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contract between DWR and CLWA, which now reflects that CLWA is entitled to receive

its original entitlement of SWP water, and is entitled to receive an additional entitlement

of 41,000 AFY of SWP water, i.e. the water KCWA transferred to CLWA. Also in 1999,

CLWA certified an EIR for the transfer of the 41,000 AFY of SWP water. (Friends of
the Santa Clara River v. Castaic Lake Water Agency (2002) 95 Cal.App.4th 1373, 1379

(Friends I).)

Shortly after CLWA certified its EIR for the transfer of the 41,000 AFY of SWP

water from KCWA, a nonprofit corporation filed a petition for writ of mandate in the Los

Angeles County Superior Court, challenging the sufficiency of CLWA’s EIR. In 2000,
the trial court entered a final judgment denying the petition.

In 2002, Division Four of our court ruled that the decision by the Third District

Court of Appeal in PCL, supra, 83 Cal.App.4th 892 –– decertifying the original EIR for

the Monterey Agreement/Monterey Amendments as a whole program –– required the

decertification of CLWA’s “tiered” EIR for the ensuing transfer of the 41,000 AFY of
SWP water from KCWA to CLWA. As Division Four explained, “tiering” –– meaning

the practice of incorporating prior environmental studies –– is permitted under CEQA,

but had resulted in a “defect” in CLWA’s EIR when the original, underlying EIR for the

Monterey Agreement as a whole, upon which CLWA’s ensuing EIR had been expressly

tiered, was decertified. (Friends I, supra, 95 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1375-1376, 1384-1387.)
In short, Division Four ruled that an EIR may not be “tiered” on a decertified EIR.

CLWA’s options, suggested Division Four, were to wait until the EIR review process in

the CEQA case involving the Monterey Agreement/Monterey Amendments had been

completed (see III., A., ante), or to prepare its own independent EIR for the transfer of the

41,000 of SWP water from KCWA.
After Friends I was remanded to the trial court, the case litigants agreed the trial

court should issue a writ of mandate directing CLWA to decertify its EIR, but a “bone of

contention” remained whether the trial court should also enjoin CLWA from proceeding

with the transfer of the entitlement to the 41,000 AFY of SWP water from KCWA before

CLWA completed an adequate EIR for the transfer. (Friends of the Santa Clara River v.

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