WINNEMUCCA - Humboldt River Basin Water Authority (HRBWA) representatives from five counties met in Winnemucca recently and heard a presentation on water banking as a possible answer to the "feast or famine" water situation in northern Nevada.
This was the second time the water authority members have heard from Stillwater Resources representative Walraven Ketallapper and Sam Routson of Winnemucca Farms on the concept of water banking.
The water authority meets every quarter and at their last quarterly meeting, the presentation dealt with successful water banking projects in other states.
HRBWA Chairman Bennie Hodges said since the concept was working in other areas it was certainly worth looking into for the Humboldt River Basin and the HRBWA members gave their conceptual support to Winnemucca Farms' continued exploration of water banking concepts. That continued exploration then proceeded to studies of the Humboldt River Basin and to other Nevada areas which are successfully using the water banking concepts.
Winnemucca Farms is paying for the studies, and has not asked for any monetary support from the water authority, member counties, or other water districts. However, should the ideas being explored prove feasible at some future point, the entities represented by HRBWA members would need to be willing to explore a number of cooperative possibilities with Winnemucca Farms.
Every drop of water that flows in the Humboldt River already adjudicated, meaning water rights holders already have rights that actually exceed the average flow of water in the river. However, there are years when the Humboldt River overflows its banks and carries enough water to supply the needs of every water right holder along the entire system with the overflow continuing on down the river. In dry years, water right holders don't get their full allocation.
Water banking would seek to redirect some of that overflow into a natural underground aquifer where it could be stored for future needs. The possibility even exists that early-season runoff could be banked for use later in the season.
Rye Patch Reservoir was created for just that purpose. But there are (rare) years when even Rye Patch Reservoir can't hold all the water that comes down the river and the floodgates have to be opened to protect the dam. In addition, a significant amount of the reservoir-stored water is lost to evaporation, which would not happen if water is stored in an underground aquifer.
Ketallapper's presentation outlined possibilities for water banking on the Humboldt River. Winnemucca Farms owns 20,000 acres of land and 36,000 acre-feet of groundwater rights in basin 69, an underground aquifer near the Humboldt River in the area just north of Winnemucca.
Further study will seek to determine the feasibility of redirecting overflow water into basin 69 where it could be stored until needed, at which time some of the 60 wells that Winnemucca Farms has in the area could be pumped to deliver the water back into the river.
The benefit of that storage to downstream users is obvious. But Ketallapper showed a way it could also be used to benefit users upstream from the storage basin through a "water exchange." If an upstream user such as Elko County or Lander County needed water in a dry year or a dry portion of the season, they could keep more of what would normally flow down the Humboldt River. Then, to fulfill Pershing County Water District's water rights in Rye Patch, basin 69 storage could be put into the river to flow downstream.
Ketallapper and Routson both acknowledged that the concepts are in their infancy and much more study and engineering work will have to be done before it will be possible to say whether their water banking ideas will work, and whether the costs involved will make project development feasible.
HRBWA member Craig Spratling from Elko asked Routson and Ketallapper exactly what it is that Winnemucca Farms is getting out of this deal and why they were willing to spend the kind of money it will obviously take to do the studies required.
Routson put it simply, saying they hope to gain some water, and which they could take payment for any possible future project in the form of water.
The next investigative step will require assembling a consulting team, with expertise in needed areas such as legal, ground water monitoring, and engineering, said Ketallapper.
Humboldt County HRBWA representative and Humboldt County Commissioner Garley Amos made the motion to "give them our blessing" in continuing the water banking study. Amos said the water banking concept needed much more study, and the time to discuss more solid issues was still in the future.
"You're not going to be able to store every year, but there have been high water years where the amount of water that went by was a crying shame," he said.[[In-content Ad]]
