The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority and Searles Valley Minerals have reached a comprehensive settlement of the legal actions each had outstanding against one another, clearing the way for a water conservation, sharing and distribution arrangement impacting the westernmost extreme of the Mojave Desert and the northwestern tip of San Bernardino County.
The settlement reduces, but does not eliminate the procedural and legal complication which attends the struggle with regard to water availability in one of the driest areas of California.
Searles Valley Minerals is a 152-year-old company, now owned by Mirma Limited, located in Trona, a San Bernardino County community immediately adjacent to the Inyo County line and proximate to Kern County. Searles Valley Minerals uses solution mining, which involves soaking portions of the company’s dry Searles Lake in San Bernardino County with water to precipitate brine which is then extracted and processed to produce boric acid, potash, sodium carbonate, sodium sulfate, several specialty forms of borax, and salt. The litigation between Searles Valley Minerals grew out of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority’s application of previously nonexistent water use fees on water used by the company despite the company having the the longest-standing claim on water rights and water use of any entity in the region. In response to the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority’s imposition of those water use fees, Searles Valley Minerals filed a lawsuit against the groundwater authority, which responed with a countersuit. That litigation dragged on for several years.
In 2014, in the face of a persistent drought, then-Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency with regard to California’s water situation and then signed into law the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which classified 21 groundwater basins in the state, including the one in Indian Wells Valley, as being in a state of critical overdraft, i.e., a circumstance in which the amount of water being used exceeds the amount of water coming into the area naturally, predominantly through rainfall.
That designation triggered the creation of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority, a joint powers agency overseen by a board comprised of one voting representative from Kern County, the City of Ridgecrest, Inyo County, San Bernardino County, and the Indian Wells Valley Water District, as well as two non-voting members representing the U.S. Navy/China Lake Naval Air Station and the United States Bureau of Land Management.
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority took as its charter the commitment to ensure a sustainable water supply for the region by overcoming the depletion of the groundwater basin and its aquifer which underlies 597 square miles and includes the northwest tip of San Bernardino County, the southwest tip of Inyo County and the northeast corner of Kern County.
Based upon a survey of water usage patterns undertaken by an engineering consultant, Carlsbad-based Stetson Engineers, the authority and the Indian Wells Valley Water District sought to derive a strategy for both reducing water use in the valley and increasing groundwater recharge to reach a balance of both that will end the overdraft. Several different plans, or models, were contemplated. Basically, the concept was to decrease the drafting of water from the regional aquifer through conservation, increased recycling of water and perhaps the minimization of evaporation, augmented by the importation of water from outside the valley to achieve, no later than 2040, a balance of water coming in with the amount of water usage, such that the depletion of the aquifer will end.
Stetson Engineers was designated the water resources manager for Indian Wells Valley, and the authority’s board in January 2020 passed a tentative proposed groundwater sustainability plan and voted to submit it to the state. Thereafter it made adjustments to the plan, which contained water use limitation elements and water replenishment measures. The plan incorporated a farmland fallowing option as well as an increase in the monthly assessment or fee that was imposed on the extraction of water by major pumpers. That fee had been previously collected to cover the costs associated with the administrative activity of the groundwater authority.
After a survey of water use by well owners both collectively and individually was made, the authority assigned water use allowances to the region’s well owners. Excess use fees, referred to as augmentation fees, were formulated for application to those well owners who pump above their allowances as well as on any farmer whose use exceeds his respective share of the water supply set aside for agricultural usage. Money generated in this way is used to purchase imported water and pay for the infrastructure needed to bring in the imported water.
In September 2020, Searles Valley Minerals, based in the San Bernardino County community of Trona, represented by Eric Garner, Jeffrey Dunn and Maya Mouawad with the law firm of Best Best & Krieger, filed a lawsuit in Kern County Superior Court against the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority in an effort to protect what Garner, Dunn and Mouwad asserted are the company’s groundwater rights within the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Basin, and to stop the collection of what they characterized as an illegal and unfair groundwater replenishment fee and a tax disguised, they assert, as an “extraction fee.”
