At their September 25th meeting, Nevada Irrigation District (NID) Directors will vote on a resolution that, if approved, will focus on increasing capacity in Rollins Reservoir and remove the Centennial Reservoir project from consideration.
NID General Manager Jennifer Hanson states, “On Wednesday Sept. 25, the Board of Directors will consider the storage alternatives evaluated in the Plan for Water. This decision will be based on nearly three years of extensive work which has identified, in addition to storage alternatives, strategic scenarios that seek to determine how to meet NID’s future water supply needs of our community for the next 50 years.”
The process NID dubbed Plan for Water (PFW) resulted in a technical memorandum published in late August.
Data guiding decision-making
The 500+ page report included in the supporting agenda documents presents the hydrological, demand and operations models developed during the PFW process. The memo evaluates a range of alternative operating strategies and their ability to meet the future needs of NID customers. The conclusion reads, in part, “despite the larger storage capacity increase for the Centennial Reservoir (96,000 AF) alternative versus the Rollins Reservoir (50,000 AF) alternative, the lower elevation location of Centennial Reservoir limits its potential benefit to the NID water delivery system.”
Next Wednesday, the five Directors will be presented with options to increase water storage, including raising Rollins either by 10 or 50 ft. Centennial is not included in the recommendations, except to be removed from consideration:
Remove from further consideration Centennial Reservoir. Centennial Reservoir has reduced benefits due to its location and has the highest financial and environmental impacts. The cost of the project would be a significant burden on ratepayers and it would be difficult to obtain financing for the project. The bond underwriting process would not allow for speculative out-of-district water sales to be utilized to meet revenue requirements for the purpose of paying ongoing debt service. As such, the revenue required for debt service payments would be required to be incorporated into water rates. Additionally, there is great uncertainty regarding the state-filed water right availability due to ongoing regulatory proceedings. Due to the District’s own regulatory proceedings with the State Board regarding the application for the state file water right, the District has only two options: proceed with the project or withdraw the pending application. Staff is recommending that the existing application for assignment of state-filed water right 5634 be withdrawn.
Resolution No. 2024-36 instructs NID’s General Manager to withdraw the application and discontinue further feasibility, environmental or other analyses in pursuit of the proposed Centennial Reservoir Project.
Other items on the agenda include an update on PG&E’s Spaulding infrastructure failures/repairs, a workshop on current capital improvement projects and a discussion on the proposed 2025 operating budget.
The Board meeting starts on September 25th at 9:00 am at NID Headquarters and is open to the public. The meeting can be viewed live via Zoom and on YouTube shortly after the meeting concludes.