Living With Fire Podcast

Fire and Water

• Living With Fire • Episode 16

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In this episode, Living with Fire’s Megan Kay digs into the intersection of wildfires and community water systems with Kara Steeland and Stephanie Morris of Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA). Kara is TMWA’s Senior Hydrologist and Watershed Coordinator, and at the time of the interview, Stephanie was Director of Legal and Regulatory Affairs. 

For more full episode details including transcript visit https://www.buzzsprout.com/1819551/episodes/17503579

Stephanie and Kara share that 80% of the water for the Truckee Meadows is stored upstream in California lakes and reservoirs surrounded by federal land managed by the US Forest Service. They explain that wildfires that happen in the watershed increase ash and organic material in the short term, which increases the difficulty and cost of water treatment. In the longer term, debris flows from burn scar areas increase sediment and debris in waterways, impacting water quality treatment and reducing storage capacity.

TMWA talks about how they work with partners to help protect watersheds and mitigate water quality impacts. As Stefanie says, “[We] don’t own the land around the reservoirs. … We can’t just go out there and do work. But what TMWA can do is help bring funds and planning expertise to [the Middle Truckee River Watershed Forest Partnership] to help increase scale and pace of those projects.”

They highlight the partnership’s Ladybug Project, above Stampede reservoir near Ladybug Peak, that aims to mitigate fire impacts by reducing fuels and altering future fire behavior and decreasing debris flows coming off of burned areas.

Stefanie Morris:

The wildfire behavior is different. It's changing. There is no wildfire season anymore. It's kind of any time working with the Forest Service and others about how they manage the forest and how we can partner together to adapt so that we don't have those huge impact on water supply, on reservoirs, and really, a lot of the projects that we're looking at, they're multi benefit.

Megan Kay:

This is the Living With Fire podcast brought to you by the Living With Fire Program at the University of Nevada, Reno extension. Welcome back to the Living With Fire podcast. It's been a while since we've put out any episodes. This one has been on the shelf for a while. I recorded this interview a couple years ago in 2023 so this is an interview with Kara Steeland and Stephanie Morris from the Truckee Meadows Water Authority, all about how wildfire can potentially impact water systems and what that looks like for you know, those of us who live and rely on these water systems. Before we get to the episode, though, I wanted to introduce y'all to Jenni Burr, who's new to our team. Jenni, you wanna introduce yourself real quick?

Jenni Burr:

Hi. I'm Jenni Burr, and I am joining the team as the outreach and content coordinator.

Megan Kay:

Awesome. We're really happy to have Jenni. She's got lot of great ideas and enthusiasm, and I'm just excited to see all the stories on the podcast that are gonna be produced by you. So Jenni's gonna be kind of transitioning into the voice of the Living With Fire podcast. So welcome.

Jenni Burr:

Thank you.

Megan Kay:

You want to give us kind of like a little bit of about who you are.

Jenni Burr:

So I was born and raised in Nevada, and then went away in my college years and moved back to Nevada in 2020, after working for the federal government and the National Park Service. And I'm excited to be back in Nevada. I'm also really excited to join this team, and we're going to be exploring some of the stories about what our expanding team is doing. So we have some folks working on CWPPs or community wildfire protection plans. So we're going to let you know all about what those are. We're also going to try to let you know a little bit more about our partners, and once school starts, we're gonna pop Spencer on to talk a little bit about what's going on with what he's doing in the K-12 curriculum world, and try and interview some of the students with.

Megan Kay:

Great. Yeah. So lots of things to look forward to. Really excited about getting to share more stories. So without further ado, we've been waiting two years for this episode. I'm excited to finally put it out. Enjoy.

