North Valleys' water thirst

Projects to import water into Reno's North Valleys are moving forward while a handful of residential developers eagerly wait to take advantage of them.

The ventures - one by Vidler Water Co.

to move 8,000 acre feet of water from Fish Springs ranch, 32 miles north of Reno, and another by Intermountain Pipeline to transport up to 5,000 acre feet of water from primarily Dry Valley and Warm Springs - would more than meet the estimated 10,734 acre feet needed to continue development of Lemmon Valley and Stead for another decade or two.

The Bureau of Land Management last month held a meeting to discuss the scope of the environmental impact statement that is needed before construction of the projects can begin.

All of the pertinent parties - including Washoe County and the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, the socalled cooperating agencies - were invited to attend.

"It was our second meeting and I was happy to see that the meeting was well attended," said Bill Whitney, open space planner with Washoe County Community Development department.

"Don't want to see someone at the tail end of this saying these are our concerns."

The county's main concerns, said Whitney, are the pipeline needed to transport the water and the impact on both groundwater and surface vegetation.

The BLM will be the one granting right of ways for much of the pipeline and infrastructure, while the county will have to approve special use permits to build it all.

"We felt that it went well," said Dorothy Timian-Palmer, chief financial officer with Vidler in Reno, referring to the recent BLM meeting.

"Everyone is starting to understand that it is a small percentage of the water generated in Honey Lake."

Timian-Palmer said the area, which straddles California, contains 78,000 acrefeet of groundwater, 24,000 of it in Nevada.

The North Valleys water project calls for the importation of 8,000 acre-feet from Vidler's property.

"So we're taking 10 percent from the total basin and 30 percent from the Nevada side," said Timian-Palmer.

"That's a sustainable yield.

That's why we went from 13,000 acre-feet to 8,000.To reduce the impact."

The 13,000 acre-feet was part of the original, ill-fated plan to import water floated a decade ago.

That project never moved beyond the EIS stage before it was killed.

At the time, the project had many critics, not the least of which was the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe, which worried that pumping of groundwater in Honey Lake would affect Pyramid Lake.

Timian-Palmer says Vidler is continuing to work with the tribe and is hopeful its concerns will be mitigated.

Several calls to the tribe were not returned by press time.

But when the current project was resurrected, and presented to the Regional Water Planning Commission a year ago, the tribe was still opposed.

John Albert, a member of the tribe and the commission, was the only member of the RWPC to vote against accepting the report.

Separately, John Jackson, vice chairman and director of water resources for the tribe, said at the time that the tribe would continue to oppose any project to move water from north Washoe County into the North Valleys.

Timian-Palmer says the biggest opposition now comes from Lassen County officials in California, who are worried about the impact across the border.

She said those concerns, like the tribe's, can be resolved.

The Washoe County Commission appears to be in favor of the projects.

At a commission meeting in January, Commissioner Bonnie Weber, who represents the North Valleys, said the project is "desperately needed," while Commissioner Jim Galloway said that the new project should succeed because it is being paid for by the water developers, and not taxpayers.

Next, the BLM will contract with a consultant to do the EIS.

A public draft will be produced then, after a 60-day review and comment period, a final report will be published.

Timian-Palmer thinks the EIS will take about 18 months from start to finish, because some of the data collected on the original EIS is still useful.

Eco:Logic, a Reno consultant hired by the county to look at alternatives for delivering more water to the North Valleys, estimates that the water importation projects could be constructed by mid-2007.

Meanwhile, a handful of developers are building there and are ready to build more.

The Stead Airport, for example, has about 3,000 acres of land it can develop for nonaviation purposes, said Dean Schultz, manager of planning and environmental services at the airport.

It currently has rights to 50 acre-feet of water, enough to develop 100 to 200 acres of land, said Schultz.

(Any developer needs to acquire the necessary water rights, which are then dedicated to a water purveyor such as Truckee Meadows Water Authority before the land can be developed.) "That will take us a few years to use, and we're not in a hurry to develop," beyond that, said Schultz.

Still, Vidler and Intermountain visited the airport to make a presentation on their projects to its board.

Schultz said the airport may buy water rights from the pair when the time is right.

Other commercial developments in the area include the Silver Lake Business Center and Sage Point Business Park, both owned by DP Partners, and the Red Rock Business Center, owned by Panattoni Development Co.

Those commercial developers have all the water rights they need for three to four years of development, according to Jason Quintel, senior development manager with Panattoni.

The water importation projects "are more relevant to homebuilders," said Quintel.

Gregory Peek, vice president with ERGS Inc., agrees.

"The big box market is not healthy." But there is intense demand for homes, said Peek.

And the homebuilders and land developers have been working behind the scenes to help the water importation projects along.

Earlier, a group of them formed the North Valleys Land Owners Association with the goal of "making decision makers aware of the need for water," according to Peek.

Initially, the group, which included ERGS, North Valleys Development Co., Lemmon Valley Land Co., Barker- Coleman and others, collected dues and met monthly.

Now, the members just stay in touch, said Peek.

"We accomplished our mission," he said.

Peek, thorough the development companies, has about 2,500 acres to sell to residential home developers, and has sold tracts to Barker- Coleman and Centex.

Lifestyle Homes is another developer with big plans in the area.

"There is pent up demand for something like 13,000 acre-feet," estimates Peek.

Like Stead airport officials, Peek has already met with Vidler.

"We're in negotiations with them right now," about water rights, said Peek.

"But until there is wet water available this is all theoretical."

But once the water is a reality, said Peek, "we'll be there to buy a couple thousand acre feet.

And so will Lifestyle Homes and Barker-Coleman."