# Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council (2023) > Briefs, arguments, decisions, and more. URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/tribal%3Apyramid_lake%3A49852158cd13d08c ## Record - **Collection:** Tribal code - **Document type:** Tribal code ## Text Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council Post Office Box 256 Nixon, Nevada 89424 Telephone: (775) 574-1000 Fax (775) 574-1054 WATER TEAM MEETING MINUTES Tribal Chambers September 20, 2023 Members Present James J. Phoenix, Tribal Chairman Steven Wadsworth, Vice-Chairman Harriet Brady, Councilmember Natalia Gonzales, Councilmember Judith Davis, Councilmember John Guerrero, Councilmember Nathan Dunn, Councilmember Della John, Councilmember Edward Ely III, Councilmember Genevieve John, Councilmember Meetings available via zoom for viewing only. Tribal members wishing to attend may request zoom access by contacting the Tribal Secretary. Chairman Phoenix called the September 20, 2023, Water Team meeting of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council to order at 6:00 p.m. ROLL CALL Roll call was taken by Brenda A. Henry, Tribal Council Secretary. Councilmember Dunn arrived at 6:06 p.m. All other Tribal Councilmembers were present at roll call and a quorum was established for this meeting. APPROVAL OF AGENDA There was a request for an Executive Session by the Water Team. Councilmember Genevieve John motioned to approve the agenda with the addition of an Executive Session. Councilmember Davis seconded the motion. Votes were eight (8) for and zero (0) opposed with zero (0) abstentions. Motion carried. CONSENT AGENDA Items on the consent agenda: 1. Approval Kemp Jones LLP August 2023 Invoice 2. Approval Stetson Engineers Inc. August 2023 Invoice Councilmember Genevieve John motioned to approve the consent agenda. Councilmember Davis seconded the motion. Votes were eight (8) for and zero (0) opposed with zero (0) abstentions. Motion Carried. Councilmember Dunn arrived at 6:06 p.m. NATURAL RESOURCES. Donna Noel, Natural Resources Director Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council September 20, 2023, Water Team minutes 1. Request for Approval Orangetree Productions Film Request for Travel Nevada. Mark Perry, Orangetree Production, Amanda Mazzagatti, Orangetree Productions/Travel Nevada and Caroline Sexton, Director of Marketing/Travel Nevada Caroline Sexton explained they help to promote travel in tourism for the State of Nevada and their focus is on rural communities. They are requesting a video shoot to feature fishing at Pyramid Lake. Councilmember Genevieve John asked how long they have been in production. Ms. Mazzagatti said they have been in operation for about 10-15 years in Reno and the State. Councilmember Ely asked besides the crew will they be using a fishing guide or what is their plan for the fishing? Ms. Mazzagatti said they will have a crew of 12 which includes four talent and remaining film crew members, and they will be shore fishing on the west side. Councilmember Brady asked if they were professionals and if they would be paid for this film. Ms. Mazzagatti said yes, Orangetree Productions is a professional production agency, and they charge for any still video or photos that they produce. Ms. Sexton said Travel Nevada is a state-run agency department and they have a creative contract with Good Giant, who is a local agency as well. They will be utilizing Orangetree for this specific production. Travel Nevada utilizes multiple different production agencies dependent on who is the right fit for whatever job they are working on. Mark Perry said they have been in business going on 17 years in the Northern Nevada area. Councilmember Brady confirmed they plan on filming October 24 from 10am to 3pm. Councilmember Ely asked a follow-up from his first question on whether they will have professional fisherman or who will be doing the fishing? Ms. Mazzagatti misunderstood his first question and said they will have actors doing the fishing, there will be no professional fisherman. Councilmember Brady asked if they would be paying the $1,000 fee and will Tribal Council get to review the final product before it is released to the public. Donna Noel, Natural Resources Director said the fee would be up to Tribal Council. Ms Mazzagatti said they can bring it back to Tribal Council for review. Councilmember Genevieve John asked how many other productions they have done. Ms. Sexton said they have done hundreds, as Travel Nevada they try and feature different videos across the State. This is the fourth one this year they have done with Orangetree. They are looking to do another production with the Tribe, but they were not able to get it processed in time for this meeting. Videos are -2-|Page Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council September 20, 2023, Water Team minutes utilized on their website and social media. They also do paid marketing campaigns that go internationally and across domestic United States. Councilmember Brady asked if someone would be going with them and exactly where will they be going? Ms. Noel said they will be on the west side on the public beaches. Councilmember Ely motioned to approve the Orangetree Productions Film Request for Travel Nevada to include the daily film fee of $1,000. Councilmember Della John seconded the motion. Votes were eight (8) for and one (1) opposed (Genevieve John) with zero (0) abstentions. Motion Carried. 