Federal officials are making fish-friendly modifications to a northern Nevada dam that for more than a century has blocked off native spawning grounds for a threatened trout species that once migrated 120 miles upstream from a high-desert lake to the alpine waters of Lake Tahoe.
Officials for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe broke ground Tuesday for a $23.5 million fish-passage project to help Lahontan cutthroat trout navigate the Truckee River's Derby Dam about 20 miles east of Reno.
As soon as next fall, fish screens in a bypass canal longer than a football field will allow the trout – once believed to have gone extinct – to get past the dam for the first time since it was built in 1905.
Commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt, the dam was part of the first major irrigation system established in the West to "help make the desert bloom," diverting water to farmers and ranchers in a region where only about 5 inches of rain falls annually.
"This day is 100 years in the making," said Jody Holzworth, deputy regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "The fish screen will allow this iconic species to travel beyond Derby Dam, from Pyramid Lake to their spawning grounds, for the first time in more than a century."
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