First deal of its kind gives tribe say over water off reservation

Scott Sonner

Tuesday, Nov. 30, 1999 | 9:27 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - Tribal leaders are entering the first agreement of its kind with the U.S. government, assuming significant control of water resources off their reservation in an effort to save endangered fish.

It's the first time the government has voluntarily turned over the scheduling of off-reservation water releases to a tribe, said Betsy Rieke, area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation and a former assistant U.S. Interior secretary.

"It is a big deal," said Norm Harry, chairman of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe based in Nixon, Nev. "It will enable us to meet the needs of the 21st century while restoring this historic, but fragile environment."

Harry joined representatives of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of Indian Affairs on Monday to sign the agreement along the banks of the Truckee River.

The agreement gives the tribe the lead role in scheduling releases of water from the Stampede and Prosser Creek reservoirs, both part of the Truckee River system, to benefit the endangered cui ui (pronounced "kee-wee") and threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout.

The tribe has fished the high desert lake about 30 miles northeast of Reno for thousands of years.

Located within the reservation, the lake is one of the last remnants of the ancient inland sea, Lake Lahontan, that once covered most of the Great Basin from Nevada to Oregon, Idaho and Utah.

Pyramid Lake is part of the Truckee River, which drops nearly 3,000 feet in altitude as it runs about 100 miles from alpine Lake Tahoe to the reservation.

"This was Indian water years ago," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who helped broker the deal.

That was before the federal government assumed control in the early 1900s for the Newlands irrigation project, which turned the high desert into fertile farmland.

The Truckee River is central to "all that happens" in Reno, Sparks and neighboring communities, Reid said.

"We've come to realize this only in recent years. The Pyramid Lake tribe has known this forever," he said.

Elizabeth Stevens, a top regional Fish and Wildlife Service manager and the daughter of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said the deal is a "step forward" in the ecological recovery of the fish.

Representatives of the tribe and federal agencies will share management decisions as part of an interagency management team, but the tribe will have final say. In the past, the Fish and Wildlife Service had the final call, said Bob Williams, the agency's field director for Nevada.