Code of Federal Regulations Title 43. Public Lands:  Interior § 43.418.37 Disincentives for lower efficiency

(a) If the District fails to meet the efficiencies established by this part, then, in effect, the District has borrowed from a subsequent year. The amount borrowed will be accounted for in the form of a deficit in Lahontan Reservoir storage. This deficit amount will be added to the actual Lahontan Reservoir storage quantity for the purpose of determining the Truckee River diversions to meet storage objectives as well as all other operating decisions.

(b) The amount of the deficit will be cumulative from year to year but will not be allowed to exceed 26,000 acre-feet (the expected variance between the MAD and actual water use). This limit is expected to avoid increasing the severity of drought and yet still allow for variations in efficiency over time due to weather and other factors. This approach should allow the District to plan its operation to correct for any deficiencies.

(c) The deficit can be reduced by crediting incentive water earned by the District or reducing the percentage of headgate entitlement delivered either through a natural drought or by the District and its water users administratively limiting deliveries while maintaining an efficiency greater than or equal to the target efficiency.

(d) If there is a natural drought and the shortage to the headgates is equal to or greater than the deficit, then the deficit is reduced to zero. If the shortage to headgates is less than the deficit then the deficit is reduced by an amount equal to the headgate shortage. During a natural drought, if the percentage of maximum headgate entitlement delivered is 75 percent or more then the District will be subject to the target efficiencies and resultant deficits or credits.

(e) If the District has a deficit in Lahontan Reservoir and earns incentive water, the incentive water must be used to eliminate the deficit before it can be used for any other purpose. The deficit must be credited on a 1 to 1 basis (i.e., actual efficiency savings rather than 1/3 - 2/3 for incentive water).

(f) An example of the penalty concept is:

Example:  Penalty—

In 1996 the District delivers 90 percent of the maximum headgate entitlement or 194,703 acre-feet 216,337 x .90) but actually diverts 308,000 acre-feet. The efficiency of the Project is 63.2 percent (194,703 divided by 308,000). Since the established efficiency of 65.1 percent would have required a diversion of only 299,083 acre-feet (194,703 divided by .651) the District has operated the system with 8,917 acre-feet of excess losses. Therefore, 8,917 acre-feet was borrowed and must be added to the actual storage quantities of Lahontan Reservoir for calculating target storage levels and Truckee River diversions.