The Truckee Meadow Floor Management Authority released two park concepts for a portion of the Rock to McCarran flood protection and river restoration project. One provides for a Nature Park Concept and the other a Sports Complex Concept. We believe that there should be a park which would benefit the community and be completely consistent with the “living river” concept that the community has embraced since the early 2000s. You can check out the link above on the project and the park proposals and read our comments on the park selection to the Flood Managers below:
The Club participated in the “living river” design of the Flood Management Project during its early development. The Rock to McCarran portion was quickly envisioned as a large, flood-able park which was essential to help reduce flood flows and to provide a restored, healthy Truckee River connected to its floodplain. The public benefit of a flood-able, open space park was applauded by everyone at those meetings – now 2 decades behind us. The purchase of the property by the Flood Project was the result of the early flood modeling and public involvement.
The current restoration plan to reconnect the river to its floodplain and provide a broad public benefit still resonates with the community. Certainly, the Club enthusiastically supports the Rock-McCarran Blvd plan to reconnect the Truckee River to its flood plain as depicted on the Rock-McCarran Reach Project Conceptual Recreational Designs. Our support for the park is also strong; however, we believe that the benefit to the public will be best served by the Nature Park Concept.
The Nature Park offers an opportunity to provide a large, Truckee-River-connected Park, close to thousands of residents for the enjoyment of an outstanding natural area that will not be possible in the future.
The Nature Park Concept offers opportunities for enjoyment of the river environment that nearly everyone in the community can benefit from. This concept is less structured, less roaded, less paved, and less crowded space – an increasingly rare commodity in a community where many of the existing parks are crowded with sports playing fields – which while needed – are not appropriate to meet the vision of the “living river” concept that the community supported long ago. [From the original Goals and Objectives: “Promote a living river concept by preserving and enhancing fish and wildlife habitat, water quality, and natural geomorphic characteristics of the river.”] We also note that there could be adjustments to the Nature Park Concept that would likely lower the cost for implementation although we support the Concept as proposed.
The Sports Complex Concept with 10.5 flat playing fields and 4 large and 3 smaller parking lots and a significant amount of paved roadways does little to complement the adjacent restored Truckee River. It seems more than likely that the sports fields and extensive parking will detract from the restored river, be less attractive to the those wishing to see a restored river, and crowds of people at games could result in trash – however unintended – throughout the area.
There are already plans for 10 large soccer fields at Veterans Parkway and Pembroke Lane which allow for a more compact configuration and access for large gatherings and regional events. This land is also in the 100 year flood area, but would likely be much easier to design and protect than the proposed Sports Complex within the Truckee River’s 100 year floodway. While I understand that the Veterans Parkway-Pembroke Lane sports complex plan is funded for its final design with a $450,000 grant from the City of Reno, funding is not available for the estimated cost of $23 million for the project’s construction. Sports complexes are very expensive -both to build and maintain- and there are questions about how they can be funded.
The Club suggests that the main consideration should remain that the TMFMA flood project objective is to “minimize and mitigate” flood damages to the communities and the best way to do that is with a Nature Park to complement the restored Truckee River. We believe Nature Park Concept is more cost effective, has far fewer hardened surfaces, provides opportunities that are now missing in the Truckee Meadows, and has a wider benefit to its citizens. Finally, we believe that it would also be completely consistent with the original “living river” concept which was a design principal of the flood management project to begin with.
