March 26, 2020

To protect customers and District employees while ensuring water deliveries are maintained, the Nevada Irrigation District (NID) Board of Directors declared a state of emergency during a special meeting by teleconference on Thursday.

The NID Declaration accompanies state and federal declarations of emergency to make additional resources available, formalize emergency actions already underway across multiple state agencies and departments, and help prepare for broader spread of COVID-19.

The NID Declaration immediately loosens restrictions around ways the District does business for the duration of the COVID-19 emergency, including to:

• Suspend customer water disconnections
• Suspend all delinquent fees
• Implement the recommendations and directives of federal, state and local health officials
• Enter into contracts with neighboring agencies establishing for mutual aid

The Declaration notes the District will “take such further reasonable and necessary actions to locally respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and to avoid and/or mitigate interruption of essential hydroelectric power generation and public water services to the District’s customers.”

On March 20, California Governor Gavin Newsom adopted Executive Order N-33-20 that, among other things, “order[ed] all individuals in the State of California to stay home or at their place of residence except as needed to maintain continuity of operations of the federal critical infrastructure sectors.”

NID is exempt from the limitations imposed by Executive Order N-33-20 because the District must maintain continuity of operations of federal critical infrastructure sectors, including water delivery and dams.

The NID Declaration addresses the potential conditions of a widespread transmission of COVID-19 affecting the District’s rate of employee absenteeism and continuity of operations.

Read the Declaration, click here.