(IID Files legal brief)….It was filed Friday.
The Imperial Irrigation District filed the legal brief with California’s Fourth Appellate District Court in its appeal of a local court’s decision challenging the district’s water rights. The appeal is in response to the August 2017 decision by an Imperial County Superior Court judge against the district that invalidated IID’s method of apportioning water, known as the Equitable Distribution Plan. The judgment also encompassed other provisions of great concern to the IID, including a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the water rights held by IID and other legal errors that could jeopardize the Imperial Valley’s historic water rights and restrict the district’s ability to provide reliable water supplies to all customers in the future. In its combined reply and response brief, the district argues that IID legally acquired and owns the water rights to the Colorado River water that it diverts and delivers to the Imperial Valley, and that those rights are held by IID in trust for its use and purposes under4 irrigation district law. They say the IID was, therefore well within its powers when it adopted the Equitable Distribution Plan to apportion water to all its water users. The IID Board of Directors are expected to address the brief in open session during their public meeting Tuesday afternoon in El Centro