LOVELOCK, Nevada – The Pershing County Water Conservation District (PCWCD) has assumed sole ownership of Rye Patch Dam and Reservoir, and therefore majority control of the Humboldt Project, having acquired property and water rights from the United States Bureau of Reclamation (BOR).
The transfer process, which began in 2002, was finalized with the recording of a quitclaim deed in Pershing County on January 15th, 2016. The deed conveyed 10,688.50 acres outright in addition to 1,519.13 acres of easement lands, 49,667.44 acre-feet of direct water diversion rights from the Humboldt River, and 115,152.32 acre-feet of water storage rights for Rye Patch Reservoir.
The Humboldt Project dates back to the early 1930s, when PCWCD began negotiations with BOR for construction as authorized under the National Industrial Recovery Act. The Public Works Administration allocated $2 million for the creation of the project, which led to the construction of Rye Patch Reservoir. The first deliveries of stored water were made in the Spring of 1941.
To help fund the project in the early part of the last century, PCWCD purchased private land and water rights from nearby ranches in the Battle Mountain and Valmy areas. PCWCD then assigned its rights under the purchase agreements to BOR, both to facilitate the transfer of water rights to storage at Rye Patch for use on district lands and as collateral for money the government had advanced PCWCD for those purchases. The lands acquired for the Humboldt Project were classified as either “withdrawn lands,” which were withdrawn from the public domain, or “acquired lands,” which were private ranch lands and associated water rights that PCWCD purchased then assigned to BOR.
PCWCD entered into a repayment contract with BOR, which called for full reimbursement of all Humboldt Project construction and acquisition costs over a 40-year period. Then, after several attempts by Nevada’s Congressional delegation to draft legislation that would transfer title of the Humboldt Project to PCWCD, the Humboldt Project Conveyance Act (Title VIII, Section 803 of Public Law 107-282) was finally passed in 2002. The Secretary of the Interior, who oversees BOR, was directed to convey to PCWCD, the state of Nevada, Pershing County, and Lander County all title and interest to the lands and features of the Humboldt Project.
Among the last steps taken was the transfer, by way of U.S. land patent, of 3,761.28 acres of withdrawn lands in August of 2015.
PCWCD will celebrate the title transfer in a ceremony at the Lovelock Community Center on Friday, March 11th, 2016. Federal, state and local dignitaries are expected to attend.