The disputes over water in the Indian Wells Valley Region were assigned to the Orange County Superior Court to avoid bias that might manifest if the hearings were held in a court in Kern, Inyo or San Bernardino counties.
In a separate suit, other entities impacted by the groundwater replenishment fee, Mojave Pistachios, Sierra Shadows Ranch, John Thomas Conaway and the Nugent Family Trust collectively sued the groundwater authority and the Indian Wells Valley Water District as the lead agency in that joint authority, contesting the imposition of the fees.
In reaction to the Searles Valley Minerals suit, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority contended that there was a hierarchy of water use and that in accordance with the limitations on water availability and that hierarchy, all entities utilizing water in the Indian Wells Valley had to participate in the effort to end profligate use, engage in responsible stewardship of the available water and share in the cost of and effort to achieve a balance of water table recharge and water use to end the overdraft.
One issue complicating the matter is that both the Bureau of Land Management and the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, as federal entities, are exempt from the groundwater sustainability plan and the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Accordingly, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority was moving toward exempting the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station from the restrictions to be imposed in the finalized groundwater sustainability plan. The China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station encompasses two ranges and totals over 1,100,000 acres or 1,719 square miles, much of that within Indian Wells Valley. While the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station made strides over the previous decade in reducing its water use, it 2021 it was still drafting some 1,600 acre-feet of water from the aquifer annually.
Garner, Dunn and Mouawad took issue with the fashion in which the China Lake Naval Air Station was not subject to the restrictions in the plan nor its fees.
“Searles Valley Minerals’ right to pump water in the basin for domestic uses is senior to any water right reserved to [the] Weapons Station, and because [the] water district’s groundwater pumping began no earlier than 1955, its appropriative right, if any, to basin water remains junior to Searles Valley Minerals’ right,” according to the lawsuit. “The authority falsely asserts in its groundwater sustainability plan that any pumping allocations under the groundwater sustainability plan will be ‘consistent with existing groundwater rights and priorities.’”
Garner, Dunn and Mouawad asserted the groundwater replenishment fee was both unprecedented and exorbitant, and would increase the company’s water costs by 7,000 percent or $6 million per year – pushing Searles Valley Minerals out of business after more than 140 years of operation, thereby threatening the livelihood of the company’s 700 employees.”
In October 2025, it was announced that the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority and Searles Valley Minerals had come to a tentative agreement to end the litigation they were involved in against one another.
In November, Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority and Searles Valley Minerals filed with the court comprehensive settlement and mutual release agreement by which both entities permanently dropped – i.e., “dismissed with prejudice” – all pending lawsuits filed against each other.
According to the groundwater authority, “The agreement is intended to support cooperative planning, management and implementation of projects that enhance the long-term groundwater sustainability in the Indian Wells Valley basin” and “creates immediate environmental benefits by incorporating reclaimed water into Searles’ operations, taking pressure off the overdrafted basin. By moving to reclaimed water for its industrial operations, Searles can stop pumping roughly 2,000 acre-feet per year of drinking-quality groundwater from the basin.”
Under the agreement, the groundwater authority has relinquished its option on approximately 2,000 acre-feet per year of reclaimed water from the City of Ridgecrest so that supply can be made available to Searles Valley Minerals on mutually agreeable terms. The agreement specified that Searles Valley Minerals will attempt, where feasible, to prioritize using the reclaimed water before exporting additional groundwater from the basin, so to reduce drafting of local groundwater resources.
“By establishing a framework for cooperation with the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority, this agreement advances responsible groundwater management in the basin. Both parties view this outcome as a mutual benefit that supports local jobs, regional economic stability, and a more secure water future for the Indian Wells Valley,” according to a statement by the groundwater authority announcing the lawsuit resolution.
“We are very pleased to work in partnership with Searles Valley Minerals to achieve a sustainable water future not just for Searles, but for all the residents of the valley and Trona,” said Ridgecrest City Councilman Scott Hayman, the chairman of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority’s board of directors.
As part of the agreement, the groundwater authority certified that Searles Valley Minerals will be eligible to receive imported water in the future through the authority’s planned pipeline. In return, Searles Valley Minerals stated it recognized the regional benefits of bringing non-native water into the basin and committed to not oppose implementation of the pipeline project.
