A drainage district south of Fort Dodge cannot establish a wider than usual right of way, because it did not follow Iowa Code.

That’s according to a decision by Judge Thomas Bice filed Tuesday in Iowa District Court, who heard arguments in a lawsuit against the drainage district on April 29.

The Webster County Board of Supervisors had filed suit against the board of trustees that manages Drainage District 96, located near Moorland and Otho.

They objected to actions taken in May 2014, when the trustees defined a tax-exempt right of way that extends 100 feet from either side of the center of the district’s nearly 16 miles of open ditch, or 200 feet wide in total.

The district is one of the few in the county overseen by trustees instead of directly by the supervisors.

The district was originally created in 1911, but the right of way easement was never specifically defined and put on record.

The trustees alleged the right of way was needed so contractors have room to work and bring in their equipment when cleanouts are needed, and to spread the silt and dirt scooped out.

The supervisors said the tax-exempt right of way should only be the width of the ditch – roughly 66 feet – as it is in other districts in the county. They claimed the larger right of way was “nothing more than a veiled attempt to eliminate certain lands from taxation.”

The trustees’ actions were void because Iowa law requires them to have a land survey done by a qualified surveyor in order to specifically define the right of way, and this was not done, Bice wrote in his ruling.

“The Iowa Supreme Court has opined that the establishment of easements used by drainage districts for right-of-way purposes ‘is a special form of eminent domain,'” Bice wrote. A recent Iowa Supreme Court case has shown that when eminent domain is involved, there must be “strict compliance” with the legal requirements, not the “substantial compliance” the trustees claimed to have met.

The underlying issue of how wide the district should be was not addressed, Bice wrote.

“The question lingers,” he wrote, “whether the Trustees of Drainage District 96 were, as fiduciaries, truly protecting the interest of the landowners affected by the right of way or were they merely participating in a self-serving exercise in a ‘ … veiled attempt to eliminate certain lands from taxation’?”

Supervisor Keith Dencklau said he was happy with the decision.

“If they wanted to define where the 200 feet was for that purpose, the supervisors wouldn’t mind that, but when they were going after the tax exemption too, that was a big thing for us,” Dencklau said.

“They’ll still be able to farm that spoil bank,” he said. “If you’re taking income off it, and making money on it, you should pay taxes on it.”

Drainage District Trustee Ted Fiala said the trustees had no comment on the decision.