Prosecutors: Water officials aware of falsified water data

RENO -- A Northern Nevada irrigation district official under indictment on federal fraud charges conceded he knew water deliveries to farmers were being falsified, a federal prosecutor and government agent said in court documents.

David Overvold, a project manager for the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, acknowledged to investigators that the practice "has been going on for a while," and he did nothing to stop it, court records show.

Overvold and three other men were named in a 10-count indictment handed up in December by a federal grand jury in Reno.

Federal prosecutors accuse them of carrying out a scheme from 2000-05 to alter water delivery data to earn special "efficiency credits" that would entitle the district to more water and reduce a court-ordered water debt owed to the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe.

The men have said they are not guilty of the charges. Trial is scheduled for February 2010.