The new weir has been completed and is ready, next to the weir built in 2017, to take water from the V-Line canal, allowing for relief of the irrigation system should Lahontan Reservoir fill and water come over the flashboards. Water inflow into the reservoir from the Carson River continues to increase as snow in the Sierras begins to melt, with the gauge at Fort Churchill flowing at 4,860 cubic feet per second on May 23. On May 16 that flow was right at 3,000 cfs.
According to Ben Shawcroft, Project Manager of the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, the district, along with the Bureau of Reclamation is doing a full test of the new weir, opening all three bays. Following the test, the weirs will be closed to build up the storage in the reservoir but may be opened again depending on conditions. Farmers in the Lahontan Valley own the rights to use water in the reservoir as part of the Newlands Reclamation Project.
Barbee reported at the County Commission meeting last week that the current measurements from the recent SNOTEL flight indicate there are 715,000 acre-feet of water still up on the mountain, enough to fill Lahontan twice. Lahontan was built to hold 295,000 acre-feet of water but with flashboards installed, the dam can hold 312,000 acre-feet of water.
"Everyone's goal is to finish the season with water on the boards as it always has been," he said. "I do have concerns, depending on how full the lake is filled up, if we have a rain event and get a big push of water, that may be a challenge. But I do feel like we're in a better place than we were on March 6 when we opened the weir and started planning to put this in place."
Barbee explained that in the future, at any given moment the outflow of the dam can now match the inflow and prevent negative impacts on the farmers and the residents who live on the river. "We are in a situation where we have the best potential controls that we can have as other flood or weather events happen moving into the future," he said.
Commissioner Bus Scharmann added his opinion on the record saying, "Our main role as commissioners is safety in the county. We approved those weirs. Our main responsibility is safety, in other words, we want to keep water out of homes. I hope that TCID sees that. When you have over two times the amount of water up in the mountains it's very concerning to me, they aren't going to use these weirs as they should be. I hope they come to their senses and realize these need to be used in order for safety and to keep water out of homes."
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