Federal court sends water fight back to Douglas

U.S. District Court in Reno dismissed a challenge Tuesday to the state water engineer's ruling on diversion of Carson River water, saying the federal court lacked jurisdiction to hear an appeal by the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe.

The court said the matter should be heard in "the proper state court in which the Carson Valley Hydrographic Basin is located," namely, Douglas County District Court.

The decision was greeted Wednesday with relief from the Minden Town Board, which administers 10,000 acre feet of water rights, the largest holdings on the Carson River, valued at $129 million.

The town has sought to have the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe challenge to diversion of Carson River water rights moved to Douglas County from Reno and Churchill County.

"It was a very rational, well-founded, well-based decision," said George Keele, Minden town counsel.

"That means the proper court is Department Two of Ninth Judicial Court before Judge Michael Gibbons," Keele said.

Earlier, attorneys for the town, successfully moved the challenge from Churchill to Douglas County.

"It's a significant victory for the town and the people who are the rightful users of the groundwater of Carson Valley," Keele said.

The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe can appeal the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court.

In October 2007, State Water Engineer Tracy Taylor rejected the tribe's move to block 19 separate applications to move or change existing water rights in Douglas County.

He ruled that the fact some Carson River water owners weren't using their full allotment, allowing the excess to flow to the Newlands Project, doesn't give the tribe and others the legal right to the water in the future.

Taylor said the tribe failed to make a legal connection between its Truckee River water rights and groundwater rights in the Carson Valley.

Just before Thanksgiving last year, the Paiute tribe appealed the state engineer's finding in federal court in Reno and in district court in Churchill County.

The appeal brought the Douglas County water transfer requests to a halt.

Tribal lawyers argued Carson Valley's groundwater is "severely over-appropriated" and that more groundwater use means less flow in the Carson River to Lake Lahontan.

That means more diversions from the Truckee River resulting in less water to Pyramid Lake, the tribe claimed.

Also at issue is the $1,000 bond posted by the Tribe required to cover financial damage to stakeholders in the issue.

"That is a pittance when you consider economic detriment (to water rights holders) by being 'dead in the water,'" Keele said Wednesday. "An effort is under way to consider increasing the bond to a reasonable, rational amount."

In granting the state engineer's motion to dismiss the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe's appeal of the state engineer's ruling, the federal court said, "the Tribe has not offered any citation or law, particularly that of Nevada or the Ninth Circuit, that suggests that a groundwater basin is part of a stream system merely because the groundwater basin and the stream system are 'hydrologically connected.'

The federal court said the Tribe has standing to appeal the state engineer's ruling to the appropriate court which would be Douglas County District Court.