In March 2017, when major snowmelt threatened to inundate Lahontan Reservoir with twice as much water as its capacity, Jack Worsley worked side by side with officials from the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, Churchill County, and even the Nevada Department of Transportation to send the water downstream in an effort to divert water out into the desert to avoid what could have been catastrophic flooding,
So, this past August, when he stepped into his new role as Area Manager of the Bureau of Reclamation Lahontan Area Basin Office, he was no greenhorn learning his way around unfamiliar territory and people.
Before being selected as the new Area Manager, Worsley served as the Deputy Area Manager under Terri Edwards, who was Area Manager for seven years before retiring last summer. While serving as the deputy, Worsley was pulled away on other projects, serving as the Project Manager on the Shasta Dam & Reservoir Expansion, as well as working on other projects in the Central Valley of California and as the acting Mid-Pacific Construction Office Manager in Willows, Calif.
“It was a two-month temporary detail that turned into a three-year detail,” Worsley said.
He did much of that work from Carson City but turned his focus back to the Lahontan Basin area in June, in the midst of Covid-19 shutdowns that had the BOR office staff on max telework. They began to transition back into the office in January, just in time for the Omicron surge to force them back to telework, although Worsley hopes they can return to the office this spring.
“Our field guys are still in the field, though,” he said.
As Area Manager, Worsley said he is responsible for all of the Bureau’s functions within an area which covers most of the northern two-thirds of Nevada, with a small amount of overlap into California and Oregon.
The Bureau of Reclamation is most associated with management of dams and waterways, but also is involved with the development and administration of contracts, grants, easements, and rights-of-way for the use of land resources. This work includes working with the public, other governmental agencies, and the irrigation districts on trespass resolutions, access issues, title research, land disposal actions, etc.
“We have a lot land between here and all across Northern Nevada that has never been developed, and we monitor Reclamation land throughout the area,” Worsley said.
The biggest projects BOR is currently handling are the Newlands Project and the Washoe Project, which comprise the drainage basins of the Washoe and lower Carson Rivers.
Locally, BOR is working closely with TCID on repairs to the Truckee Canal which will ultimately result in the lining of a portion of the canal through Fernley where the canal bank gave way causing flooding in 2008. Worsley said BOR is working closely with TCID General Manager Rusty Jardine and its board of directors to make sure they are in compliance with all federal rules governing the canal.
BOR recently released and Environmental Impact Statement on the repairs, but the project is awaiting resolution or dispensation of a lawsuit by the City of Fernley attempting to stop the lining of the canal.
“That’s probably been the most studied canal, in terms of risk analysis, in BOR history,” Worsley said.
Worsley said lining the canal with concrete is the only suitable alternative. He said they researched using sheet piles instead of lining, but alkaline in the soil deteriorated the metal. They looked into synthetic sheet piles but couldn’t drill into the rocks.
He said TCID is working on an application for funding under the federal infrastructure bill for the canal repairs and said “they’re a strong candidate” to receive funding.
“We’re hoping the commission will approve the project and we can award a contract by June or July and negotiate dates,” Worsley said. “I think we have a very good chance of getting funded.”
Construction will have to take place outside irrigation season, so they could be looking at a three-year window, Worsley said, but they could be in construction in early October if they get the funding and all the approvals.
Additionally, Worsley said BOR has contracted with the Farmers Conservation Alliance and is working to come up with projects to improve water efficiencies in the Carson Division, along with corresponding opportunities.
“We’re working with TCID to upgrade water ordering and delivery tracking and we hope to roll that out in 2023,” he said.
Other ways to increase efficiency in the Carson Division include looking at replacing tower gauges and penstock lining at Lahontan Reservoir. A longer-term vision is looking at lining projects like Rattlesnake Reservoir, the V Line and the T Line, and modernizing some sections of projects that serve the Fallon Tribe.
There are more than 1,000 unlined canals in the Carson Division, Worsley said.
“The goal is to make the Carson Division more reliable on the Carson River itself,” Worsley said. “Even stakeholders on the Truckee River see that efficiencies in Fallon mean more water for them.”
All of those projects are made easier because of relationships between BOR and its partners, Worsley said. He credits those relationships, particularly with TCID, to the efforts of Edwards over the past seven years, and he said crises like the one in 2017 helped build trust.
“When you work side by side 14 hours a day, it develops trust and relationships,” Worsley said. “We don’t always see eye to eye, but I can’t say enough about the TCID Board of Directors. We sit around and talk a lot and try to come up with creative and innovative solutions to solve our problems.”
Worsley, who grew up in Arizona, graduated from Arizona State University and spend 16 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, said he has grown to love Nevada.
“People in Nevada are just fantastic, and I’m proud to call Nevada home,” he said. “It’s just nice, that’s all I can say about it.”
With Worsley ascending from deputy to area manager, his shoes as deputy are being filled by Laurie Nicholas. She moved to Carson City in May 2019 as a project manager, from Washington state, where she worked also as a project manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Portland District.
Originally from Kelso, Wash., Nicholas has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Portland State University, as well as project management professional certification.
As deputy area manager, Nicholas said her job is to support the area manager and office staff.
“When I worked as a project manager I led projects, but now I provide input to an even broader set of projects,” she said.
Nicholas worked on the Truckee Canal EIS but is now involved in that project in a lesser support role.
She is heavily involved in the Truckee Project, working on the Truckee Basin Water Management Options Pilot, a study looking at the operation of three Truckee Basin reservoirs, Boca, Stampede and Prosser Creek. It is a cost share project that also involves the Truckee Meadows Water Authority, the Federal Watermaster, Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and the State of California focused partly on flood risk reductions.
“It’s a three-year project and we’re about halfway through,” Nicholas said. “At the end, we’ll produce a report with recommendations on how to modify reservoir operations.”
Compared to her days as a project manager, her new role mostly keeps her out of the field and in the office, running models. Much of her time is spent meeting with the Bureau’s partners and stakeholders discussing projects they are working on.
“My hard hat has expired, and my steel-toed boots have spider webs,” she said.
She has quickly grown an affinity for Northern Nevada.
“I don’t miss the rain, I love seeing the blue sky,” she said. “People are really friendly in this part of the state.”
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