Top court dismisses lawsuit over lake

Thursday, April 12, 2001 | 10:41 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A suit that sought more water for Walker Lake, which is gradually drying up, has been dismissed by the Nevada Supreme Court.

The court Wednesday rejected the petition of Mineral County and the Walker Lake Working Group, which wanted to stop the state from granting additional water rights from the Walker River system. The suit suggests that the state has failed in its public trust obligations to protect the lake by failing to allow it additional water.

Walker Lake, located near Hawthorne about 300 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is about 13 miles long and 5 miles wide. But it has only 50 percent of the surface area it covered in 1882.

In a majority opinion written by Justice Cliff Young, the court said there is a dispute over the reasons the lake is receding. But he said the dispute belongs in federal court, which has been handling the distribution of water.

Mineral County has filed motions in federal court seeking reallocations of the waters of the Walker River, which feeds Walker Lake. It claims that the lake is slowly dying and without more water the lake "will be irreparably degraded."

Young wrote, "We conclude that the Decree Court (federal court), which has had continuing involvement in the monitoring of the Walker River for more than 80 years, is the proper forum for the redress that petitioners (Mineral County and the working group) seek."