Integrated Water Quality Monitoring on the Truckee River

Project Sponsor: Desert Research Institute
Grant amount: $318,012
Organization Match: $80,000 (cash - NDEP); $55,840 (in-kind - Storm Water Coordinating Committee); $19222 (in-kind - Truckee River Flood Management Authority)
Funding date: March 2011
Grant #87

The overall project entails the development and implementation of an integrated water quality monitoring program for the Truckee River from Tahoe City to Marble Bluff dam just upstream of Pyramid Lake. This is a one-time, two year, sto-gap funding request to support the most critical Truckee River water quality monitoring needs recently impacted by State and local budget cuts. These cuts have severely hampered the monitoring program previously performed collectively by DRI and REno and Sparks by staff from the Truckee Meadows Wastewater Reclamation Facility.

TMWA Benefit:
It will ensure that long established beneficial uses (including municipal water supply) of the river will not be compromised. This can only be ensured with continued monitoring and testing.

It will provide much needed data concerning the positive environmental impacts of river restoration projects currently under construction. This includes TMWA's Glendale Water Supply Improvement Project (which has a streambed restoration component) and the recently completed Pioneer Ditch Diversion Relocation Project, a project supported by TMWA TRF funds.