(Opening brief filed)..The IID filed the brief in their CEQA challenge.

On July 8 of this year the Imperial Irrigation District filed its opening brief the Superior Court of Los Angeles County alleging violations of the California Environmental Quality Act by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. IID’s brief calls on the Court to suspend the March 2019 approval of agreements for the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan until such time that an appropriate CEQA analysis and process has been completed. IID Board President Norma Sierra Galindo says the legal challenge filed by the District is reflective of the objections the IID had raised leading up to the vote taken by MWD to approve the Drought Contingency Plan under a CEQA exemption. Galindo said the IID maintains that the Salton Sea is an integral part of the Colorado River system and its decline presents a sever public health and environmental crisis not only to the Imperial and Coachella Valleys, but the grater Southern California rgion.The IID Brief states the MWD violated CEQA requirements by relying on an emption for entering into agreements on behalf of itself and all other California contractors, which commit MWD to forgo diverting and contribute to Lake Mead up to hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of Colorado River water without considering the environmental impacts, including the Salton Sea, or consideration of how it will make up the shortfall within California.