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City attorney outlines stakes in Oxnard–Pleasant Valley groundwater adjudication; city appeals trial ruling
Summary
City Attorney Ryan Bizera briefed the council on the multi‑year OPV Coalition v. Fox Canyon adjudication, explaining why Camarillo appealed a superior‑court decision that set a Pleasant Valley safe yield at about 13,750 acre‑feet per year and treated roughly 9,500 acre‑feet as native water — a finding the city says undervalues non‑native/recharge water and could threaten the city’s desalination investment.
City Attorney Ryan Bizera told the Camarillo City Council March 11 that the OPV Coalition v. Fox Canyon groundwater adjudication could affect the city’s long‑term water supplies and the operation of the city’s North Pleasant Valley desalination facility. Bizera summarized the case background, the trial outcome and why the city has appealed.
Bizera said the lawsuit (filed 2021) challenges Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency’s 2019 allocation ordinance and brings hundreds of pumpers and public agencies into a single adjudication to determine “who gets to pump how much groundwater” from the Pleasant Valley and Oxnard subbasins. He…
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