The primary cause of the poor water quality and the drying of “Carson Lake” and Stillwater Marsh since about 1900 is the Newlands Project (named after a senator from Nevada). It was the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s first major irrigation project. To the Bureau of Reclamation, “reclamation” means to transform lands with natural vegetation and animals into farm land. The idea was to provide water for small family farms, that dominant economic myth and driving force of the United States’ westward expansion, on the extensive flat lands around the current location of Fallon and, to a lesser extent, around Hazen and Fernley. The Carson River alone was not enough to serve the 800 square km (200,000 acres) envisioned for the project (Herrera and others, 2000, p. 2). Derby Dam was built on the Truckee River in the canyon east of Reno and the Truckee Canal made its first delivery to the Carson River for the Newlands Project in 1906. Lahontan Dam was built in 1915 on the Carson River to store flows from both the Carson River and the Truckee Canal before release to irrigated lands around Fallon (Herrera and other, 2000, p. 2).
Under contract to Bureau of Reclamation, the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District has managed and continues to manage the distribution of water for the Newlands Project. It operates the dams and canals built by the Bureau and owned by the United States, tracks water deliveries, responds to requests for water, and collects fees from customers.
Due to the dry climate, American-style farming in the Lahontan Valley requires irrigation. The average annual precipitation is 13.5 cm (5.3″) and the annual pan evaporation is 137 cm (54″) (Herrera and others, 2000, p. 28). The Carson and Truckee rivers are supplied predominantly by the Sierra Nevada snowpack and are consequently subject to large annual and decadal variations in flow rates. The period 1975-1992 saw releases from “Lahontan Reservoir” as high as 968 billion liters (785,000 acre-feet, 256 billion gallons) and as low as 146 billion liters (118,000 acre-feet, 38.5 billion gallons) (Maurer and others, 1993, Table 1, p. 18). The seasonal range is also extreme so storage is needed to ensure adequate water supply in late summer and early autumn. Derby Dam is primarily for diversion while “Lahontan Reservoir” has a capacity of 391 billion liters (317,000 acre-feet, 103 billion gallons) (Maurer and others, 1993, p. 15).
Farming in the vicinity of Fallon began as early as 1860 (Fowler, 2002, p. 19). In 1902, approximately 57 square km (14,000 acres) were irrigated (Hoffman and others, 1994, p. 9). In 1915, 160 square km (40,000 acres) were irrigated. The average irrigated area of the Carson Division near Fallon for 1984-1990 was 225 square km (56,000 acres) (Maurer and others, 1994, p. 3) although 275 square km (67,820 acres) had irrigation water rights (Herrera and others, 2000, p. 2). During 2009, the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District delivered water to 237 square km (58,669 acres) (Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, 2010, p. 1-1) on 635 farms (Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, 2010, p. 1-10). 99% of the irrigated area used flood irrigation and about 70% was for alfalfa or pasture (Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, 2010, p. 1-2).
The water supply needed for the Newlands Project exceeds the amount of water delivered to farm headgates due to seepage losses from canals and reservoirs, evaporation before the water gets to the headgates, and precautionary spills from reservoirs during high run-off years. For the period 1975 to 1992, the average annual release from “Lahontan Reservoir” for the Carson Division was 456 billion liters (120.6 billion gallons, 370,000 acre-feet) and the average annual delivery to headgates was 210 billion liters (55.4 billion gallons, 170,000 acre-feet) (Maurer and others, 1994, p. 18). The 2009 water supply for the Newlands Project was 380 billion liters (100 billion gallons, 307,653.28 acre-feet) and the “agricultural water delivered” was 228 billion liters (60.2 billion gallons, 184,739.00 acre-feet) (Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, 2010, p. 2-8). The Carson River accounted for 51% of the supply, the Truckee River for 49%, and the Fallon waste water facility for less than 1% (Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, 2010, p. 2-4).
In 2009, 248 square km (61,356 acres) with water rights (Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, 2010, p. 1-11) received Newlands water. Customers were charged $44.90 per acre (0.4047 hectare) in 2009 in keeping with the historical practice of charging by area rather than by volume. Including account charges, a farmer with 40 acres (16 hectares) of bottom land who received the maximum allowable delivery of 4.32 million liters (3.5 acre-feet, 1.14 million gallons) per acre (10.66 million liters per hectare) would have paid $1,908 for 172.7 million liters (45.63 million gallons) of river water (Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, 2010, p. 1-12). In 2009, the district spent less than $300,000 (Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, 2010, p. 3-16) and collected approximately $3,600,000 (Truckee-Carson Irrigation District, 2010, p. 1-12).