About Truckee River Watershed Council

Our Mission

We bring the community "Together for the Truckee" to protect, enhance and restore the Truckee River watershed.

Welcome to the Truckee from F. Felix on Vimeo.

Our Approach

We identify, coordinate, fund and implement restoration, prevention and monitoring projects directly related to the health, beauty, and economy of the watershed. Combining ecological principals and a deep understanding of our region’s values, we focus on the root causes of threats to the Truckee River watershed.

Our History

The Truckee River watershed has a long history of intensive land use. Westward expansion in the 1840's lead to construction of roads and trails, timber harvesting, building of the intercontinental railroad, gravel mining, ice harvesting and live stock grazing. The population continued to grow, drawn by the beauty of the region and outdoor activities.  Historic land use combined with urban and recreation development affected the Truckee River watershed streams, impaired water quality, and reduced habitat for fish and wildlife populations.

Truckee River - Barbed wire and other rubish block wildlife access to riparian zones. Photo: Cathy Howard

By 1991, degradation to water quality and habitat from erosion was significant enough that the State of California and the US Environmental Protection Agency designated the Truckee River as impaired and required a watershed-wide plan to address the problems.

In October 1996, the first annual Truckee River Day was launched to begin to address the problems of water quality and habitat restoration. 300 volunteers showed up and completed 10 stream, meadow and wetland restoration projects. From that success, a group of river-lovers founded the Truckee River Watershed Council.

Since our founding, Truckee River Day has taken place every year with 300- 600 passionate volunteers. Together with the volunteers and our generous partners, we have completed well over 80 small-scale restoration projects and monitored important tributaries.

Recently, we started work on large-scale restoration projects, large-scale watershed assessments and prevention projects.  There are some 40 large scale projects remaining to be completed.

Our river, streams, meadows and wetlands that inspire us with their beauty, protect our water quality, and provide vital habitat to fish and wildlife continue to face threats from historic and modern land use impacts and climate change.

Together we can solve the problems created by decades of misuse and neglect,  we can restore streams so they are home to a healthy fishery, we can restore a meadow so that it stores water, reduces flood flows, and captures excess sediment and we can find opportunities for restoration in growth and development.

Together, we can prevent future damage to the Truckee River Watershed.

Our Partners and Signatories

TRWC is a collaborative of agencies, private industry, local businesses, non-profits and individual citizens. 

You can become a Signatory of the Watershed Council. A Signatory is an organization or individual who has formally agreed to our mission, goals and programs by signing a Truckee River Watershed Council MOU.

• California Dept. of Fish and Game

• California Dept. of Water Resources

• California Flyfisher Magazine
• Coldstream Permanent Road Division
• Denvale Property Association
• DMB / Highlands Group, LLC

• East West Partners

• KidZone Museum

• Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board
• Mountain Area Preservation Foundation
• Nevada County 

• Nevada County Resource Conservation District 

• Placer County Water Agency
• River Ranch

• Sagehen Creek Field Station - UC Berkeley 

• Sierra Business Council

• Sierra County

• Sierra Watch
• Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows

• Tahoe Truckee Unified School District
• Tahoe-Truckee Sanitation Agency 

• Town of Truckee
• Truckee Donner Land Trust
• Truckee Donner Public Utilities District

• Truckee Meadows Water Authority
 
• US Forest Service - Tahoe National Forest