In announcing that the agreement with Searles Valley Minerals had been reached, the groundwater authority revealed that a similar settlement had been obtained with Mojave Pistachios with regard to the litigation that company had brought against the authority.
“It has always been our goal to shift from conflict to collaboration,” said Keith Lemieux, general counsel for Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority. “Last year we reached agreement with Mojave Pistachios, concluding our disputes with the farming community. With the Searles’ dismissals, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority has now resolved its differences with every private-party pumper in the basin. Ironically, the only remaining lawsuit is the Indian Wells Valley Water District’s action against other pumpers. We hope today’s resolution renders that lawsuit moot so all parties can collaborate to solve our water problems.”
A sidelight to the matter, alluded to in Lemieux’s statement, is water rights litigation initiated by the Indian Wells Valley Water District that was initiated in 2021 by the Indian Wells Valley Water District, titled Indian Wells Valley Water District v. All Persons Who Claim a Right to Extract Groundwater in the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Basin.
Both the Indian Wells Valley Water District, which serves as the region’s local water company, and the groundwater authority are intent on achieving a balance of water use and water recharge within the valley by 2040. Nevertheless, some differences between those two entities emerged on how to best achieve that goal.
Based upon the mandates contained in the Groundwater Management Act and its survey of the pattern of water usage by local entities, the annual natural recharge into the water basin through annual precipitation and the resultant then-current overdraft and projected overdraft into the foreseeable future, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority came to the conclusion that the most viable solution to the water shortage was to limit ongoing water use, impose the groundwater replenishment fee and ultimately use the proceeds to construct a 50-mile pipeline extension from Indian Wells Valley to the California Aqueduct in California City in Kern County so water could be imported and used to recharge the aquifer. That pipeline would need to extend from where the Antelope Valley East Kern County Water Agency’s furthest extension of facilities importing water from the California Aqueduct ends near California City to Ridgecrest.
The Indian Wells Valley Water District, along with numerous local entities including the Ridgecrest Area Association of Realtors, the Ridgecrest Chamber of Commerce and the Indian Wells Valley Economic Development Corporation consider that proposed project/solution to be prohibitively expensive and believe it would likely cause economic harm as well as double the rates paid by the Indian Wells Valley Water District customers for their water.
To a greater extent, the voting board members of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority representing Kern County, the City of Ridgecrest and Inyo County were on board with the water importation concept, as was San Bernardino County to a lesser extent. The Indian Wells Valley Water District, however, was concerned that the cost of the water importation infrastructure would raise the cost of water beyond what its customers could reasonably sustain. It pressed for alternate solutions to redress the water shortage, including water use efficiency, recycling and measures to lessen evaporation, as well as purchasing water from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which has already constructed a pipeline conveying water from Owens Valley to Los Angeles through the area.
In 2021, based upon its contention that the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority formulated its strategy to overcome the basin overdraft without having first completed a scientifically sound survey of the extent of the overdraft and the full range of methodologies that could be applied to overcome it, the Indian Wells Valley Water District’s initiated Indian Wells Valley Water District v. All Persons Who Claim a Right to Extract Groundwater in the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Basin in Orange County Superior Court in an effort to adjudicate water rights throughout the Indian Wells Valley basin.
That legal action took place in the context of other water use management/water conservation measures being instituted which imposed limits, hardships and expense on companies and corporations in the area involved in agricultural and industrial production and the lawsuits brought by Searles Valley Minerals, Mojave Pistachios, Sierra Shadows Ranch, John Thomas Conaway and the Nugent Family Trust.
This led to the rather remarkable circumstance in which the two major entities in the region devoted to the management of water resources found themselves working at cross purposes.
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority objected to the water district’s water rights adjudication effort, asserting that the adjudication interferes with the groundwater authority’s efforts to manage and reduce the overdraft and that the adjudication will have the effect of benefiting certain agricultural interests and Searles Valley Minerals, who they claimed were the most profligate users of water in the basin, while threatening, or at least challenging, the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake’s federal reserved water rights.
