U.S. District Court Judge Miranda Du on December 13 dismissed the City of Fernley’s lawsuit seeking to stop the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation from lining a portion of the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District canal through the city.
The city filed the lawsuit against the BOR on March 10, challenging the Final Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision for the Truckee Canal XM Project.
In the EIS BOR identified five alternatives to repair the canal and chose as its preferred alternative lining the 12.7 miles of the canal flowing through Fernley with a full geomembrane liner covered with concrete.
The repair project is to permanently repair the canal after it breached on January 5, 2008, causing flooding and damage to approximately 590 homes in Fernley. TCID repaired the breach in February, and the canal reopened in March 2008. Until long-term repairs are made, the canal is required to operate at a lower stage of water to reduce risk of another breach.
In its lawsuit, the City of Fernley claims that it and private well owners would be damaged by the loss of groundwater seepage through the canal into the underground aquifer.
The BOR has disputed the city’s and the well owners’ rights to that water.
Du’s ruling came after a Dec 8 hearing on dismissal motions filed by the BOR. The judge didn’t address Fernley and the landowners’ right to the water but rather said her decision was because the city and the private intervenors in the case are economic, not environmental.
In her ruling, Du wrote that “while the Ninth Circuit has held that a governmental entity in
geographical proximity to the site of the proposed action, and which must under NEPA be
consulted in the EIS process, has standing to challenge an EIS, it may do so only if it demonstrates that the environmental health of its land interests is threatened by the agency’s action.”
Comment
Comments