Kara Steeland:

So my name is Kara Steeland, and I'm a

Stefanie Morris:

My name is Stephanie Morris. I am the Director of Legal and Regulatory Affairs at the Truckee Meadows Water Authority. Our system is, in a way, starts out very hydrologist with the Truckee Meadows Water Authority. naturally. So we have a number of reservoirs, starting with Lake Tahoe, and then we own the storage capacity and storage rights on Donner Lake and Independence Lake. And then in addition to that, we have the ability to restore water in Pastor Boca and stampede reservoirs. And so this community's water supply is largely stored upstream in California, and most of the land in the middle Truckee River watershed, which is what we're concerned about is, in large part, around the reservoirs owned by the Forest Service. So just for context, the middle Truckee River is approximately 315,000 acres, and 260,000 roughly, of that is owned by the US Forest Service. So we're in the situation where we have these reservoirs and natural lakes with, you know, ability to store water, and the Truckee River, which is a natural river, and it's a part of our conveyance system, until we divert water here to treat it and serve it to this community. And we're largely not the land owner of along the Truckee River or around the reservoirs, and so we're really starting to look at how to mitigate so that we don't have impacts. So we're very focused on what that sort of insurance policy of mitigation so that we don't have those water quality impacts or have a lot of sedimentation coming into the reservoirs that decrease the ability to store water before wildfires happen, and so that really is requiring us, and we can talk all about this, to work with the Forest Service and look for other partnerships to be able to effectuate the work that we think needs to happen to protect watershed. In terms of looking at climate change and looking at how wildfires are behaving differently with climate change, and then looking at examples, both locally and also outside of our area, where wildfires have had devastating impacts on water supply. And I want to pause and just say, we would never serve water that doesn't meet the, you know, required water quality standards. So it's not about, oh, we're going to have to serve water that doesn't meet standards. No, that's never going to happen. It's about mitigating because you can have impacts and it would create potentially increased treatment costs and or having to rely on other sources of water for a certain amount of time. So we want to mitigate those in advance, so never gonna serve water that doesn't, is not healthy and doesn't meet all of

Megan Kay:

That's good to know as a customer. So can we step the standards. back just a second, because I think you did a great job of explaining one you're never going to deliver unsafe water, but the impacts, so then the impacts to us, to citizens or people who live in this area, it would be like financial because the cost of treating the water could go up as a result of a wildfire. So I was just curious about that. So what happens to the water systems, like in the Truckee after a wildfire that could potentially like cause you to have to treat it more.

Stefanie Morris:

Yeah, so we've had a there was a small fire on Martis Creek, which is a pretty small watershed that drains into the Truckee River. And there was so much extra sediment and organic material ash coming in that for several days, we just turned off our diversion and relied on groundwater instead of surface water. So that's one way, and that was very small. So if we had a larger fire and it was affecting more of the Truckee River, we probably couldn't just rely on groundwater for extended periods of time. We would have to treat the Truckee River water that's been impacted to meet standards, and so the treatment costs would go up and it would be different. So for example, we just built a new water treatment plant on Whites Creek. It's our Mount Rose water treatment plant. And right now that area is above the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. If there were a fire in that watershed, that plant is not equipped to be able to treat basically, the pH would be off and we wouldn't be able to currently treat it. We would have to upgrade that facility in order to do that. So we want to just avoid that. So those would be the impacts. The other huge impact is that people don't really think about is you have these reservoirs, and you have sediment coming into the reservoirs, and when you have sediment coming in and large quantities, which we've seen, for example, in Colorado, and some of their wildfires, some of their water supply reservoirs have gotten tons of sediment, and the rivers got tons of sediment, which increase the risk of flooding, and then also, just from a reservoir perspective, it reduces the capacity of water that we can store. And our upstream storage is this region's drought supply. So we don't want to reduce that. We want to maintain that capacity.

Megan Kay:

I mean. And then that makes total sense, because, like, basically, the ash is taking up room in the reservoir so there's less water or the sediment, not the ash.

Kara Steeland:

Yeah, a major problem, like after the Martis

Stefanie Morris:

And in reservoirs, just because there's fire in 2001 was that the fire happens, and that's a problem, the treatment plants, but then in the reservoirs, because those but it's actually when you get those big rain storms after the fire happens, and you have a burn scar with pretty much no vegetation left on it, and the soil can be come really hydrophobic. The water just runs off instead of actually are used for multi purpose, like recreation, when you have that absorbing and infiltrating into the soil. And so you get huge debris, kind of plumes washing off into the tributaries, eventually ending up in the river. And then that's where you see super high turbidity, lots of debris and sediment in the high organic carbon and water isn't moving as much and it's waterways. And then we have trouble treating it when it's that high and Total Organic Carbon, which also comes with that debris, when it increases at that high of a rate, it's difficult to treat, and it requires a lot more chemical warmer, then that creates kind of a Goldilocks environment for costs.

