Wyoming Landowners Succeed in Appeal Over Reservoir Boundaries

A 1909 map should dictate boundaries for the Lake Hattie Reservoir, the Tenth Circuit ruled, in a win for Wyoming landowners who claim the reservoir’s operator exceeds the lake’s boundaries and floods their properties.

The district court can take Bureau of Land Management resurveys into account, but “need not afford them any special weight,” a three-judge panel on the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit said.

The appellate court previously sided with the landowners in 2019, holding that the Pioneer Canal-Lake Irrigation District in 2019 exceeded the boundaries of the century-old right-of-way for the reservoir, which was ...