Sierra Pacific Power Company
Contact: Charlie Fletcher
Phone: (775)834-4345

For Immediate Release

Future drought storage for Reno/Sparks reached a milestone June 3 when Sierra Pacific Power Co. completed the 1,000th voluntary residential water meter retrofit. Retrofitting 1,000 residences with water meters is one of the requirements of an agreement with the federal government, which allowed Sierra Pacific Power Co. to store 5,000 acre feet of water in federal reservoirs on the Truckee River for use during drought periods.

"All Reno and Sparks customers benefit with the water meter retrofit program because all of us will be able to share the upstream storge when we are faced with future droughts," said John Erwin, Sierra Pacific's meter retrofit project manager.

This storage agreement is an early installment of the Negotiated Water Settlement, which was signed into federal law in 1990 and is scheduled to be completely in place by 1997.

When fully implemented, the Negotiated Water Settlement will triple Sierra Pacific's drought storage, enhance Truckee River stream flows and provide numerous environmental benefits.

A conservation requirement of the Negotiated Water Settlement is installation of water meters in all homes without meters. All homes built since July 1988 and all commercial customers already have meters.

The first 1,000 meters are part of a larger retrofit program, approved by the Nevada Public Service Commission last year, which will install meters in 44,000 residences over the next 10 to 12 years.

Customers wishing to volunteer for a water meter can do so by calling 834-4116. There is no customer charge for installation.