Megan Kay:

So basically, you're you're creating more algae.

Kara Steeland:

It's that we're used to a certain level of turbidity in the river, and then when it increases with the algae to bloom, which then is not necessarily great for water carbon, then we're going to have to use more chemicals.

Megan Kay:

What is turbidity?

Kara Steeland:

Turbidity is basically sediment in the waterway. So like, when you look at Lake Tahoe and it's very clear, it means it has low turbidity. But when in the quality. As an example, after wildfires last couple years went spring, when you start to see snow melt in the river gets kind of brown and churning, that's higher turbidity. through and some of their reservoirs, they were getting what we call halves or harmful algal blooms, which very toxic, so not good.

Megan Kay:

And it's very difficult to treat. Like what you're saying.

Kara Steeland:

Yeah, I mean, when you have it in the upstream reservoirs and you're releasing it into the river, then it's moving, but when it gets to us, yeah, there could be some increased treatment cost, but it's more concentrated in the reservoirs from sitting there and not running around.

Megan Kay:

I wanted to take a quick break to talk about the Living With Fire Program. Maybe you found this podcast and you're wondering, what is the Living With Fire program? Well, we've been around since 1997 we're managed by the University of Nevada, Reno extension, and we're really a collaborative effort amongst federal, state and local firefighting agencies, as well as resource management agencies to help people adapt, prepare and live more safely with wildfire. So if you haven't already, check out our website, livingwithfire.com where you'll find all of our resources and tools that will help you live more safely with wildfire. Okay, back to the show. So next thing I want to ask then is, how do you prepare or mitigate these effects of the runoff of post fire, like when you have precip events after fire and you get all this runoff into the river, what kind of things does Truckee Meadows Water Authority, or just partners in general, do to kind of to mitigate that.

Stefanie Morris:

There's not a way to mitigate once you have a fire and you have that burn scar. I mean, there's maybe some ways, but in large part, it's higher treatment costs. So what we want to do, and what we're really focused on, is, how do we avoid having those wildfires go around our reservoirs and around the Truckee River so that we don't have to mitigate. We mitigate in advance, and we don't ever get those runoff in that area. So really, the key way to do it is throughout the watershed, to work with partners like the Forest Service and implement fuels reductions projects. So removing fuel from the forest, and doing it in a way that allows the fire to burn, but away from homes and from infrastructure, and from, you know, water supply infrastructure that's natural, and the way to do that is to have healthy upstream watersheds. And so we really are focusing on partnerships. Our board, the Truckee Meadows Water Authority Board approved half a million dollars over the next two years to close a funding gap on a project that the US Forest Service is doing with the Nature Conservancy as well as the National Forest Foundation. And that's the ladybug project, which I'll just tell you that's because it's above Ladybug peak and it's on the slope of stampede because everyone always asks, why is it the ladybug project, and that area that they're working on is complementing other work that's been done around stampede reservoir. And essentially, it's on the slope, and it's in an area that burned in the 1960s and a bunch of trees were planted, and so it's very thick and forested, and it's not a healthy forest right now, and there is a lot of fuel, and so this project would treat approximately 2500 acres. And Kara can tell you all about the different treatments that they are going to apply, but our board approved funding that, and it's really a pilot for us to show why it's necessary and to show kind of Here's what it looked like. And here's what a healthy forest looks like. And this is hopefully going to allow the fire to slow down and not reach the slopes of the reservoir and not burn. And even if it did burn, it's not going to have as much fuel, it won't be as hot and as intense. And so it helps mitigate fire continuing.

Megan Kay:

Yeah, so it won't take out all the vegetation and root systems and then create basically the prime conditions for runoff, right?

