Judge dismisses suits challenging Truckee River settlement

Tuesday, March 4, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

The suits filed by Churchill County and the city of Fallon sought to block the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from buying 75,000 acre-feet of water rights from willing sellers for Lahontan Valley wetlands until more environmental studies are conducted.

The settlement, signed into law six years ago, resolved nearly a century of water wars over the Truckee River.

Among other things, it allows Reno and Sparks to store 39,000 acre-feet of water in Stampede Reservoir for drought protection and allocates the river's waters between California and Nevada.

The settlement also authorized the Interior Department to purchase water rights from farmers and ranchers along the Newlands Reclamation Project near Fallon and Fernley. The water is to be used to maintain about 25,000 acres of wetlands in the Lahontan Valley.

The federal government began buying water rights on a limited basis in 1991. The Fish and Wildlife Service completed an environmental impact statement on the plan and expected to begin its full-blown buyout program this spring.

Churchill County and Fallon filed lawsuits in an attempt to block the water buyout program from continuing until a study was conducted on the impacts it would have on the agricultural region.

Local officials argued that valley aquifers would dry up as fewer farmers irrigated their fields and provided groundwater recharge.

U.S. District Judge Edward Reed, however, said the city and county did not show they had been harmed or would be harmed by the water-purchase program, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

He also said the local governments were not the proper parties to sue, and that such lawsuits should come from individuals whose wells go dry.