Water Rights

Ending a four-year fight, the Hoopa Valley Tribe claimed victory Friday over a Central Valley water district that attempted to block a restoration plan for the Trinity River, the broad tributary that winds through the tribe's Humboldt County reservation. Westlands Water District and the Northern California Power Agency told a U.S.

Of all the obstacles standing between Ben Ewell and his dream of building a new town in the foothills above Fresno, water would seem the least of them. The ambitious project sits along the shores of Millerton Lake, which holds the flow of the San Joaquin River. With a single pipeline acting as a straw, Ewell draws federal water from the lake to his golf course and high-priced houses nestled in the oak-and-granite hills.

The Millerton New Town -- more than 3,000 houses rising in the foothills above Fresno -- was all set for approval when it quietly disappeared from the agenda of the Board of Supervisors a few weeks ago. At the last minute, the builder decided not to seek the board's go-ahead after it was revealed that the entire development was based on a supply of federal water that didn't exist, at least not legally. But no one here -- not the developer or the county or the U.S.

Saying winter storms had eased drought conditions somewhat in the Colorado River basin, Interior Secretary Gale Norton on Monday ordered federal dam managers to continue making normal water releases from Lake Powell, one of the West's biggest reservoirs. Norton's decision settles for now a dispute between the upper and lower basin states over levels in Lake Powell, which collects water from Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and northern New Mexico, and its downriver sibling, Lake Mead.

Since Southern California was settled, communities have lived and died on their access to water, fighting mercilessly for their rights to pump it. Now, the focus has shifted as cities see the depleted underground aquifers as a potentially valuable resource. A group of cities in southeast Los Angeles County, including Downey and Lakewood, are asserting their rights over the vast aquifers and hope to eventually use the porous sediments to store portions of their water supply.

A frustrated judge ordered Los Angeles water officials Monday to restore portions of a once vibrant Inyo County river, or be barred from using an aqueduct that transports millions of gallons of water to Southern California each day. To compel the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to act, Inyo County Superior Court Judge Lee E. Cooper imposed fines and limited the amount of water the agency can pump in the Owens Valley.

In the latest ruling in a long-running court case, a U.S. judge has found that the federal government violated environmental laws when it renewed long-term contracts for a group of irrigation districts that get water from the San Joaquin River. The 78-page opinion, issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento, found that the U.S.

It's not exactly Los Angeles traffic, but a rush-hour queue of kayak-topped cars and school buses towing inflatable rafts crowds this Rocky Mountain town, the hub of one of the busiest whitewater destinations in the nation. A main attraction along the Arkansas River is a manmade water park where gyrating kayaks perform aerials as spectators watch from footpaths and terraces.

A Lake Arrowhead water district has illegally pumped millions of gallons from the lake to its 7,500 customers over the last three decades, harming recreation as well as water rights holders on the Mojave River, a state board announced this week. The State Water Resources Control Board found that the Lake Arrowhead Community Services District does not have municipal water rights, despite having siphoned water from the lake since 1978.

Re "The fluid state of liquid politics," Opinion, Aug. 23 With a glass of home-filtered water, I toast Bruce Babbitt and Douglas Wheeler for pushing CalFed water projects. Putting politics aside, more can be achieved to equitably distribute water for California's environment, farming and cities. The issue of drinking water also needs to be addressed. Consumers, hesitant to drink water delivered to homes because of impurities and chemical additives, rely on producers of bottled water and home water-filtering systems to satisfy a basic human need.