By Scott Sonner Associated Press
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
RENO — A federal judge in Nevada has dismissed Fernley’s lawsuit seeking to block the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's plan to renovate a 115-year-old earthen irrigation canal with changes that would eliminate leaking water local residents long have used to fill their own domestic wells.
The $148 million project includes lining parts of the Truckee Canal with concrete to make it safer after it burst in 2008, flooding nearly 600 homes in Fernley.
The move will reduce seepage of groundwater through the canal's dirt floor into the aquifer. Fernley claimed it had a right to the water partly because it's been available to local residents since 1905.
It's lawsuit filed under the National Environmental Policy Act also argued the government failed to fully consider the environmental impacts of reduced groundwater levels.
U.S. District Judge Miranda Du ruled in dismissing the lawsuit in Reno on Monday the townspeople lack legal standing to bring their claims under NEPA because their interests are economic, not environmental.
She pointed to past rulings by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that have established a "zone of interests that NEPA protects as being environmental" and that "purely economic interests" do not qualify.
