Years of planning have begun funneling into months of action for the Truckee River Flood Project.

County officials broke ground on the Lockwood Restoration Project on Monday and announced a future Washoe County regional park would be in the works as well.

The Lockwood undertaking, one of 11 restoration projects for the Truckee River Flood Project, involves the construction of new meanders and riffles, the creation of new wetlands and revegetating 28 acres of land for flood mitigation, habitat restoration and the removal of invasive weeds, and recreation.

Naomi Duerr, director of the Truckee River Flood Project, said the Lockwood project represents “momentum” after 10 years of planning.

“We just kicked off construction in the last 30 days and we have another one coming in about two months,” she said. “This one is going to go about a year (in construction), with most of the work done in the next six months. After that, the ground will be revegetated.”

The restoration part is an effort to reverse the effects of a 1960s flood control project that inflicted damage to the river when a channel was straightened and widened from 75 feet to 200 feet in some areas.

Bob Larkin, Washoe County commissioner and chair of the Flood Project Coordinating Committee, said the area, which originally was the Lockwood Mobile Home Park, will be restored after those damages as well as the destruction caused by the 1997 New Year’s Eve flood that “devastated” the land and caused many trailer home residents to relocate.

The county purchased the land shortly after the 1997 flood through a $1.6 million buyout with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“The community had been flooded a million times,” Larkin said. “We looked at restoring the trailer park but realized we had a bigger vision. We had to buy the park and move the folks to higher ground.”

The project, being built by Q&D Construction, will involve major “earth moving” through physical restructuring of the river, said Patti Bakker, Truckee River project manager for the Nature Conservancy, a partner in the restoration. River banks will have to be contoured and wetlands will be excavated. Riffles, or rock structures in the river, will help protect the water from eroding the banks that would cause damage to property owners near Rainbow Bay.

Bakker said the restoration will transform the land that has long been considered an “eyesore” into an “amenity” for the public.

Duerr said that next week a new meander, that will bypass some of the channels water through recurving, will be completed.

The other part of the project is the creation of a new park that will provide public recreation, including a multi-use trailhead with picnic tables, restrooms, river fishing access and kayaking and a small inflatable launch facility. The park is expected to open by summer 2009.

The total project budget is $5,819,419, which is derived from various sources, including Washoe County’s Question 1 funds, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, FEMA and Washoe County and the Truckee River Flood Project, which receives its funds from a one-eighth cent sales tax.

Reno City Councilman Dan Gustin praised the efforts of all the flood project partners, including the cities of Reno and Sparks, Washoe County, Storey County, the Nevada Department of Wildlife, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and others, for their collaboration.

“We stand together for not only safety, but for the future of our great community,” Gustin said.

Sparks Councilman Ron Smith offered closing remarks at the groundbreaking and acknowledged the cooperative efforts of all the agencies involved.

After the groundbreaking, Smith noted that the “magnitude” of the project struck him most when he was first elected to the Sparks City Council in 2006 and began learning about the county’s flood work.

“Everybody helped me quite a bit,” Smith said. “Of course, (the flood project’s) taking on a life of its own, it’s a huge project and it’s important to the citizens of Sparks. If we flood again in Sparks, it could cost us another billion dollars again just to get out of it.”

Lockwood is the second of 40 projects within the Truckee River Flood Management Plan. Groundbreaking took place last month on the $6 million, 128-acre 102 Ranch project about 14 miles east of Sparks.

In about two months, construction of a levee and flood wall near the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony for a retail center will begin.