September 15-28, 2021 HISTORY
Who owns the water from Lake Tahoe & Truckee River?
PA R T V I
S TO RY & P H OTO S BY M A R K M C L AU G H L I N
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hen government engineers penciled out how much water they could siphon out of Truckee River for the Newlands Project, they based it on wetter than normal winters and overestimated average water runoff. Once the Bureau of Reclamation began diverting the river at Derby Dam in 1906, water levels began falling downstream at Pyramid Lake, a Paiute reservation. Pyramid Lake was a vital fishery for thousands of years, but the tribe had no legal rights to Truckee River water until 1908 when the U.S. Supreme Court determined that when the federal government established Indian reservations it implicitly reserved sufficient land and water to serve its purpose and that non-Indians could not interfere with a tribe’s reserved water. The precedent-setting decision also recognized prior appropriation rights for Western tribes. The court’s opinion gave the Paiute the most senior claims on Truckee River dating back to 1859 when land for the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation was first set aside. To comply with the law the United States
government promised the Paiute Tribe enough water to maintain its historic trout fishery at the river’s mouth. Sadly, like virtually every other treaty the government signed with Native Americans, it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. The diversions continued and Derby Dam dramatically cut water flow into Pyramid Lake. By 1967, the lake’s level had dropped 87 feet. Deficient inflow prevented the cui-ui fish, now recognized as a federally endangered sucker unique to Pyramid Lake, and the threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout, a world-class trophy fish, from migrating upstream to spawn. Falling water levels increased salinity in the lake and sawdust and toxic pollution from the upstream Floriston paper mill destroyed the fish habitat. Beginning in 1919, the Paiute Tribe complained to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that lack of water inhibited the spawning of trout. In 1951, Paiutes went to the courts and sued for damages under the Indian Claims Commission Act, which led to the Washoe Project Act. This negotiation increased upstream storage for the Paiute fisheries with the 1970 con-
LEFT: Lake Tahoe water enters the Truckee
River, circa July 2020. BELOW: Lahontan Reservoir during drought, circa 2003.
struction of Stampede Reservoir as a large storage basin for tribal management. Fighting for additional water under the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation, the Paiutes claimed superior rights due to its 1859 reservation status and its fish
hatchery putting water to Beneficial Use long before white settlers arrived. This litigation reached the Supreme Court, but failed to override the existing, complicated and hard-fought court decisions regarding tribal water rights. In the 1970s and 80s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stepped in along with other agencies to establish and fund recovery plans for the endangered cui-ui with aggressive hatchery programs. Previously eliminated from the Truckee River system by dams and pollution, Lahontan cutthroat trout were acquired from native stock from a lake in northern Nevada and re-introduced into Pyramid Lake. The increased water flow and government help dramatically improved the biotic health of Pyramid Lake. Further litigation by the Tribe in conjunction with the 1987 Clean Water Act empowered the sovereign Paiute Nation to demand less contamination of the Truckee River, later codified in the 1996 Truckee River Water Quality Standards Settlement. Today, the Paiute Tribe has authority to manage its fisheries and water quality where Truckee River enters Pyramid Lake.
TRUCKEE RIVER AGREEMENT FORMED The Paiute prevailed, but negotiations continued over water rights by other parties including Tahoe lakeshore owners with littoral rights (use and enjoyment of the shoreline), downstream power companies (established flow rates at the state line known as Floriston rates), Truckee Meadows irrigators with early Nevada rights to Truckee River’s natural flow, along with Newlands Project irrigators with junior rights to water stored in Tahoe. The whole complicated mess coalesced in 1935 in the form of the Truckee River Agreement, which to a large degree is still the basis today for watershed management. That agreement led to the 1937 construction of Boca Reservoir to store water for Truckee Meadows irrigators. In the 1944 Orr Ditch Decree, a federal court adjudicated water rights for all concerned parties. Interestingly, it does not make an interstate allocation of Truckee River between California and Nevada; it only quantifies individual water rights. These decrees continue to be tweaked. The Orr Ditch Degree empowered the Bureau of Reclamation to irrigate its target of 200,000 acres of desert in Lahontan Valley, but historically the Newlands Project has sustained less, between 50,000 to 60,000 acres. (Sen. Francis Newlands and Robert Fulton’s original plans for Nevada’s “Greatest Reclamation Project” proposed a colossal 400,000 irrigated acres.)
WATER FLOWS TO NEVADA FARMERS Water diverted out of Truckee River flows through Truckee Canal 32 miles south to supplement the Carson River where the liquid gold is stored in Lahontan Reservoir for use by farmers, beef ranchers and dairy producers. The transfer of irrigation water requires four dams and 68.5 miles of canals. The Truckee Canal is unlined and loses up to one-third of its water due to seepage. Family farms irrigated with the seemingly abundant and inexpensive Tahoe Sierra water began to grow sugar beets, melons, cantaloupes, corn and vegetables. They raised sheep, beef cattle, milk cows and poultry. Severe droughts and pests took a toll on many of these commodities. Dairymen homesteaded on the project in its earliest years to produce butter, cream
and milk. A mainstay crop is nutrient-rich alfalfa hay, a significant water consumer, which is grown as feed for beef cattle and dairy cows. For context, in the scheme of California’s $50 billion agricultural sector with more than 400 commodities, alfalfa consumes more water than any other crop and is the second-most water intensive. Irrigated pasture for grazing livestock is the third largest water consumer in the Golden State and the third-most water intensive. Oft-cited scapegoats, such as almonds (1,900 gallons of water per pound) and pistachios (1,362 gallons per pound) rank fourth.
Water managers recognize the limitations of the over-appropriated Newlands Project, but economic growth is a priority. Certain agricultural sectors are becoming unsustainable in California due to frequent drought, diminishing mountain snowpacks and environmental issues. They’re the same dire conditions that affect water imported to western Nevada, which was declared a federal drought disaster area just six years ago in 2015. Water managers recognize the limitations of the over-appropriated Newlands Project, but economic growth is a priority. Locally grown high-grade alfalfa is exported to California, Asia and beyond. Much of the fluid milk produced regionally stays in the Silver State, but cows consume 30 to 50 gallons of water every day. According to the Water Education Foundation, it takes 48 gallons of irrigation water to produce one glass of milk, about 8 fluid ounces. America’s modern dairy industry sees its future in exports, particularly to China, and while small dairy farmers haven’t disappeared in the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, there are now operations with thousands of cows. Powdered milk products are processed locally, then trucked to the Port of Oakland and shipped to China. As they say, water flows uphill to money.
Read the full series at TheTahoeWeekly.com Tahoe historian Mark McLaughlin is a nationally published author and professional speaker. His award-winning books are available at local stores or at thestormking.com. You may reach him at mark@thestormking.com.
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