Water Agencies Celebrate Storage Of Truckee Water In Federal Reservoirs

There will be more water available to supply the Truckee River this summer.

Mark Foree is the general manager of the Truckee Meadows Water Authority. He says the ability to store Truckee River water in Boca, Prosser, and Stampede reservoirs increases the agency's reserves by 50 percent.

"When water is not coming out of Lake Tahoe into the Truckee River, that is when we, typically in the summertime, we typically need to draw on our drought reserves, whether it be in Donner Lake, Independence Lake or reserves that we're building in these federal reservoirs," says Foree.

Foree says the agency's volume of accessible water will increase from 27,000 acre feet of water to 40,000 acre feet.

Some of the water will be released during the summer to help the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout and Cui-ui fish populations.

Farmers will also be able to store water and have it released throughout the summer.

An agreement signed in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Interior, the states of Nevada and California, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and the Truckee Meadows Water Authority cleared its final legal challenge from northern Nevada farmers in November.