April 8, 2020

The Nevada Irrigation District (NID) Board of Directors supported a declaration for surplus water during an April 8 teleconference with President Ricki Heck, Vice President Chris Bierwagen, and Directors Scott Miller, Nick Wilcox and Laura Peters all present.

Each year, prior to the start of irrigation season that begins in mid-April, Directors review forecasted water supply conditions to consider a surplus water declaration for the upcoming summer months.

The Board reviewed current water supply conditions in support of a surplus water declaration for 2020. The declaration is based on the following:

• District reservoir storage as of March 31 is 212,289 acre feet, which is 95 percent of average for this time of year
• The forecasted April-July runoff from the Department of Water Resources for the Yuba River basin currently sits at 60 percent of average, which correlates to about 78,700 acre-feet in expected NID watershed runoff
• In total, the forecasted available water supply is 291,000 acre-feet, well above the 235,700 acre-feet threshold for normal operations.

Read more about the surplus water declaration here.

Directors also agreed to hold their April 22 Board meeting via video conference. The video conference format allows the Board to meet, respect social distancing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, while also allowing the public to participate and provide public comment. Today’s meeting will also be posted on YouTube by end of day tomorrow.

Full details and instructions for how to access each meeting will be provided on the front page of agendas, located on NID’s website. Click on an agenda for specific details about that meeting.

A note about COVID-19: we want to reassure you that treated tap water is safe to drink. We are entrusted with providing our customers with safe, clean and reliable water. Safeguarding our community during this unprecedented period during the COVID-19 pandemic is no different. We continue with a heightened state of operational readiness and are delivering 100 percent of our services to our community.