department transferred the Kern Water Bank to an entity called the Kern County Water Agency. That agency then quickly handed over the water bank to the newly formed Kern Water Bank Authority. The latest suit seeks to bring the Kern Water Bank back into state control.


Bill Jennings, Chairman
Executive Director
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance
3536 Rainier Avenue
Stockton, CA 95204
p: 209-464-5067
c: 209-938-9053
f: 209-464-1028
e: deltakeep@aol.com
www.calsport.org

[Darian]

I've been following the story behind the transfer of the water bank to the control of this particular "public/private partnership" for some time now and didn't think anyone would ever have the resources or resolver to tackle a case of gifting of public resources or money as in this instance. Gotta give CSPA a hand for the effort.

Just thinking out loud, here, I'm wondering if this suit will have the affect of slowing down the rate of establishing new private/public partnerships.... It seems to be a two edged sword. Government no longer has the funding to address things like the water needs of large, coastal cities. Joint powers agreements/authorities and private/public partnerships have been one of the major financial vehicles to accomplish DeSal or alternative energy projects for example. There's a fine line between gifting public resources and partnering with private interests.