Lower Truckee River Water Quality Monitoring

The PLPT conducts an extensive water quality and biological monitoring program on the lower Truckee River within the exterior boundaries of the Reservation. The data collected is used to assess water quality conditions, determine whether water quality standards are being achieved, evaluate watershed management strategies and understand the processes that control water quality conditions.

Monthly water quality monitoring is conducted along the lower Truckee River at 5 sites including Pierson Dam (Reservation boundary), Wadsworth Bridge, Dead Ox, Nixon Bridge and Marble Bluff Dam (before Pyramid Lake). Monthly monitoring is also conducted at 6 nonpoint source sites that are near the lower Truckee River including CEMEX's Paiute Pit gravel extraction facility, Tile Drain Treatment Wetland (Tile Drain, Tile Drain 1, Tile Drain 2) and Numana Treatment Wetland (inflow and outflow). All monitoring activities follow protocols approved by the US EPA found in the Tribe's Quality Assurance Project Plan for Water Quality Monitoring of Surface Waters.

Once water quality samples collected at each site, they are filtered, preserved and are analyzed at the Tribe's Water Quality Laboratory, located in Sutcliffe, NV. Analysis includes dissolved reactive phosphorus, total phosphorus, Nitrate + Nitrite, total Kjeldahl nitrogen and ammonia as nitrogen. 

Field measurements are collected at each site using a YSI EXO-1 sonde and are recorded for temperature, pH, total dissolved solids, salinity, specific conductivity, turbidity and dissolved oxygen.