2. Request for Approval to Host Native Seed Gathering Event. Aaron Bill Mr. Bill said Dean Tonenna who works with the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and prior to COVID, had been coming to the reservation every October to conduct a native seed gathering operation. This is for both the Tribe and for its use within the Nevada ranges. It is a beneficial program for the Tribe to host because not only does the Tribe benefit from getting a portion of the seed for their seedbank, but he also trains volunteers who want to be able to learn to remove the seed with minimal damage to the plant. They use the seeds on the wetland sites that they monitor but they also want to use the seed for upcoming projects such as the Hardscrabble Creek Restoration Project. Councilmember Brady asked if they would be doing any crossbreeding of the seeds. Mr. Bill said it is only going to be a distribution for their use, they will freeze them for future use, there will not be any type of genetic modifications done to them. Councilmember Della John motioned to approve the request to Host the Native Seed Gathering Event at Pyramid Lake. Councilmember Dunn seconded the motion. Votes were nine (9) for and zero (0) opposed with zero (0) abstentions. Motion Carried. 3. Request for Approval to Tour Wetlands for Retired US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) Reunion. Aaron Bill Mr. Bill said he has been in contact with Dennis Peters, a retired government employee who wants to follow up on some of the projects that he was doing with the wetlands. He is requesting to tour the wetlands site. This is not for official government business. It is a group of retired government employees who want to follow up on their free time. He is more than willing to take them on a tour of their wetland sites. He feels it is a good opportunity for knowledge sharing and it would help their program. Councilmember Dunn asked if it was a personal request and not an organizational request. Mr. Bill said it is a personal request. Councilmember Dunn said he asked because he was going to approve but they must purchase the permits because they are not an organization. Councilmember Della John motioned to approve the request to tour the Pyramid Lake Wetlands by the Retired USFWS Reunion group and to waive the Day-use Fee. Councilmember Genevieve John seconded the motion. Votes were nine (9) for and zero (0) opposed with zero (0) abstentions. Motion Carried. -3-|Page Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council September 20, 2023, Water Team minutes 4. Request for Approval to hold an Agricultural Workshop for Cattlemen and interested parties. Brianna Merrill Ms. Merrill said in partnership with the Intertribal Agriculture Council they have done previous events, regenerative agriculture and soil health and repairing areas in the range land. They want to coordinate with the Tribe for a two-day event here on the reservation. Fred John has tentatively given his approval to hold it on his land, which would be great because they have the Tribe’s water quality sites on his property. It is an agricultural production field, and it would be a great opportunity for everyone to see what they are working with and provide ideas for improvement. It is a good knowledge sharing opportunity. It would be for fifteen individuals and the date is October 4-5 from 10am to 4pm. It would include a lecture and field portion on Fred John’s property. Councilmember Davis motioned to approve the request to hold the Agricultural Workshop for the Cattlemen and interested parties. Councilmember Davis seconded the motion. Votes were eight (8) for and zero (0) opposed with one (1) abstentions (Genevieve John). Motion Carried. 5. Request for Approval of Water Rights Purchasing Consultant Contract. Donna Noel, NR Director Ms. Noel said they received their NFWF funding to purchase water for Pyramid Lake and has sent out an RFP to six different agencies, land and resources, land trusts, Nevada Land Trusts, and the Nature Conservancy. She received two proposals back, one from Great Basin Land and Water and the other from Walker Basin Conservancy. After reviewing the two proposals they selected Great Basin Land and Water for several reasons. The grant is for one year. Walker Basin Conservancy did not have a person in-house that knew the Truckee River, they were going to use Mark Enloe who is a former TMWA employee which might be a conflict and they would be doing most of their work through subcontractors, and Great Basin Land and Water has experience with the Tribe’s trust applications. Currently the Tribe has four that are pending and two that need to be written up. They have two properties that are being gifted to the Tribe which is a different process and which Great Basin is familiar with. Because of the brief period for the grant, they need to have someone who is knowledgeable and can move forward. Councilmember Ely asked if we had used Great Basin Land and Water before. Ms. Noel said yes, they had this grant before the Tribe. Councilmember Guerrero asked what is this funding for? Ms. Noel said approximately $8,200,000. Any water that is available they will be applying for it, and they might be able to start looking at add on funds for appraisals with more creative ideas, so they do not get out bidded by other people. Councilmember Dunn motioned to approve recommendation for Great Basin Land & Resources for the Water Right Purchasing Consultant Contract. Ely seconded the motion. Votes were eight (8) for and zero (0) opposed with one (1) abstentions (Guerrero). Motion Carried 6. Request for Approval for Electric Contractor