Sky Vision examines the nation's largest horizontal fish passage at Derby Dam

Watch News 4-Fox 11's Sky Vision Drone Team examine the new Truckee River fish passage at Derby Dam east of Reno, NV. TheConstruction of the nation’s largest horizontal fish screen is completed at Derby Dam, supporting recovery of threatened Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. The Derby Dam Fish Screen helps the Bureau of Reclamation fulfill its mission to provide reliable water in an environmentally sound manner. This project restores watershed connectivity, supports fish movement along the Truckee River and promotes the recovery of the federally threatened Lahontan Cutthroat Trout, as well as agriculture, fishing and recreation in western Nevada.

This $34 million project was completed in just over one year. The screen provides access to important upstream rearing and spawning habitat for threatened Lahontan Cutthroat Trout for the first time since 1905.

The Derby Dam Fish Screen is the result of two decades of concentrated efforts by Reclamation working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lahontan National Fish Hatchery Complex and Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe to restore connectivity for the threatened Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. The fish, once thought to be extinct, can now successfully move from Pyramid Lake, past Derby Dam, for spawning.

Reclamation entered into a cooperative agreement with Farmers Conservation Alliance (FCA) to design, construct and commission a horizontal fish screen. The Fish Screen allows fish to safely pass around Derby Dam, accessing their historic habitat along much of the Truckee River.

The construction of Derby Dam, completed in 1905, was one of the first projects of the newly formed U.S. Reclamation Service (now Bureau of Reclamation) organized under the Reclamation Act of 1902. Today, Reclamation oversees infrastructure that delivers water to more than 31 million people and provides one out of five western farmers with irrigation water for 10 million acres of farmland.

Sky Vision operates in partnership with the Reno-Tahoe Auto Group.