County lifts Dangberg Reservoir caution

After the amount of water running into the Dangberg Reservoir slowed down and efforts to empty the East Valley pond brought the water level down.

The caution for the southernmost Dangberg pond was lifted on Wednesday morning after residents were alerted the reservoir might fail.

Buckeye Road was open on Monday morning after being closed the weekend as muddy flood water rushed over the road. But the closed signs remained at the ready should the county need to shut down the road again.

On Sunday, Douglas County cautioned residents living below the southernmost Dangberg pond along East Valley Road that it could overflow.

Backed up by a high hazard dam, the pond is about a half mile long and stretches along East Valley Road.

“The affected area includes less than 50 homes; however, the overflow could impact other property infrastructure in the area,” county officials said on Sunday afternoon. “To reduce the potential impacts, the county is currently working on mitigation efforts to lessen the impacts or prevent the overflow.”

A flood hotline will be disabled today at 5 p.m. due to a lack of call volume. Residents who wish to report non-emergency flood damage may still do so using the County's Damage Assessment Tool. This is a simple tool used by Douglas County to keep a log of the issues during an event so staff can utilize the data for future Capital Improvement Projects needs, or repairs in an effort to reduce damage during a future event.

R-C weather watcher Stan Kapler recorded 1.52 inches in Minden on Friday and .92 inches on Saturday.

Kapler has recorded 19.91 inches of precipitation in Minden since the water year began Oct. 1. Only a tenth of an inch could exceed 2017's calendar year total of 20 inches and could put 2023 in the record books as the wettest year since 1906.

East Valley resident Thor Teigen said the reservoir was full on Sunday, as was the overflow across the causeway.

“The county is out here trying to make a difference,” he said. “The levy is intact as of this moment.”

Teigen said he thought allowing water to flow into the now defunct Dangberg Reservoir to the north might be an alternative to expensive flood control measures.

Upstream from the reservoir, resident Cottonwood Creek Horse Boarding owner Barbara Flanagan said Sunday there was 2 feet of water on her property.

She said that a culvert under East Valley Road spills into her yard on Sanchez Road and backs up against the sides of the Allerman Canal.

She said past floods have required her to clear 18 inches of clay off her back pasture.

“The only conceivable way to solve this problem would be to reengineer the culvert so that it goes along East Valley and then turns into the reservoir or the canal after it goes past my property,” she said.

The Dangbergs built the reservoirs around the beginning of the 20th Century to provide irrigation water for their fields located in northeastern Carson Valley.

Residents living around the reservoir went to the Water Conveyance Committee in February.