Contract for Natural Resources Building. Donna Noel, NR Director -4-|Page Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council September 20, 2023, Water Team minutes Ms. Noel said they have terrible electricity in their building. The walls get hot and the wire that goes from the pole to the building rubs against the aluminum fascia. The last electrical person said they would not touch it because nothing is up to code, and he could not touch it. Last year when they put in for their grant proposals, everyone put a little extra in for getting the building rewired. They will pull the old wire out, condense it all and install new boxes for heating and central air. They sent out seven proposals and received three responses back. Two of them were in the $40,000 price range with one for $95,000. When reviewing the proposals there were a lot of clauses for price changes for the $40,000 proposals which could mean change orders halfway through the project. The higher amount proposal is proposing two panels, putting cabling underground from the pole to the box. All the funding will come from grants and the extra funds will come from the WRAP restoration fund which was for the S Bar S for the underground storage tank leak. When the property was purchased, they put funds into cleaning it up, but it was cleaned by the state, and they had about $70,000 left in the fund. She does not plan to use it all, but it will help with what they do not get from the grants. They will not be asking for any extra tribal funds. Councilmember Guerrero said he would have liked to see an itemized list from the $95,000 proposal for the scope of work. Ms. Noel said she will ask for it so she can track the project. Councilmember Ely motioned to approve KD Electric for the Contractor Contract to rewire the Natural Resources Building. Councilmember Dunn seconded the motion. Votes were six (6) for and one (1) opposed (Brady) with two (2) abstentions (Genevieve John, Guerrero). Motion Carried. 7. Request for Approval to Post Numana Fish Passage Environmental Assessment. Donna Noel, NR Director Ms. Noel said she is finishing the final revisions on the environmental assessment for the fish passage project. She should have it done sometime next week and would like to post it for community/department comments before she submits to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Vice Chairman Wadsworth motioned to approve the posting for the Numan Fish Passage Environmental Assessment for two weeks. Councilmember Dunn seconded the motion. Votes were nine (9) for and zero (0) opposed with zero (0) abstentions. Motion Carried. 8. Request for Approval of Firewood Bank Funding Grant. Donna Noel, NR Director Ms. Noel said this is a new grant that Aaron Bill found where they can purchase equipment to cut wood for the elder program. Councilmember Gonzales said she would like them to reach out to the Department of Forestry like other tribes have done where they get deliveries to them. Ms. Noel said they have done that and sometimes they do get wood, but they do not make deliveries to them. Vice Chairman Wadsworth said it is small and in the grant summary it says IDC is not covered but, in the budget, they have IDC as $1,800. Ms. Noel said she questioned it and called the grantee but has not received a response back so it may or may not be covered. It is for equipment and is under $5,000. -5-|Page Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council September 20, 2023, Water Team minutes Councilmember Gonzales asked if this equipment will be inventoried? Ms. Noel said they do inventories, they have a connex where all their equipment is locked, and Ryan Dunn is their inventory person who controls the box. Councilmember Dunn motioned to approve the Firewood Bank Funding Grant submission. Councilmember Genevieve John seconded the motion. Votes were nine (9) for and zero (0) opposed with zero (0) abstentions. Motion Carried. WATER TEAM 1. KEMP JONES LLP. Chris Mixson, Kemp Jones LLP. Report Submitted. Mr. Mixson provided a general outline of the pending matters for the Tribe and will be asking for an Executive Session. Truckee Canal Extraordinary Maintenance Project and Fernley’s Appeal. Fernley is trying to stop them from lining the canal even though they are almost done with it. They have a settlement conference scheduled for October 17‘ with Fernley and David Stiks, the plaintiffs, and the US Bureau of Reclamations (BOR) and the Tribe, the defendants. It will be held at the federal courthouse in Reno. There will be a senior federal Magistrate Judge as a mediator. The Chairman, Ms. Noel and himself will be attending. The case is stayed pending the outcome of the settlement conference. He will have to write a settlement statement, a confidential summary which will only go to the settlement judge. It will describe the background of the lawsuit and what the Tribe’s interests and concerns are and preview for the judge what the Tribe may be thinking in terms of potential settlement outcomes. They will share the outcome at the October Water Team meeting. The approval in the EIS is for around thirteen miles but they broke it down into phases and they are only doing phase one which is about three miles. When this case was in the Ninth Circuit after Judge Du dismissed Fernley’s case when they appealed to the Ninth Circuit, they had a settlement conference at the Ninth Circuit and one of the settlement concepts they discussed but ultimately, all parties didn’t agree on was, what if BOR does an amended Record of Decision, which