Judge dismisses Fernley’s lawsuit over leaking canal repairs

By SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A federal judge in Nevada has dismissed a rural town’s lawsuit seeking to block the U.S. government’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.