Voices for Truckee Meadows Featured Content

Early Voting

John Hara harafx@sbcglobal.net — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 22:36:06 PST

You can vote early in Washoe County Monday-Saturday. This is the best way to avoid problems on Election Day!

Get all the info on Early Voting here.

We support the following:

John Hara harafx@sbcglobal.net — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 22:32:53 PST

Washoe County Commission

District 1 -- Toni Harsh

District 3 -- Neal Cobb

District 4 -- Gary Schmidt

Reno City Council

At Large -- David Ward

Ward 1 -- Dan Gustin

Ward 3 -- Jessica Sferrazza

Ward 5 -- Wayne Melton

Sparks City Council

Ward 1 -- Julia Ratti

School Board Trustee

District E -- Scott Kelley

State Assembly

District 24 -- David Bobzien

District 27 -- Sheila Leslie

We support these Washoe County Questions:

\WCSD #1	Yes
RTC #2	Yes
WC #3	Yes
SFPD #4	Yes
RTC #5	Yes
WC #6	Yes

Water, Water, Everywhere

John Hara harafx@sbcglobal.net — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:03:13 PST

Good News!

The Water Ballot Initiative has made it onto the November Ballot. Here is the text of the initiative in full:

The People of the County of Washoe do enact as follows:

THE TRUCKEE MEADOWS REGIONAL PLAN SHALL BE AMENDED TO REFLECT AND TO INCLUDE A POLICY OR POLICIES REQUIRING THAT LOCAL GOVERNMENT LAND USE PLANS BE BASED UPON AND IN BALANCE WITH IDENTIFIED AND SUSTAINABLE WATER RESOURCES AVAILABLE WITHIN WASHOE COUNTY.

DESCRIPTION OF EFFECT

The Truckee Meadows Regional Plan recognizes that the region is “resource constrained” and that water is one of the resources that is constrained; however, no current policies or ordinances are in place at either the regional or local level to make this regional plan provision meaningful. Currently identified water resources within Washoe County with good near-term (20-year) potential availability are estimated at 175,000 acre feet annually – or enough to support a population of approximately 550,000 to 600,000. The current identified TMSA (20-year service area designated for urban development) in the regional plan requires an estimated water demand of 236,000 acre feet annually and the long-term (beyond 20-years) service area requires an estimated service demand of 383,000 acre feet annually. The effect of this initiative – if affirmed – would require the amendment of the Truckee Meadows Regional Plan to reflect and contain policies requiring that future land uses and known potentially available water resources within Washoe County be in balance. By law, the regional policies would have to be adopted within local government master plans and, as applicable, ordinances.

Already opposition to the initiative is making a stink about it. They say that it would restrict importation to the area, but this is a blatant misinterpretation of the text. The initiative does NOT take a position on the importation of water. If importation does become an issue then that can be addressed at a later date.
The RGJ carried a story about it on their website, which can be found here

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008807180506

What is Science?

John Hara harafx@sbcglobal.net — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:31:56 PST

By Jerry Purdy

The following is a statement of concerns of some professional engineers who like myself have been involved with groundwater supply issues for many years.

There is an ominous direction being taken by community leaders regarding the availability of water for growth. Because water rights sold at auction a few years ago were deemed "too expensive" by developers, Carson City Senator Mark Amodei alleviated their pain by successfully introducing new legislation to create a board to assist in the collection and distribution of our water resources for future growth.

It is uncertain how the legislation would reduce the price of water rights since prices at the auction were driven up by developers. It may be a clue to the concept of "supply and demand" and that water is scarce around here.

However, this new Board, currently calling itself the "Western Regional Water Commission" officially begins duties in April. The duties of this Board have not been clearly defined but its membership clearly has defined it as a political one. Their vision of sustainable is likely to be short sighted, based on election cycles, and not on a 30-year or even 100-year horizon such as that required in Arizona.

