Secretary of the Interior Rogers C. B. Korton announced today that he has notified the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District in Nevada that its contract for management of the irrigation works of the Newlands Reclamation Project will be terminated October 31, 1974.
The Secretary said that the immediate reason for the action is the repeated violations by the District of the Department's operating criteria and procedures for the Project.
The operating criteria were adopted by the Secretary following a law suit brought by the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe in the United States District court in Washington, D. C., in which an order was .entered limiting the amount of water available to the District and requiring the Secretary to terminate the District's management of the project if there were substantial violations of the criteria.
These operating criteria are designed to assure that as much water as possible from the Truckee River flows to Pyramid Lake, a unique desert lake located 30 miles northeast of Reno, Nevada.
The lake is fed solely by the Truckee River. It is also the major resource of the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation which was reserved by the Paiute Indians in 1859 and has been their home ever since.
The lake contains an important fishery, including the Lahontan brook trout and cui-ui lakesucker, both of which are on the Secretary of the Interior's list of endangered species.
During the next 13 months the Secretary said, the Department will expect scrupulous compliance by the District with the operating criteria, including the water used ceiling of 288,000 acre feet. Any water diverted, used or stored in violation of the criteria will be deducted from water allowed to the district in subsequent years, after the United States assumes control of Derby Dam and other project facilities, Secretary Morton said.
