The Truckee Carson Irrigation District Board of Directors met in their regular meeting Tuesday where they set the allocation for the Carson Division at 90%. The Truckee Division was set at 100%, and the Truckee Canal will be a source of water supply throughout the season.
Water orders will begin being taken on March 15 and deliveries will begin on the 22nd of March, if there are enough orders to warrant charging the system. “We do not want to start-up and have to shut-down as a result of insufficient demand after the initial start,” said Rusty Jardine, general manager of the district.
Board members heard from Tim Bardsley of the National Weather Service who provided a report on the current water supply and forecasting, and said experts are hoping for a “Miracle March” to get the district water users a full supply of the liquid gold that grows their crops.
Dan Lahde reported that Lahontan Storage as currently at 107,000 acre feet of water, and the storage target is 230,000 af. There is currently 14,500-acre feet of Newlands Project Credit Water being stored in the upper reservoirs of the system. That is a designation of water under the Truckee River Operating Agreement that allows for Newlands water to be stored upstream and delivered during the early summer months. The NPCW water will be delivered to Lahontan from May through August.
Lahde said snowpack is way below average, soil moisture is at record lows, and run-off forecasts are below average. In spite of that he said, “The Truckee division is not anticipating a water supply shortage and the Carson Division only shows a shortage in 23% of the run-off traces.”
Agenda item 15, the matter of planned maintenance on the Truckee Canal that would temporarily shut down the canal for maintenance and inspections, was postponed due to scheduling and for efficiencies of all the parties involved. The canal is being used this year for the storage deliveries from the Truckee River and a shutdown would be a “major orchestration,” said Jardine.
The district will hold a special election next week, March 9 from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. to give water right owners the change to approve the latest contract with the Bureau of Reclamation. The annual Water Users Meeting is scheduled for March 16 at 6:00 p.m. and will be held virtually over Zoom for both the Carson and Truckee Divisions.
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