Attitudes of the public with regard to the legitimacy of the groundwater authority’s water management/conservation/importation plan or the water district’s adjudication effort was a matter of personal perspective. To some, the water district was being obstructionist and blocking a joint powers authority from moving forward with what seemed to be a practical, if somewhat costly, solution to an intractable problem. To others, the water district was taking a time-honored approach in seeking to ensure that all parties, large and small, powerful and weak, connected and unconnected, governmental and private sector were dealt with fairly and were given no greater or lesser entitlement to the elixir of life, and simultaneously seeking to ensure that a combination of governmental agencies were not embarking on a project that was going to impose an enormous financial burden on residents, landowners and businesses.
One issue that was taken up as part of the water district’s adjudication effort was the fashion in which the groundwater authority had presumed that there was no mechanism in the law, administrative processes or the Groundwater Management Act to include the China Lake Naval Air Station in the water use limitations or subject it to financial participation in the proposed solution to the overdraft dilemma, i.e., constructing the pipeline to the California Aqueduct and they paying for the importation of water from the State Water Project to Indian Wells Valley for injection into the water table.
As it turned out, the water district’s raising of that matter resulted in a judge’s determination with regard to water allotments and fair water distribution that the Navy cannot simply monopolize a significant portion of the desert’s water without regard to the water needs and rights of other entities there.
The matter of Indian Wells Valley Water District v. All Persons Who Claim a Right to Extract Groundwater in the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Basin was divided into two phases. The first phase, which was heard earlier this year by Orange County Superior Court Judge William Claster, hashed out what water rights the Navy has. The second phase, which will go before Judge Claster next year, will make determinations as to the water rights of the other entities in Indian Wells Valley.
On July 31, 2025, Judge Claster ruled that the China Lake Naval Air Station is entitled, under the water rights adjudication the Indian Wells Valley Water District is requesting, to far less water on an annual basis than the Navy had previously asserted. The Navy had requested the court to recognize that it is entitled to 6,783 acre-feet of water per year.
An acre-foot is the amount of water that covers an acre of ground to the depth of one foot, i.e., 43,450 cubic feet or 325,851.4 U.S. gallons.
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority had supported the Navy in that claim. The City of Ridgecrest, which has roughly 6,500 inhabitants employed at the China Lake Naval Air Station, held that the Navy should be provided with even more water than the military service had asked for, stating in a filing with the court that it should be free to pump up to 7,988 acre-feet per year.
Searles Valley Minerals participated in the first phase of the adjudication trial conducted over seven days between April 28 and May 14, 2025 before Judge Claster, and its expert witness testified that according to the numbers he had run, the Navy is entitled to no more than its most recent 10-year average of 1,644 acre-feet per year, consisting of 1,536 acre feet for all base uses plus 108 acre-feet reserved for firefighting.
Meadowbrook Dairy, a major agricultural concern in Indian Wells Valley, made a similar argument, but conceded through its expert witness that an increase in the China Lake Naval Air Station’s water allotment to about 2,000 acre-feet per year was not unreasonable.
Ultimately, Judge Claster found that 2,008 acre-feet of water should be reserved for the Navy’s use at the air station yearly.
In filings with the court for the adjudication, the groundwater authority has stated its analysis has determined that average natural annual recharge of water into the Indian Wells Valley basin is 7,650 acre-feet per year. The Indian Wells Valley Water District has disputed that estimate as scientifically unsound and that the amount of water coming into the basin on average is closer to 14,000 acre-feet per year.
The groundwater authority’s previous willingness to allow the naval air station to monopolize without question more than 80 percent of the entire valley’s annual recharge of water was a major factor in the legal and procedural resistance water users in the valley were mounting the authority’s water importation solution to the overdraft.
While lawyers for both the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority and Searles Valley Minerals made no such official or on-the-record statements relating to what factors had led to the settlement agreement between their clients, it has widely circulated that Judge Claster’s determination that the China Lake Naval Station is entitled to less than 30 percent of the water the groundwater authority was prepared to grant it, set the table for the settlement to take place.