The Lahontan Basin Area Office (LBAO) has jurisdiction over
a large area of the Great Basin including most of the northern
two thirds of Nevada with a small amount of overlap into
California and Oregon. Much of this expanse was covered
by ancient Lake Lahontan that existed during the last ice
age, and whose surface area peaked nearly 13,000 years
ago at 8500 square miles. Map
The main area of LBAO activities is in the Carson, Truckee,
and Humboldt river basins, where there are four operating
Reclamation projects:
The history of Reclamation in the Lahontan Basin
dates back to the early 1900s. The Newlands Project
(originally Truckee-Carson Project) was one of
the original five projects authorized by the passage
of the 1902 Reclamation Act. The development
of the four Reclamation projects administered by
LBAO has been accompanied by controversy concerning
endangered species, Native American tribes and
conversion of agricultural water rights to municipal/industrial
uses. The project areas are generally in a high
desert environment with the most reliable water
source being Sierra Nevada snowfall along the California/Nevada
border.
Major Issues
The major issues confronting the Lahontan Basin
Area Office are primarily related to water rights
on the Truckee River and the operation of the Newlands
Project. The water right issues are complicated
by the endangered cui-ui and the threatened Lahontan
cutthroat trout in Pyramid Lake, the trust responsibility
of the Secretary of the Interior to both the Pyramid
Lake Paiute Tribe and the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone
Tribe, and our obligation to provide water for
Newlands Project irrigators and the Lahontan Valley
wetlands.
