An unprecedented amount of precipitation has dropped in Mineral County over the last few weeks, so some may be wondering what this means for the water levels at Walker Lake. Walker Lake Working Group Treasurer Marlene Bunch said that as Schurz released water to flow into the lake on January 16th/Martin Luther King, Jr. Day- the first time in a while that they’ve done so.
“The upstream reservoirs have been filling up, but they’ve been steadily releasing it all,” Bunch said. The Bunches regularly watch the water flow on the USGS website to see where they are letting out the water.
“We just noticed a couple of inches coming from the rain and snowpack; the majority comes from the upstream rivers,” she adds about how the recent rain and snowfall could’ve impacted Walker Lake.
According to the Walker Basin Hydro Mapper, it looks like 197 cubic feet of water per second is streaming from Weber Reservoir- which is above normal for this day-of-year (data taken from January 17)- and 7.93 cubic feet of water per second is flowing from Schurz- setting an all-time high for this day-of-year. Walker Lake is currently 41 percent full.
Back in summer of 2022, a court ruling awarded Walker Basin Conservancy the rights to protect an additional 1300 acre-feet of water instream, significantly helping support the environment around it. Agricultural diversions had caused an increase of salinity in the lake, killing off the fish and bird habitats.
The Walker Lake Working Group mimicked that sentiment, stating that that Walker Basin’s water was appropriated at 130 percent to agricultural uses, thus losing more than half of its surface area and 180 vertical feet of water over the last century. “This lack of water caused higher concentrations of salts that made this 13-mile long lake intolerable to native fish,” its website states. It has also displaced thousands of migratory birds who use Walker Lake along the Pacific Flyway to refuel.
“To kill a beauty such as Walker Lake is a shame,” Bunch says.
Therefore, the Walker Basin Conservancy and other nonprofit groups such as the Walker Lake Working Group have been fighting to restore the area and protect the recreational, environmental, and agricultural resources that rely on the basin.
“The Walker Basin Conservatory has been purchasing land to transfer to us [Walker Lake],” Marlene Bunch says. She adds that through the efforts of former Nevada senator Harry Reid, the Walker Lake community was able to procure money to purchase the land around the lake’s instreams and go towards restoring water rights.
“However, it is a long process to get to where we need to be,” she says.
The battle for water rights in this area began more than 120 years ago associated with the “Rickey Decree” that has worked its way up to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals over the years, with a public trust doctrine stating that “government has a responsibility to preserve and protect natural resources for the public.” Bunch says that the decree was established all for agriculture with no thought to the environment, and that they need the authority to create sustainable diversions.
“We’ve received extra blessings of this recent snow and water so we can see a bit of life come back as we deal with the legal stuff, but it takes a lot of time, money, and patience,” Bunch adds.
For more information about the Walker Lake Working Group, visit https://walkerlake.org/. To track the water flows going into Walker Lake, visit https://webapps.usgs.gov/walkerbasinhydromapper.
