Los Angeles _ A federal judge yesterday ruled in favor of two Southern California water districts in a case that involved breach of contract and water rights claims brought against them by the U.S. government and a neighboring water district.

The 120-page ruling issued Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall ends years of legal action and disputes over the Santa Margarita River watershed, a large watershed that serves thousands of residents in Riverside and San Diego counties.         

“The case resolves years of litigation and puts to rest a lot of issues that have been in contention for a very long time,” said Piero Dallarda, one of the attorneys for Best Best & Krieger who tried the case during a nine-week trial in 2008. The firm represented Rancho California Water District.

The judge found, among other things, that the plaintiffs, the United States Marine Corps Base at Camp Pendleton and the Fallbrook Public Utility District, failed to prove damages in their case against Temecula-based Rancho California Water District and Perris-based Eastern Municipal Water District.

The judge also found that the water management practices of Rancho California Water District did not endanger in any way the water supply at Camp Pendleton, as the plaintiffs had alleged. 

“In summary, plaintiffs have not proven they are entitled to relief under their water rights claims, their breach of contract claims, or any other claims asserted at the trial of this matter,” Marshall wrote in her ruling.   

Specifically, the judge found that Rancho California Water District did not breach the 1990 contract involving the amount of treated wastewater it sends into the river’s watershed, which flows downstream to Camp Pendleton. The Marine base uses the water from the river’s watershed as its water supply.

In the lawsuit filed in 2003, the plaintiffs had claimed the districts had breached the contract to place two million gallons of water a day into the river. The San Diego Water Quality Control Board had granted Rancho California Water District a permit to conduct a pilot project for five years but later denied the district a permanent permit.

Instead, the district intermittently sent its treated water in a pipeline to the Santa Ana River, where another pipeline takes it to the Pacific Ocean.

“We were able to show the judge that the district did its utmost to do everything it could to make this contract work and manages its water resources well,” Dallarda said.

The ruling prevents the defendants from having to spend $300 million to buy additional water sources for Camp Pendleton or to build a desalination plant sought by the base to remove the salt from the water in the river basin.