Being a political board, members will come and go and be swayed by individual visions of the best future for our community. Many members will see growth in a positive light and will have an open ear to proposals that profess to have the water needed for new development. Experts, wielding glossy PowerPoint presentations that will conclude the resource is there, will back their proposals. Paper rights granted by the Nevada State Engineer will be included, adding more credibility for the Board to accept the proposal as accurate. Conversely, it is well understood that there are more paper rights issued in each and every basin than can be backed by "wet water."

Like a diamond, once a resource is accepted, it is supposed to last forever. While it may be impossible to predict the viability of a resource forever, science and technology can produce accuracy sufficient to justify taking the "plunge" to accept a resource. The importation from Fish Springs Ranch (AKA Honey Lake Importation Project) is an example. Originally proposed at up to 18,000 acre feet per year, concerns brought up by scientists reduced the project to 8,000 acre feet per year and demanded a formal detailed monitoring plan to verify conditions as the volume of imported water increases.

Other importation projects may now have a sympathetic ear. They new Board will be presented "diamonds" that may turn out to be something less. By the time the problems appear, the members of the Board will be gone, the sellers of the water resource will be gone, the developers will have sold their products and be gone and the residents of Washoe County will be left with a problem that may be incredibly difficult, if not impossible to solve. The problem will be to find more water to fill in the gaps for water that was never there to begin with.

The Western Regional Water Commission needs to have access to independent technical staff they trust. The Board needs to utilize the input of this staff to separate paper water from wet water. The technical staff could be made up of representatives from the academic community, The Desert Research Institute, the County Department of Water Resources, the US Geological Survey and any other relevant organization.

Without an independent analysis, we may be looking back 10 or 20 years from now wondering how we got into this mess.

Based on these concerns and their potentially crushing impacts on water rate payers, we urge citizens to consider signing the water petition now being circulated which would require voter approval of proposed water import and groundwater pumping projects.

Jerry Purdy P.E. retired FHWA engineer Dr. Gary Norris,P.E. UNR

Mythbusters

John Hara harafx@sbcglobal.net — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:15:37 PST

by Bob Fulkerson
The local government "Frequently Asked Questions" document avoids the issue: why do we have a Truckee Meadows Regional Plan that is not based on the sustainable water supply within Washoe County? Here is VTM's List of
Infrequently Asked Questions:

• Why didn't the RPGB (Regional Planning Governing Board) follow Judge Hardesty's direction to have the Regional Plan resource constrained?

• What happens when the region has a population of 600,000 people and no more water?

• Why did the professional staff with the TMRPA (Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Authority) point out in a June 21, 2006 staff report that the build-out population for the proposed amended Truckee Meadows Regional Plan is in the neighborhood of 1,200,000 people, and that there is not enough water to implement the proposed amended Plan?

• Why didn't the RPGB adopt a Truckee Meadows Regional Plan that is based on the sustainable water supply within Washoe County, as described in the adopted Washoe County Regional Water Management Plan?

• Who is going to pay the bill for basic infrastructure, estimated to be about 5 billion dollars in next 10 years? ($400 million for flood control; $2.3 billion-roads; $500 million-schools; $1 billion-water. This doesn’t include police, fire, public safety.)

These are unfunded liabilities; we don’t know where the money is coming from to pay for them.

Where will the money come to pay for much larger costs associated with 600,000 people?

• Again, we have a population of 418,000, and enough water for 600,000. Why can't we have land-use and population planning based upon known, sustainable water resources?

It appears some local elected officials want to hide the issue by redirecting the discussion (to population projections, to water rights, to wells, etc.) with the hope that the public will feel all is well. One could view this effort as an insult to the intelligence of the general public. Hopefully the people of Washoe County will ask the tough questions..

After it is all said and done the key question that begs an answer is if the RPGB feels the area covered by the Truckee Meadows Regional Plan has water for approximately 600,000 people, then why doesn't the Plan have a build-out population of 600,000 plus say 100,000 (assuming the water use rate can be reduced over the next 22 years)?