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Nevada Water Resources Association

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Reid wants money for aging water projects - WASHINGTON -- Now that the Truckee Canal through Fernley is more than 100 years old, it's a bad time for the Bureau of Reclamation to cut back on maintaining its aging infrastructure, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told a Senate panel Thursday. Reid, a Democrat, introduced legislation last week that would give Read more...

County to sell use of storage water rights - As it has done in prior years, the Lyon County Board of Commissioners has approved selling the use of its storage water rights for Read more...

Lake’s ghost town seen as a warning - To some, emergence of town’s remains is sign that water poses eternal challenge to Vegas, all of Southwest. Read more...

Drought Could Force Nuke-Plant Shutdowns - Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate. Read more...

Plan to siphon water for Vegas OK’d, with eye out for refuge - Carson City — The Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge is 5,380 acres of marshes, open water, native grass meadows and cultivated croplands that draw about 30,000 visitors annually. Also an important habitat for birds, the refuge, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas, lies west of the Delamar and Dry Lake valleys, from which the Southern Nevada Water Authority wants to pump water. Read more...

Drugs in our water? - Government needs better handle on effects of pharmaceutical residue in water. A five-month analysis has shown that a wide variety of pharmaceuticals has been found in the water supplies of millions of Americans. Read more...

Expect it to rain less but when it does, watch out - Residents of the Southwest have heard the refrain that droughts caused by global warming will worsen the region’s already serious water shortage. Read more...

Feds not fighting Whittemore’s water plan - CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — The federal government has dropped its opposition to a bid by wealthy Reno businessman and powerbroker Harvey Whittemore to get rural Nevada water for a huge development he’s building about 50 miles north of Las Vegas. Read more...

AwwaRF Announces Report on Hydrocarbons’ Impact on Plastic Pipe

(Denver, CO) — Awwa Research Foundation (AwwaRF), the leading nonprofit water research foundation dedicated to advancing the science of drinking water, today announced the publication of a new report on the impact of hydrocarbons—compounds which occur naturally in petroleum and natural gas—on plastic pipes and gaskets used to distribute drinking water.

AwwaRF sponsors research, such as the study on which this report is based, to help water
utilities manage their facilities and infrastructure more efficiently. In urban areas, plastic pipes and gaskets used in water distribution systems may come into contact with hydrocarbons that have leaked from underground storage tanks or spills. The study examined how these hydrocarbons may affect the structural integrity of plastic pipes and gaskets which, in turn, could impact the quality of the water in the distribution system.
“With the help of information contained in this report, utilities can avoid the costs of unnecessary pipe maintenance and replacement,” said Robert C. Renner, executive director of AwwaRF.

“The savings are passed on to consumers. The main goal of this project, as with all AwwaRF sponsored research, is to give utilities knowledge they need to provide the public with safe and affordable drinking water.” Information from the AwwaRF report will help utility managers better understand the performance of plastic pipes and gaskets in hydrocarbon-contaminated soils commonly encountered in urban settings. It will also help them take appropriate measures to mitigate potential impacts of hydrocarbons on their distribution systems.

The report, Impact of Hydrocarbons on PE/PVC Pipes and Pipe Gaskets (order #91204), is currently available to subscribers of AwwaRF. The report will become available publicly later this year. To learn more about AwwaRF and its research, please go to www.AwwaRF.org.

Washoe County to take over $84 million water project

SUSAN VOYLES
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 10/17/2007

Washoe County commissioners agreed Tuesday to take over an $84 million project to bring 8,000 acre-feet of water a year from the Fish Springs Ranch to the North Valleys.

"You have pointed the way," said Chairman Bob Larkin told Vidler Water Co. officials as commissioners voted to oversee the first major water importation project in Nevada in modern times.

Vidler will sell the rights to 8,000 acre-feet of water to up to 16,000 homeowners in the North Valleys. The homeowners must dedicate those rights to the county.

Until the water rights are sold, Vidler President Dorothy

Timian-Palmer said the county can use the water for any purpose, such as resting wells in Lemmon Valley and using the water for current customers.

"You can use this water however you choose until it's dedicated to homeowners," Palmer said.

The first flow through the 28.6-mile pipeline to Lemmon Valley is expected in late January. Vidler officials plan to pressurize 10 miles of pipeline today and six wells at the ranch in Honey Lake Valley to test the system.

She said the water rights have been priced at $45,000 an acre-foot.

The pipeline to Lemmon Valley was finished in August and the route reseeded. Electrical equipment is to be delivered Dec. 12 for a pump station to take water from the ranch over a mountain and to a 2 1/2-million-gallon water storage tank overlooking Lemmon Valley at the end of Matterhorn Drive. A four-mile pipeline being built along Matterhorn would take the water to a county pipeline.

Palmer said remote locations along the pipeline and at the ranch can be monitored with telemetry.

Under the agreement, the flow in the pipeline could include another 5,000-acre-feet of water from the ranch. But that would be years after the first 8,000 acre-feet has proven to be from a reliable source, Palmer said.

Palmer said Vidler could have sought to sell 13,000-acre-feet of water from the ranch that the Nevada state engineer has approved for importation.