is the document they use after they release the EIS and say which of the alternatives in the EIS are they going to choose? And they said, what if they redo the Record of Decision and only approve phase one because that is being built already. They redo the Record of Decision to approve phase one and then if they do future phases down the road, they may or may not have to do a new EIS which is what Fernley wants them to do. They want them to study the effects on the aquifer. That is the point of their lawsuit that did not go anywhere in the Ninth Circuit mediation but will come up in this mediation. He thinks this is an effective way for Fernley to walk away from this lawsuit which they are going to lose. FYI, there may be other crazy ideas that pop up with the settlement. Councilmember Ely asked if this lawsuit was against the BOR and if the Tribe was joining the lawsuit. Mr. Mixson said they intervened as a defendant on the side of BOR and the primary reason he advised the Council at that time to approve intervention was this could go to settlement, and they do not want the federal government to agree to something harmful to the Tribe in the settlement. The settlement would still have to come to the Tribal Council for final approval. -6-|Page Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council September 20, 2023, Water Team minutes Navy Water. They filed the lawsuit and as informed by the letter included to Council, the Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney is asking they agree to a six month pause of the lawsuit so they can enter formal government to government consultation and try to get the matter resolved. They agreed to that, anda motion was filed, and the judge approved it. They will be waiting for DOJ to make the first move, which would be a formal letter for a government-to-government consultation to resolve the Navy water. Itis a positive sign having filed the lawsuit that they are now coming to the table. They had a video conference with the DOJ and the Department of Interior solicitors which is the house lawyers. The solicitor said the Tribe got the attention of the people in the Department of Interior in DC including Assistant Secretary Brian Nuland who is the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. They do not want to get sued by tribes. CEMEX. They are still working with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the Clean Water Act discharge permit that CEMEX has applied for. The EPA came to them and said it looks like the Anti- Degradation policy under the Clean Water Act is implicated by this permit application. It means the Tribe has water quality standards of its own for the Truckee River and there is actually two sections of the Truckee River that is relevant, specifically the last two sections, and the Tribe’s water quality standards allow for a certain amount of discharge of pollutants to those sections of the river but it looks like with the river itself and Pyramid Lake itself the water quality, the existing water quality is superior to the Tribe’s water quality standards. If the Tribe allows discharges that meet the standards, it could still potentially degrade the water quality of the river and lake because the water quality is better than the standards. The EPA came to them and said because the Anti-Degradation policy is implicated, the EPA is going to defer to the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe about how much degradation the Tribe wants to allow to occur for CEMEX to be able to discharge so they can fix the pit walls. They said once they are in that Anit-Degradation sandbox they will defer to the Tribe, the Tribe tells them they have water quality standards, and can let them discharge up to those standards, and they just need to make a policy decision about what level of discharge are they comfortable with between the existing water quality standards and the existing water quality of the water bodies and the water quality standards the Tribe approved. Aaron Bill has been doing the background work to see what the gap is between the water quality as it is and the water quality standards. They will need to talk with CEMEX to ask how clean they can get the discharge because that will impact how the Tribe analyzes how much degradation they want to get the walls fixed but they want them to discharge as little as possible. It was good to hear from EPA that they were going to defer to the Tribe to determine what level of discharge they will allow CEMEX to fix the pit walls. He knows CEMEX, a couple weeks ago, brought out a company to see what they can do to treat the water when they pump it out of the lake and before they discharge it to the river, he wonders can they bring in some water treatment facilities, possibly on trailers, that can treat the water before it is discharged to remove TDS and nitrates. Councilmember Gonzales said she would also like to see if the Tribe can speak to their own consultants that work in the industry so they can provide the Tribe with a second opinion. Mr. Mixson said he will discuss it with the Water Team because he is not sure they can get it for free, but it should not be that expensive. Councilmember Dunn asked what their feedback on the Tribe’s water quality is since they are putting it back in the Tribe’s court again. -7-|Page Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council September 20, 2023, Water Team minutes Mr. Mixson said the Tribe would not go against their existing water quality discharge standards. Under the Tribe’s water quality