(a) This chapter establishes methods and procedures for a comprehensive adjudication.
(b) This chapter shall be applied and interpreted consistently with all of the following:
(1) Protecting water rights consistent with Section 2 of Article X of the California Constitution.
(2) Conducting a comprehensive adjudication in a manner that promotes efficiency, reduces unnecessary delays, and provides due process.
(3) Encouraging the compromise and settlement of comprehensive adjudications.
(4) Conducting a comprehensive adjudication in a manner that is consistent with the achievement of groundwater sustainability within the timeframes of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
(5) Establishing procedures by which courts may conduct comprehensive determinations of all rights and priorities to groundwater in a basin.
(6) Providing for the conduct of a comprehensive adjudication consistent with Winters v. United States (1908) 207 U.S. 564, the McCarran Amendment (codified at 43 U.S.C. Sec. 666), and any other federal laws regarding the determination of federal or tribal water rights, as applicable.
(7) Providing notice and due process sufficient to enable a court in a comprehensive adjudication conducted pursuant to this chapter to determine and establish the priority for unexercised water rights. The court may consider applying the principles established in In re Waters of Long Valley Creek Stream System (1979) 25 Cal.3d 339. Except as provided in this paragraph, this chapter shall not alter groundwater rights or the law concerning groundwater rights.
(c) The other provisions of this code apply to procedures in a comprehensive adjudication to the extent they do not conflict with the provisions of this chapter.
(Added by Stats. 2015, Ch. 672, Sec. 1. (AB 1390) Effective January 1, 2016.)
Last modified: October 25, 2018