LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A judge has dismissed a class-action lawsuit by Nebraska farmers who say the Department of Natural Resources deprived them of irrigation water to which they were entitled.

But District Court Judge James E. Doyle IV ruled this week that the farmers can amend their lawsuit with new arguments challenging the decision to divert the water to comply with the Republican River Compact.

Doyle ruled that the department’s duties to comply with the compact govern how water must be distributed.

More than 150 irrigators who receive water through the Frenchman Cambridge Irrigation District say their crops suffered because they were denied access to water that went to Kansas under the compact. The compact allocates 49 percent of the river’s water to Nebraska, 40 percent to Kansas and 11 percent to Colorado.