Lake Lahontan on the rise, creeping westward

Truckee-Carson Irrigation District officials are monitoring the level of Lahontan Reservoir daily, knowing as spring approaches there's still plenty of snow to melt in the Eastern Sierra and runoff to come down the Carson River.

The reservoir held about 265,000 acre-feet of water on Tuesday. Irrigation district officials have placed flashboards on the dam to allow the reservoir's capacity to reach 311,000 acre-feet.

TCID Project Manager Dave Overvold said the March 1 forecast projects 245,000 acre-feet of runoff to flow down the Carson River from April to July.

That's 138 percent of average based on 30 years of statistics, and doesn't include the past weekend's storms, which added to the Sierra snowpack.

How quick it melts and flows into the reservoir depends on the weather.

"We're watching it real closely," he said. "We keep track of this every day."

Overvold said even with a significant snowpack in the Carson River drainage, there's no immediate worry about flooding below the reservoir.

The ideal situation, weather permitting, is to balance what flows into the reservoir with what the district will start releasing from the dam when the irrigation season for Fallon farmers begins in early April.

"We're looking at what it takes to keep the reservoir level no higher than the top of the flashboards," he said.

District officials have not ruled out the possible need for precautionary releases to make room in the reservoir for the spring runoff. Overvold also said it remains to be seen how the month of March fares as far as adding anything to the snowpack.

"If it (more snow) doesn't materialize, I think we'll be OK."

If the reservoir fills to capacity, some beaches, mostly on the Silver Springs side in Lyon County, will likely be under water for a while.

While TCID runs the reservoir operations under contract with the Bureau of Reclamation, Nevada State Parks manages the Lahontan Recreation Area along the shoreline around the reservoir.

City of Fallon emergency management official Steve Endacott said various officials have met monthly for the past three months to talk about Carson River runoff, the water level at Lahontan Reservoir and any potential flooding scenarios. The multi-agency group will convene again today.

Fallon farmers are all but guaranteed a full allocation of irrigation water this year.

The Newlands Project, one of the first federal irrigation projects authorized under the 1902 Reclamation Act, impounds all of the Carson River at Lahontan River and uses Truckee River water only when the Carson River comes up short to serve the water rights of Fallon farmers.