Background Information

On behalf of the United States Bureau of Reclamation, the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District  operates and maintains Reclamation's Newlands Project. The Project serves hundreds of farms, the City of Fernley, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, the United States Navy, and the State of Nevada Department of Wildlife, all of whom rely on water that the District delivers. In total, the Project serves 2,500 users and 59,000 acres of land.

The Problem

The District moves water from the Sierra Nevada mountains through the Carson and Truckee Rivers to farmers and other users through 390 miles of canals, laterals and pipelines. In the nation's most arid state, the District's century old infrastructure loses extensive amounts of water through seepage and evaporation, has mounting operation and maintenance costs, and presents public safety risks due to breaching.

The Solution

Modernizing the Distrcit's infrastructure would conserve water and benefit fish, farms and local communities. The District has worked with numerous partners to complete extensive feasibility studies to identify the following modernization priority projects which are near shovel-ready:

• Line the Truckee Canal ($5M to line a section of the canal; constructing the entire canal would cost an estimated $200M)
• Modernize the V-Line ($5M to modernize a section of the V-Line; complete modernization would cost an estimated $100M)
• Replace the temporary emergency weir on the V-Line installed in the 2017 flood ($2M)
• Install Supervisory Control and Data Automation (SCADA) components at strategic locations throughout the District ($5M)
• Modernize the T-Line and laterals ($5M to modernize a section of the T-Line; complete modernization would cost an estimated $63M)

Benefits

Completing the initial priority projects listed above would:

• Save billions of gallons of water each year for fish and farmers;
• Increase resilience for farmers, ranchers, local governments and other patrons;
• Decrease water waste and improve the accuracy and reliability of water delivered to District patrons; and
• Reduce public safety risk for people and property from canal breaching and Carson River flooding.