SPARKS — The largest public works project in northern Nevada has a change in its federal chain of command. From his helicopter high above northern Nevada, Col. William Leady of the Army Corp of Engineers examined the Truckee River Flood Project Wednesday. Leady has taken over the post as the Corp’s 30th district engineer for the Sacramento District Army Corps of Engineers.

“I’ve been hearing from staff about this project from the day I took command because it’s one of our top priorities,” Leady told a room full of flood project committee members, engineers and others Wednesday in south Reno, following his aerial inspection of the project.

Leady took command on July 27 and is the project’s new liaison to the federal government, a partner that is expected to provide about $1 billion toward the $1.6 billion flood project.

“As the leader of the district, he is the advisor to the Corps as to how we move forward with the project,” said DeDe Cordell, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the northern Nevada area. “The biggest thing now is developing a partnership. He wants to really understand the issues so he can make recommendations.”

As flood project leaders in the Truckee Meadows push forward with their plan to protect the region from catastrophic flooding and restore the Truckee River’s habitat, they can expect a new link to one of their biggest partners every three years.

According to Cordell, the leader of the northern Nevada and California Army Corps of Engineers post is reassigned every three years.

The flood project officially has been in existence since 2005, according to Jay Aldean, the flood project’s deputy director. However, he added that the conversations with the Corps go back much farther, starting in the mid-1980s.

The Corps of Engineers and Congress must sign off on the flood project plan and all of its numerous and intricate components before the needed $1 billion in federal funding can become available. In addition, the flood project is not the only such endeavor under the eye of the Sacramento area’s Corps headquarters. Other communities in Sacramento and Marysville, Calif. are pursuing projects to protect their own areas from flooding.


Next steps for the flood project


With an ambitious lineup of flood control and river restoration projects on its to-do list, the Truckee River Flood Project’s next milestone will be the formation of a joint powers agreement (JPA), making the project its own entity and allowing it to levee fees to pay for project costs.

According to a recent presentation before the Washoe County Board of Commissioners by flood project director Naomi Duerr, the final text of the agreement should be ready by the end of August or the beginning of September. After a public vetting process, the agreement will come before the Flood Project Coordinating Committee for its approval in October. Local governments will then be asked to add their seal of approval to the agreement before the Truckee River Flood Management Authority would be officially formed.

At that point, officials say they will explore a fee to raise the remaining $300 million that the project needs for completion.

Following the formation of the JPA, project managers say they will move forward with the North Truckee Drain project, a culvert that is meant to deter water from the Sparks industrial area.

“This is just the first link in a big chain,” said North Truckee drain project engineer Noel Laughlin.

The drain project is expected to reduce flooding in the Sparks industrial area by almost a foot.

“We are sending the project out to bid next spring and construction would start early summer or late fall (2011),” Laughlin said.

However, he added that businesses in the flood-prone Sparks area would not be protected or impacted by any major portions of the flood project this year.

“None yet for this year,” Laughlin responded when asked what protection businesses can expect this year.