The U.S. Interior Department did not violate reclamation law by curtailing water deliveries to irrigators in California's Central Valley Project, according to a federal judge.

Plaintiffs in the case -- the San Luis Unit Food Producers -- claimed that several federal reclamation statutes require the Interior Department to deliver water to irrigators.

The group filed a complaint in 2009, alleging the government had violated the statutes by unlawfully withholding water, allowing "works to sit substantially idle so that water may flow to the Pacific" for environmental purposes.

U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger has ruled the plaintiffs lack standing to sue the Interior Department.

The irrigators haven't been harmed by the federal government's contractual agreements to deliver water to other parties -- rather, the Interior Department curtailed irrigation to comply with other federal laws, like the Endangered Species Act, he said.

Nonirrigation uses of water, such as leaving it in stream for fish, have been deemed "plainly valid" by congressional actions, Wanger said.

The federal government has not breached its legal duty to deliver water, since the Interior Department still provides irrigation services within the project, he said.

"Plaintiffs' real complaint is with the volume of irrigation water provided," Wanger said. "They have pointed to absolutely no language in reclamation law that requires federal defendants to provide any particular volume of irrigation water, or that they operate the unit to 'full capacity.'"

-- Mateusz Perkowski