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NERMAC votes to recommend Elko County reject 'historical capture' and ask for exemptions and extended timeline
Summary
Commissioner Zach Woodbury asked NERMAC to recommend that the Elko County Commission reject historical capture analyses, exempt domestic, stock and municipal water from curtailment, and seek a 10-year extension before curtailment; the committee seconded the motion, amended wording to clarify it is a recommendation, and voted to carry it.
Commissioner Zach Woodbury presented a proposed motion for NERMAC to recommend action to the Elko County Commission on proposed curtailment policies tied to Humboldt River basin modeling. Woodbury said the stakeholder group discussed exemptions and modeling timelines and that some members had proposed counting historical capture; he urged rejection of that approach.
Woodbury read the motion into the minutes calling for: rejection of historical-capture plans; explicit exclusion of domestic, stock-water and municipal uses from any curtailment plan; and an extension of the state-engineer timeline so no curtailment actions occur until at least 10 years after final acceptance of all basin models. He moved the recommendation to the county commission; a committee member seconded. During public comment, a resident (Randy) asked staff to clarify that the item was a recommendation to the County Commission rather than a board-level adoption — Woodbury accepted that clarification. The chair called for the vote and recorded the motion as carried. The motion text was entered for the minutes and will be forwarded to county officials for consideration.