standards there must be no violation of the water quality standard. What they are saying is that the existing water quality is better than the standards so the Tribe can choose to say they will not allow and if they do allow a discharge that is lower quality than the existing that is called degradation. The Tribe will not allow degradation. They cannot discharge anything that would be worse than the existing quality even though the Tribe has standards that might allow it. What it potentially means is if they cannot discharge and then they cannot fix the pit wall, this is the issue. If the pit wall does not get fixed there can be a lot of degradation if it were to fail. Councilmember Della John said it depends on the time of the year and what is in the river. Mr. Mixson said a lot of the water quality standards are built around what the fish need, including spawning. Councilmember Guerrero asked who tests the existing standards. Ms. Noels said they have two continuous monitoring stations in the river and her department does monthly sampling. Councilmember Guerrero had a concern with E-coli being in the river from the sewage treatment plan especially during the high waters. If they are not tested periodically people will get sick with infections. Ms. Noel said the only E-coli source is the animals with the cows being in the river but there are also septic tanks, a nonpoint source, which is everywhere, but they do test for E-coli in the river also. Mr. Bill said they have periodically monitored the E-coli content and described the technical description of the standards. The number they have seen is under the recreational criteria that EPA has put out as the recommendation the Tribe has promulgated. Except for the high flows, it can pick upstream inflammation where there are a lot of homeless camps along the river which can relate to human waste product downstream. It can be a problem, but they have seen through their testing as late as 2021, it is well below the standard for discharge, even during the summertime when most of the discharge comes from the reclamation facility. They are responsible for 40 CFS of flow during the year. To put into perspective, the CEMEX permit estimated their discharge limits to be twenty million gallons per day and that is about another 37 CFS, so they do not see there could be much of a potential for E-coli coming from the CEMEX pit, it would mostly be coming from the river upstream. Councilmember Brady said it begs to question how much the homeless put into the river because they are right there. Mr. Bill said regarding the other things with the CEMEX permit, they have been discharging unpermitted flows since 2011 and during that time, at least since he has been there since 2018, they have been monitoring their discharge from one of the points they identified as a potential monitoring location. They noticed they were discharging high TDS, above the Tribe’s limit, so they want to push for CEMEX to develop a supplemental environmental project to reduce those flows of TDS before they make it into the river. Councilmember Gonzales asked if there were penalties if they did that? -8-|Page Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council September 20, 2023, Water Team minutes Mr. Mixson said yes that is the supplemental environmental project which is instead of sending their penalty funds to the US Treasury they can use it locally to do an environmental project which they asked the water team to give them some ideas. There is a letter included in the packet which they wrote with three potential ideas. One was to reclaim a formerly mined area which is south of Area D, on the east side at Hill Ranch Road and south of Area D, there is an area that was previously mined, and the reclamation is not that good. This is one option because of the dust blowing into the river. The water team is still figuring out how much this work needs and trying to make sense of it. Another option was for them to build and construct a treatment wetland, discharges coming out of their site would go through the wetland and it would attenuate the TDS and the other pollutants. The third option was they could do stream bank restoration projects downstream of them along the river. They did not like the streambank one because it is not really a supplemental environmental project because EPA wants them to be completed within a year. Anytime you must get permits which would have to be done with restoration, it is impossible to get them done within a year. They did like the reclamation of the formerly mined out place because that is what they do, even though they were concerned about fuel costs. Councilmember Ely said with reclamations they must do that anyway. Mr. Mixson said it is not in their lease, it is from some other prior mining area. They liked the treatment wetlands area the most because they said it is expensive to move dirt. The EPA would like the treatment wetlands the most also. The water team has been looking at an area right to the west of Hill Ranch Road in between the processing plan, which is Area B and Area D to the south, there is a little spot in a depression area that would be a good candidate for constructing a treatment wetlands, so they are working on a map to help identify the area. Councilmember Gonzales said she would prefer the streambank restoration because they are having a problem with finding funding to help with it. Councilmember Guerrero said he would like to see them build a marina park. Mr. Mixson said they are going to try and get them to do