A judge on Tuesday refused the Oakdale Irrigation District’s request to throw out a lawsuit challenging the district’s stalled fallowing program.

Another judge had ruled in May that the district must study how shipping river water elsewhere might affect the groundwater table here, before allowing farmers to idle some land and sell freed-up water to outside buyers. When that judge, William Mayhew, was removed from the case, OID tried to persuade Stanislaus Superior Court Judge Roger Beauchesne to toss out the lawsuit, but had no better luck Tuesday.