Stefanie Morris:

Yes, and we need to do a lot more of that. So this is, like a baby step to show Hey, this is a really good partnership, and here's how we can all work together. The other thing that we're doing is, this year, our board approved funding a forest ambassador, and so because approximately 85% of forest fires are started by humans, and we're seeing a lot of increased recreation in our watershed and in the forest, which is great. This is a person who, again, was a partnership with the National Forest Foundation and the Humboldt-Toiyabe US Forest Service. And they are being trained by the Forest Service, and they're out on the trails, and they're educating the public about responsible recreation. Because not only is it important not to start a fire, but it's

Megan Kay:

treatments that we're gonna have. important for our watershed and our water supply to pick up our trash, to pick up dog poop, and to basically stay on the trails

Kara Steeland:

Yeah. So there, I mean, for the ladybug project, and not cut new trails, because when you do that, you cause potential for increased sedimentation because you're removing vegetation in particular above creeks and rivers. So it's a really exciting program, and we have a really great Her name is Megan, and you might see her out there in particular above Whites Creek, handing out dog treats it's kind of the pretty standard treatments you see throughout and candies and educating the public about responsible recreation and healthy forests. the forests here now with kind of the vegetation management and forest thinning. So they're doing hand thinning on some of the more sensitive areas, like near Aspen groves and that, that kind of thing. But then they're just doing the standard kind of timber removal and mastication of almost over 2000 acres, and then some roadside hazard treatments for trees near roadways, and also doing fire line construction for prescribed fire. That will be the last step on the landscape when they're actually able to do it. Obviously, conditions here are often difficult for prescribed fire, but that's their last step.

Megan Kay:

Yeah, the windows are getting smaller and smaller, which is an ongoing conversation. So who does those treatments then on the land?

Kara Steeland:

So that's another partnership also. We're working with the National Forest Foundation on that one. They're the implementation partner for the Forest Service, so they're spearheading that project. It started last year, and it should be completed by 2025 so they have contractors out there working, and yeah, they'll continue to do that work.

Megan Kay:

Have you guys been doing this type of work for a long time, or is this relatively new, these types of projects?

Kara Steeland:

So we have been funding the Truckee River fund since 2004 so we provide, typically around $800,000 a year to watershed restoration work. It has not always been focused on forest management. It's been focused on a wide range of restoration work throughout the Truckee River watershed, including kind of more traditional stream and river restoration, like in the river, a lot of education outreach work, lots of projects you've seen kind of happen around the Truckee Meadows, then in the headwaters, have been funded partially through the Truckee River fund. And then the last, I would say, year or so, we've focused more directly on this forest management work and starting these new partnerships with the upstream entities.

Megan Kay:

I'm just wondering how wildfire intersects with those long term goals of managing has wildfire sort of gone up in the priority list?

Stefanie Morris:

Yeah, I think there's a couple things that for us really started to trigger. One is we're just seeing that the wildfire behavior is different. It's changing, like we're seeing things that never happened before, and then talking about the season like there is no wildfire season anymore. It's kind of any time, and then with climate change. So I think sort of those three factors, and also looking at the impacts in Colorado, wow, it seems logical and more financially reasonable to stop this from happening or you know, mitigate it as best we can, instead of having to deal with all of the expense and sort of logistics of fixing the problem after a wildfire comes through. it's really two pieces. I think that it's not

Megan Kay:

Yeah, I to necessarily like standard operating procedure. I think I do like the word adaptation, working with the Forest Service and others about how they manage the forest and how we can continue happening. We at our program, we try to push the fire partner together to adapt so that we don't have those huge adapted these are going to be long term. impact on water supply, on reservoirs. And really, a lot of the projects that we're looking at, they're multi benefit. It's not just a water supply benefit. Obviously, there's biodiversity. Things are going to be written into your like standard operating procedures. It seems like. There's what they call the wildlife urban interface, the WUI, and then protecting other critical infrastructure. So, you know, power lines and things of that nature. So I think that it's really what we're looking at globally to try to do is work with these partners to have a 10 year vegetation management strategy, and that would really be focused on treating a certain number of acres in that 10 years, but also doing the planning and finding ways to get new resources and new partnerships. Because every time you do a project forest service land, you have to do NEPA, National Environmental Protection Act. So you know, you need surveys. You need to understand what environmentally sensitive areas are. And so all that takes time. So right now there's a lot of money, federal money and California state money for lands in California where the reservoirs are, to do these projects. But in order to take advantage of those monies, you really have to have all that planning done. And so we're looking at trying to expedite the planning, and have a bunch of projects that are ready to go, that will be ready to go in five years. And here's all the other work that we need to do for the next 10 years. It is a long term plan to manage the forest in an adaptive way.