that in their reclamation, they told them they need to start thinking about it because they always said the Tribe can keep the water and have recreation there. They told them if they were serious about it, they needed to start looking at getting power there with some paths and lighting and a treatment wetland would help because they would want to keep the water moving to keep it clean. They may have to have a low flow pump to pump water out and send it to the wetlands because they just cannot walk away from the pits and say here is your fishing hole. Councilmember Ely asked if there was an EPA number for a fine. Mr. Mixson said EPA has done the work to get a number but they can’t share it with anybody, they told the water team but they can’t share the number until they levy the actual fine with CEMEX, but with the Clean Water Act, the statutory penalty is $55,000 per violation per day and they were discharging without a permit for years. There are also ceilings that EPA cannot charge them above that which is information they cannot share. He is sure he can find out if he digs around but there is a lot that goes into determining that amount. There will be money that CEMEX will have to pay that will go to the Treasury as a fine, but they want to maximize how much will stay local. -9-|Page Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council September 20, 2023, Water Team minutes Councilmember Della John said CEMEX is a global corporation, not just amom and pop, the Tribe is just a tax write off for them. What would be the impact of a recreational area since there will be 250 homes being built in that area, how is the Tribe going to manage? Mr. Mixson asked if this was within the boundaries of the reservation. Councilmember Guererro said it is within the boundaries and they need to think about employment, taxes and building codes and move forward with it. Mr. Mixson said if they really plan to leave it as a recreational area, they need to think about safety also. They just cannot fence it in and put up a chain link fence and call it a day, it must be attractive. Truckee Meadows Effluent and Tahoe Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) Effluent Pipeline. They are having a kick-off meeting with TMWA, Reno-Sparks and General Improvement District at TRIC the next day. That meeting is to try and resolve the Tribe’s existing protest of their water rights applications to implement the effluent pipeline out to TRIC. They want to have it tied up by the end of the year, but he does not think they will make that. They will be talking more about this item in the following months. STETSON ENGINEERS LLP. Allan Richards. Mr. Richards said most of their focus has been on CEMEX, they had three meetings with CEMEX in August and as a reminder CEMEX presented to Council requesting, they be allowed to mine deeper in Area D and that was granted. He provided updated maps in his progress report. In attachment A, CEMEX has been giving them an update on water level elevation in lake A. As you recall there was an urgent matter with the lake level rising and threatening to break over the berms to the north. The lake level has been decreasing and continues to come down and they have been providing them with weekly updates on the water level elevation in lake A. They also provided an updated aerial survey showing the northern part of Area A and they have been providing photographs also. As can be seen, the lake level is dropping, and the water is receding and pulling back away from the berms that were threatening to breach. The water level is still high, but it is coming down. They are supposed to be working on an emergency plan, a contingency plan so if the lake level rises again and threatens to breach, they can pump water across the road under Hill Ranch Road and discharge it into their Area B. Since the last Council meeting when it was approved for them to mine deeper in Area D, they have not mined any deeper. They are still at elevation 4023 in Area D, and they have not increased the pumping rate either. They did find out this week they will start increasing their pumping from Area D north into Area B within the next couple of weeks. There was something wrong with their pump prior. In the next couple of weeks, they will start mining deeper in the test triangle area that was approved for them to mine deeper. They will be keeping an eye on it and monitoring the wells. They download data from those four new monitoring wells twice a month. CEMEX goes out to download the data once a month and Stetson and the Tribe goes out once a month, so the data is downloaded every two weeks. They are putting it into charts and analyzing it together. They had a meeting with CEMEX the past Monday to talk about what they are seeing on the water level loggers. Mr. Richards passed to the Council recent charts that were just created in the past week which showed the water levels in the four monitoring wells. The groundwater levels have come down a couple of feet since the wells were first drilled and now, they are leveling out, they have been leveling for about a month now and trending downward a little. There is an interesting pattern regarding monitoring well number three, which is up on Hill Ranch Road which is -10-|Page Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council September 20, 2023, Water Team minutes at the northern boundary of their pit operation, and monitoring well number four which is further up Hill Ranch Road. They have seen interesting cycles in the water level there, it is like a