A gray sky and light rain were little consolation to farmers after Monday's meeting of the Pershing County Water Conservation District Board of Directors. Although water in the Rye Patch Reservoir has risen slightly, it remains far below normal so the board voted to again postpone the irrigation season.
"We have no choice but to wait another month for irrigation," PCWCD President Mike Gottschalk said.
A month ago, the reservoir held 9100 acre-feet of water and now stands at 9500 acre-feet, according to PCWCD Manager Bennie Hodges. He estimated a storage level of at least 26,000 acre-feet is needed to deliver ΒΌ acre-foot of water to irrigators. In a good water year, farmers receive up to three acre-feet of water in multiple rounds of irrigation to produce up to four annual alfalfa crop harvests or "cuttings."
A declining snow pack means hope is fading for a substantial spring run-off to replenish the reservoir.
This year, some farmers will be lucky to get one harvest of older alfalfa if it survives the drought rated "exceptional" by the United States Drought Monitor. The website's map of Nevada shows most of Pershing and Churchill Counties obscured by a brown bulls-eye marking the worst area of the drought.
"It's going downhill pretty much every day," said Nevada Nile Ranch manager Mike Philips."Rain doesn't do a whole lot for us now. You do the best you can with what you have and go from there."
At the request of Philips, board members discussed options to increase water flowing through the Union Canal, part of the water delivery system that serves the Lower Valley. Approved system upgrades resulted in an increase from $28 per crop acre to $34.44 per acre for water allotments. Farmers pay the water district assessment whether they receive any irrigation water or not. In a drought, over-appropriation of ground water presents a major issue.
"Now we just need to do a rain dance," Upper Valley producer Alan List told other concerned farmers
"I hope we live long enough to see water come through that system," board member Dan Knight said.
While there's no water running through irrigation canals, the second phase of the WaterSmart project is underway, Hodges told the board. When completed, a new hydro-electric turbine below Rye Patch Dam will be ready to generate electrical power and will eventually save money for farmers - that is, when adequate water in the reservoir is available to drive the turbine and generator.
"The original plan was to shut down and wait until after the irrigation season and come back in the fall," Hodges said. "Because we aren't running any water we went ahead with the second phase."
With or without water, the power project will produce a substantial rebate for the irrigation district.
"When we get that done, we're going to get a rebate of $650,000 from NV Energy," Hodges said. "I'm being told we don't have to try it, we don't have to show that it works to get the money from them."
The state water engineer will be asked to consider a PCWCD plan for equitable water appropriation between surface and ground water users in the Humboldt River Basin. A hydrological study of the basin by the USGS shows underground water pumping upstream has reduced surface water flowing downstream to farmers who rely on it for flood irrigation - specifically those in the Lovelock Valley.
Surface versus ground water rights is a major issue especially with no end in sight to the current drought. Hodges emphasized, however, that rumors of legal action by the irrigation district against other Humboldt River Basin water users are false and create bad public relations for the PCWCD.
"There's a rumor upstream that the Pershing County Water Conservation District is planning to sue every water user on the Humboldt River," Hodges told the board and concerned farmers. "There's people up in arms over that. I don't know where that rumor is coming from but it doesn't help us."
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