Washoe Commissioner Jim Galloway said he voted for the project because it is privately funded and did not put county money at risk. He said that's why a similar proposal to import more Honey Lake water failed in the early 1990s.

"This is the way it should be done," he said.

Including previous efforts, Palmer said the project has taken 20 years, including the Nevada Supreme Court and hearings and rehearings before the state engineer.

"It takes three things: Good science, lots of tenacity and buckets full of money," Palmer said, adding the company has invested $100 million in the project since buying the ranch in 2000.

Truckee Meadows Water Authority officials today will get a report on other proposed groundwater importation projects in Northern Nevada.

Rosemary Menard, county water resources director, didn't know whether the added water would require more workers in her department.

Just in time for Nevada Day, 12 things you might not know about the Silver State

SIOBHAN MCANDREW
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 10/22/2007

Don't worry, there aren't any 7-foot-7-inch red-headed giants roaming Lovelock anymore.

"For a long time people thought that story was real," said Rich Moreno, a long time Nevada columnist and author of eight books on Nevada.

"The story was that John Reid found remains of people in the 1920s that were taller than 7 feet and had red hair," Moreno said.

Reid, a mining engineer did the measurements on the remains he found in a cave after hearing the stories locals told of the once-roaming carnivore giants.

"The story was told so many times over that it was taken as being a real story. The bones were donated to the museum in 1970 and for a long time were lost," Moreno said.

When the bones were found the measurements were retaken and reported that historian Reid had measured incorrectly.

"The burial customs of the time used red dye so that is why the hair appeared to be red," Moreno said, of the remains of the Paiute tribe.

Although that story turned out to be fiction, there are many unique stories about Nevada according to Guy Rocha, the Nevada State Archivist and long time follower and verifier of all things Nevada.

Rocha said it is almost daily that he finds out something new about the Silver State.

"Every state has its stories," Rocha said. "I would say because of our interesting economy we have an interesting history," he said. "We pioneered things that were considered vices-legalized gambling, prize fighting and the place to have quickie divorces and marriages."

Rocha said although all states claim to have stories, Nevada is unique.

And how to tell what is fact verses fiction?

That's tough, say the experts.

Moreno said Nevada's wide open nature and small communities made myths -- such as the one about the red-headed giants -- into believed truths.

"I think it's also because our communities, such as Virginia City and Austin have prided themselves on those myths," Moreno said.

But Nevada has its fair share of facts that are true. Moreno and Rocha have come up with 12 odd things you might not know about Nevada that are verifiable.

1. Samuel Clemens called himself "Josh" before adopting the pen name "Mark Twain" while reporting for Virginia City's Territorial Enterprise.
2. Lake Tahoe was once named Lake Bigler for Governor John Bigler of California. California's state legislature did not officially adopt the name Lake Tahoe until 1945.
3. When Nevada was granted statehood on Oct. 31, 1864, Las Vegas was in Arizona Territory.
4. Yes, many big names have gotten divorced here. Clark Gable's divorce from second wife Ria Langham in Las Vegas in 1939 gave a big boost to the divorce trade in Southern Nevada helping it to rival Reno. Frank Sinatra divorced first wife Nancy Sinatra in Las Vegas (1951), before marrying Ava Gardner. Playwright, journalist and New York Congresswoman Clare Booth Luce's Reno divorce in 1929 from her first husband George Brokaw served as the inspiration for the Broadway play and motion picture "The Women." Silent film actress Mary Pickford, "America's Sweetheart," was divorced in Minden after residing in Nevada only 16 days, creating a great controversy in the state, and then returned to California to marry actor Douglas Fairbanks Sr.
5. Nevada is the most mountainous state with 314 distinct mountain ranges.
6. Levi's 501 jeans were invented in Reno in the 1870s by Jacob Davis. Davis worked several jobs and opened a tailor shop in Reno in 1869. He used a heavy-duty duck cloth sold by Levi Strauss & Co., to make a pair of pants ordered by a woman for her husband to wear when chopping wood. To make them even stronger Davis put the copper rivets in the corners.
7. Nevada is the only state that has a law that states if there is a tied election it is decided by drawing lots. Most recently in 2004 in Ely, cutting cards decided the seat for the White Pine County Commission. The high card won the election.
8. Boulder City and the community of Panaca in Lincoln County are the only two locations where the citizens have made gambling illegal in Nevada.
9. The first person executed by lethal gas as capital punishment in the United States occurred in Nevada (Gee Jon, Feb. 8, 1924 at the Nevada State Prison).
10. The Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, near Death Valley and 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has the greatest concentration of endemic life in the U.S. There are 24 indigenous species found there. The refuge has at least 24 plants and animals found nowhere else in the world.
11. Women gained the right to vote in Nevada in 1914, six years before women's suffrage laws were passed.
    Wyoming was first state to grant women the right to vote 1890.
12. Jack Dempsey the "Manassas Mauler" once worked in the mining camps and saloons in Tonopah. He did odd jobs in the early 1900s. In 1919 he defeated Jess Willard to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World