Kara Steeland:

Yeah, and I mean, we're really, we're really just one of the partners in this group. We're all trying to work together to, like Steph said, Get multiple benefits out of these projects and protect our whole community. And we're not, you know, trying to change how the land is managed. Really, we're just trying to increase the pace and scale of a lot of the great work the Forest Service and its partners are already doing. So by working together collaboratively, we can pool all of our resources to be able to hopefully, kind of make more meaningful change on the landscape, just because there needs to be a larger scale, larger scale work done to actually change fire behavior if it was to come through our watershed. So there's many other partnerships throughout the western US with water utilities and public land agencies that have kind of paved the way for these sort of partnerships.

Megan Kay:

I feel like that is a natural segue into the next step of this conversation, which would be looking ahead, I mean, past that sort of 10 year cycle, but looking ahead, based on what you guys have seen around the country, around the world, about adapting what do you guys think are going to be some challenges moving forward, but also like maybe things that excite you, like as Scientists and resource managers, you know, so a little bit of challenge and a little bit of like, well, hey, you know, here's some inspiration.

Stefanie Morris:

Well, I think everyone's really motivated to look at these partnerships and do the work at the sort of scale and pace that Kara was talking about. I think some of the challenges are, and I think this is a regional issue. Think there are solutions, but there isn't enough resources and equipment to once you treat it, you have to take the material out of the forest. So the mills and like, what are we going to do to have those resources be available so that when you are able to do these projects, you can remove the material from the forest? So I think that's something that it's a challenge, but I'm also excited by it. It's really not something that our expertise, but trying to put the right people in the right room with the right problem solving skills, to say, what are the ways we can all work together? Like, is there federal funds by equipment? Does the university want to have a program and have this equipment and be able to mill and train. And you know, is there ways that we can work all together so that we can all have those resources? And one kind of really cool program that North Star Community Services District in up in Truckee is looking at is having a biofuel plant so they can take all the material from the projects they do, and then they can heat the village at North Star, which is really cool. And so like, what other creative things can be done? And how do you also put money into incentivizing companies to come up with those creative solutions so that we can deal with that really big issue of, what do we do with the material after we work through the treatment? And I'm sure Kara has a lot better ideas, but that's, that's my two cents.

Kara Steeland:

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, we're talking about this 10 year vegetation management strategy, but we're also thinking about another 10 years out. You know, as we're writing a current vegetation management strategy, it's obviously the forest is always changing and evolving, especially with climate change. So and you know, when, when a project's complete, you still have to go in and maintain it in the future. So I think we're aware that it's not, you know, 10 years and we're done with this, however many acres we end up treating it's, you know, it's going to be ongoing, and we want to continue to have these partnerships.

Megan Kay:

Wildfire is stressful and wildfire evacuations are stressful. That's why the Living With Fire Program has created our wildfire evacuation checklist. It's a really simple checklist to help you learn how to pack a go-bag and prepare your home and your family, even your pets, for wildfire evacuation. I've included the checklist in the links in the show notes below, so be sure to check that out. You can also find it on our website at livingwithfire.com now back to the show. What has changed since you guys have been there, as far as what you manage for? Have the goals changed, or anything? Or is, is it always the same?

Kara Steeland:

Well, I think we've been super fortunate in this watershed, in that we haven't had really any large scale fires that have impacted our water quality. Obviously, the Caldor fire came into Tahoe, which is part of the overall Truckee River watershed, but the residence time, or the time that water stays in the lake is really long in Tahoe. So even with that ash, and they saw some water quality impacts, we haven't seen anything downstream that would make us change how we have to treat the water. So I think that's where Steph brought up the idea that we're fortunate in that we're not having to actually mitigate any of things that have actually happened so far we're having, we're kind of taking a more proactive approach instead of a reactive approach. Currently, because we're we're fortunate to have not had those large fires here yet.