wave action, which they do not see in the two wells that are closest to the river and closest to their mining operations. They are speculating at this point, but it might have to do with diversions in the proctor ditch. Asking Councilmember Guerrero if the diversions in the proctor ditch occur on a weekly or three-week cycle? Councilmember Guerrero said it would be more of a three-week cycle. Mr. Richards said they are thinking when the water in the ditch is diverted from the river into the ditch which goes right along Hill Ranch Road, very close to the monitoring wells in the north, the water that is applied to the fields seeps into the ground from the ditch and probably raises the groundwater level a little bit then when they stop the diversions or stop irrigating it comes back down. It is up and down based on the irrigation. They will test that theory and when they stop the cyclical patterns will go away. Currently they are only using one pump three hours a day at 300 gallons a minute, but they do not pump 24/7. What CEMEX is going to be doing next is to start mining a little deeper in that triangular area, they are not going to pump at higher rate, but they are going to start running the pumps 24/7, running the pumps longer so they can dewater that area to accomplish that mining. Correction he meant 3,000 gallons not three hundred. There probably is not going to be anything significant happening in the monitoring wells in the next couple of weeks but by the next meeting, they should have something different to report. Mr. Richards said Councilmember Della John hand drew a table for him a couple of months ago and asked if he could turn it into an excel table. She asked to see how the flows to Pyramid Lake in 2023 were broken out into the various sources of water and how much on a monthly basis went to the river from those sources. The rows show different sources of water that went to the lake this year. The first row is the temporary instream transfers, claims 1 and 2, temporary transfers. They talked about this before, they only get used during four months during the summer, 25% per month, those represented about 81 cubic feet per second, on average for each of those four months. They have the instream transfers, claims 1 and 2 and the water quality settlement agreement transfers which run through October, there were fish water releases and spills from the reservoirs this year because the reservoirs were full. They show the amount of water that spilled and flowed to the lake through August. Because it was a big water year, there were a lot of floods, snow melting and other side water that just came down the river naturally. Those were the biggest contributor to the flows to the lake and those were in May. There was over 2,600 cubic feet per second on average every day in May. Councilmember Della John also asked how much water went to the lake this year because the Truckee Canal is off. This year, the Carson River was also big, it satisfied the Lahontan reservoir storage targets, so TCID would not have been allowed to divert from the Truckee River to Lahontan reservoir regardless of the canal closure. Only the Truckee division would have been able to divert water from the Truckee Canal to irrigate the Fernley area lands because they do not get any water from Lahontan. They estimated how much water went to the lake because of the canal being off, that would have potentially gone to the Truckee division. They used 2017 data for that because 2017 was also a big water year and the Truckee division was getting water. So, the numbers in the excel sheet are representative of the 2017 numbers. They subtracted the amount of water that was diverted for the Nixon ditch irrigation and that produces the total flow to Pyramid Lake each month. He added the fish flow regime targets at the bottom of the take in CFS so they can see the fish flow targets were met or exceeded every month during this 2023 calendar year with all the water in the year. EXECUTIVE SESSION -11-|Page Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council September 20, 2023, Water Team minutes Councilmember Dunn motioned to move into Executive Session. Councilmember Davis seconded the motion. Votes were nine (9) for and zero (0) opposed with zero (0) abstentions. Motion Carried. Tribal Council moved into Executive Session at 7:20 p.m. Councilmember Dunn motioned to move out of Executive Session. Councilmember Gonzales seconded the motion. Votes were nine (9) for and zero (0) opposed with zero (0) abstentions. Motion Carried. Tribal Council moved into Executive Session at 7:29 p.m. ADJOURNMENT With no further business before the Tribal Council, Councilmember Guerrero motioned to adjourn the meeting. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Gonzales. Votes taken were all in favor, motion carried. The meeting adjourned at 7:30 p.m. Submitted by, Pihy dal peor, Tribal Council Secretary CERTIFICATION The foregoing minutes were adopted by the Pyramid Lake Tribal Council, governing body of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, at a meeting duly held on the 18 day of October 2023, having nine (9) members present, constituting a quorum, by the vote of eight (8) FOR and zero (0) OPPOSED, with zero (0) ABSTENTIONS. Minutes attested and concurred by: | ) 7 } | VY 4 James J. Phoenix, Tribal Chairman Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council // // -12-|Page --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/tribal%3Apyramid_lake%3A49852158cd13d08c. Public record. Not legal advice.