Stefanie Morris:

So I think what we've seen is in the middle Truckee River watershed, there's a lot of good work that has been going on. And so since we've sort of been involved in working with this group that's trying to pull together an MOU, and it's largely based off the north Yuba watershed partnership, which is a really great program, and they're already doing a lot of work. Is we're building a structure, or putting in, like a structure in place where, like, for example, we don't own the land around the reservoirs. As I mentioned, it's owned by the Forest Service. We can't just go out there and do work. But what TMWA can do is we can help, you know, bring funds and sort of planning expertise to that group to help increase the skill and pace of those projects. And so one thing is, there's a lot of grant funds that are available, but they sometimes can be and other partners, where they have an MOU restrictive. And so what's really cool is that some of the money that TWMA can put on the table to help these projects happen doesn't have those same restrictions. So it can count for, like a local match and if road work needs to be done so that they can get in to do the fields reduction project. Some of our money could be used for that purpose, to make sure that the you know, that the project can move forward without having to wait to find other money. And so there's flexibility in the money that we can provide to, you know, to these groups. And just to step back one second, I think, way before TMWA ever got involved. There's been a lot of really cool partnerships, and I really admire the work that the Nature Conservancy, Mickey Hazelwood in particular, has done in the Truckee Meadow watershed to try to deal with this upfront. He's been talking about this for decades. that allows the National Forest Foundation to implement projects kind of on behalf of and consistent with what the Forest Service would do, and how they would do it. And so it's really allowing those kinds of partnerships, I think, really help increase the pace and scale of the work that can be done, which is really cool.

Megan Kay:

Would you say that those types of partnerships in this area, in which I would say maybe, like the Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, are strong?

Stefanie Morris:

I mean, we just literally have the coolest partners. Everyone really is passionate about this work and really wanting to work together. That includes the Truckee River Watershed Council, who've already done a lot of projects. And really there's there's things that can complement too and and whereas we may not do meadow restoration because that may be more habitat, but doing a fuels reduction project on a meadow with meadow restoration can be a really good thing for the environment, for stopping fire, because it can slow the metal will slow the fire down. It also thinning out the fuel above the meadow allows more water to go into the meadow, so it just makes it an overall healthier ecosystem.

Kara Steeland:

I was just gonna say yeah. And when Steph was mentioning the Nature Conservancy, we have probably, over the last, I don't know, 12 years, maybe a little more, we they own the land around independence Lake, like Steph mentioned, we own all of the water rights and manage and operate the lake itself, but they own the land around and it's the independence Lake preserve, and through the Truckee River fund, we have helped fund a lot of forest restoration work around that reservoir. And that's kind of a good model, too, for our region. You know, in terms of TMWA was stepping in and helping fund that work to protect water supply, but it's also maintaining ecosystem health, maintaining forest health, improving fire behavior, all of those things that that benefit, really, the whole community. So that's been great work that has been going on, and they've, they've spearheaded that. We've just provided a little bit of funding. So they're really, like Steph mentioned, we have amazing partners that are doing really all dog great on the ground, heavy lifting.

Stefanie Morris:

I think there needs to be more education about the impacts of wildfire on water and water systems. So I'm really appreciative that you're talking to us. And then I think it's hard for maybe this community to understand why we are funding work in California. And so I think just understanding where your water comes from when you turn on your faucet, and 80% of our water comes from the Truckee River, and that's including upstream storage. So it's all coming out of these forests and out of that watershed. And so just the importance of protecting that, even though it's not in our state, is very high, because that is 80% of our our water supply.

Megan Kay:

Thank you for listening to the Living With Fire podcast. You can find more stories and resources about wildfire at our website, livingwithfire.com the Living With Fire program is funded by the Bureau of Land Management, the Nevada Division of Forestry and the US Forest Service. And we're managed by the University of Nevada, Reno extension an equal opportunity institution.

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