Humboldt River
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The Humboldt River is the longest river in the northern and central part of Nevada.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It extends in a general east-to-west direction from its headwaters in northern Nevada's Jarbidge, Independence, and Ruby Mountains in Elko County to its terminus in the Humboldt Sink, approximately Template:Convert away in northwest Churchill County.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite report</ref>
Most estimates put the Humboldt River at Template:Convert long; however, due to the extensive meandering nature of the river, its length may be more closely estimated at Template:Convert.<ref name=":0" />
The Humboldt is the third-longest river within the Great Basin watershed, behind the Bear River at Template:Convert and the Sevier River at Template:Convert. The Humboldt River Basin is the largest sub-basin of the Great Basin, encompassing an area of Template:Convert. It is the only major river system wholly contained within the state of Nevada.<ref name=":0" />
It is the only natural transportation artery across the Great Basin and has historically provided a route for westward migration. Additionally, two major railroad routes loosely follow its path. Interstate 80 follows the river's course from its source to its mouth.
The river was named by John C. Frémont for the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
HistoryEdit
The northern Nevada region where the river flows was sparsely inhabited by Numic-speaking people at the time of the arrival of European American settlers.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The region was little known by non-indigenous peoples until the arrival of fur trappers in the early 19th century.
The first recorded sighting of the river was on November 9, 1828 by Peter Skene Ogden of the Hudson's Bay Company during his fifth expedition to the Snake Country. Odgen came southward along the Little Humboldt, encountering the main river at the confluence near Winnemucca. Ogden explored the river for several hundred miles, blazing a trail along it and making the first known map of the region. He initially named the river "Unknown River," due to the source and course of the river still unknown to him, and later "Paul's River," after one of his trappers who died on the expedition and was buried on the river bank.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He later changed it again to "Mary's River," named after the Native American wife of one of his trappers, which later somehow became "St. Mary's River." However, in 1829 he suggested that "Swampy River" best described the course he had traversed.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1833 the Bonneville–Walker fur party explored the river, naming it "Barren River." Washington Irving's 1837 book describing the Bonneville expedition called it "Ogden's River," the name used by many early travelers. By the early 1840s, the trail along the river was being used by settlers going west to California. The river provided drinkable water to earlier travelers on foot, but later emigrants using wagons required the significant riparian vegetation along its length as forage for their draft animals.
In 1841, the river (then known as Mary's River) first became the route of the California Trail with the Bartleson–Bidwell Party, later becoming the primary land route for migrants to the California gold fields. In 1845 the river was explored by John C. Frémont, who made a thorough map of the region and gave the river its current name.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1869 the river was used as part of the route of the Central Pacific segment of the Transcontinental Railroad.<ref name="Nevada Historical Marker" /> In the 20th century, the valley of the river became the route for U.S. Route 40, later replaced by Interstate 80.<ref name=":0" /> In the latter part of the 20th century, about 45,000 people lived within Template:Convert of the river, roughly a third of Nevada's population outside of Western and Southern Nevada prior to the rapid population growth in Clark County.
Watershed and courseEdit
The Humboldt River can be divided geographically into the upper, middle, and lower divisions based on Palisade Canyon and Emigrant Canyon being the major constriction points along the Humboldt River Valley. The upper basin begins in northeastern Nevada and drains about Template:Convert upstream from Palisade. The middle basin has a drainage area of about Template:Convert and lies between Palisade and Emigrant Canyons, a narrow gap located just downstream from Comus. The lower basin is an area encompassing some Template:Convert from below Emigrant Canyon and extending through the Humboldt Sink in northwestern Nevada.<ref name=":0" />
A hydrologic definition instead divides the Humboldt River drainage into two basins—one above and one below Palisade—based on flows that increase above and decrease below this part of the river. The river in the upper basin is Template:Convert long, and in the lower basin it is Template:Convert long. The major tributaries of the upper Humboldt River basin are (heading downstream) Bishop Creek, Marys River,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Lamoille Creek, North Fork Humboldt River, South Fork Humboldt River, Susie Creek,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Maggie Creek,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Marys Creek; of the lower basin they are Pine Creek, Reese River, and the Little Humboldt River.<ref name=":0" />
The source of the main stem of the river is a spring called Humboldt Wells at the northern tip of the East Humboldt Range, just outside the city of Wells. The river flows west-southwest through Elko County, past the communities of Elko and Carlin. Approximately Template:Convert upstream from Elko, the river receives the North Fork of the Humboldt River and receives the South Fork approximately Template:Convert downstream of Elko.
In northern Eureka County, it passes through Palisade Canyon between the southern end of the Tuscarora Mountains and the north end of the Shoshone Range. At Battle Mountain, the river turns northwest for approximately Template:Convert, then west at Red House and past Golconda and a spur of the Sonoma Range. It merges with the Reese River near Battle Mountain and receives the Little Humboldt River approximately Template:Convert upstream from Winnemucca.
Past the junction with the Little Humboldt, the river turns southwest, flowing past Winnemucca and through Pershing County, along the western side of the Humboldt Range and the West Humboldt Range.<ref name=":0" /> In central Pershing County, the Rye Patch Dam impounds the river, forming the Rye Patch Reservoir, which stores water to irrigate farms near Lovelock, Template:Convert downstream.<ref>Template:Cite report</ref> The Humboldt empties into an intermittent lake in the Humboldt Sink on the border between Pershing and Churchill counties, approximately Template:Convert southwest of Lovelock.
The river gains most of its water from snowmelt in the mountains in the eastern part of the watershed, most importantly the Ruby Mountains, Jarbidge Mountains, and Independence Mountains. River flow generally decreases downstream to the west, partly due to water removal from the river for irrigation, especially near Lovelock. Stream-gauge measurements suggest that Palisade Canyon, between Carlin and Beowawe, is the point where the river's flow ceases to increase and begins to decrease. Also, since the Humboldt's water comes almost exclusively from snowmelt, its flow is highly variable from season to season (peak flow occurs during the spring melt) and from year to year (depending on the amount of snow every winter)<ref name="discharge">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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EcologyEdit
The Lahontan cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus henshawi) is an inland subspecies of cutthroat trout endemic to northern Nevada, eastern California, and southern Oregon. In 1970, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Lahontan cutthroat trout (LCT) as endangered. In 1975 it reclassified LCT as “threatened” to facilitate management and to allow regulated fishing. Genetic and meristic studies of LCT indicate that the Humboldt River Basin LCT is a unique subspecies: Humboldt cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus henshawi humboldtensis).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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North American beavers (Castor canadensis) seem to have been making a comeback in Elko County, possibly due to less fur trapping combined with reduced consumption of riparian willow and other vegetation by cattle. Maggie and Susie Creeks, which enter the Humboldt River near Carlin, have benefited from 20 years of work by ranchers, agencies, mines, and non-profit groups via improvements in grazing techniques and specific projects. A remote sensing project found 107 beaver dams along Template:Convert of Maggie Creek in 2006, which rose to 271 dams in 2010. Beaver dams are accelerating the recovery of riparian vegetation and widening the riparian zone as they slow the water and collect sediment that used to be lost downstream. In five years, beaver ponds have increased the amount of impounded water on Maggie Creek from Template:Convert of the stream to Template:Convert. The impounded water is seeping into the ground and raising the water table. Newmont's shallow groundwater monitoring wells along Maggie Creek have shown about a Template:Convert rise over the past 17 yearsTemplate:Which along Maggie Creek. Stream flows are more perennial, making more water available for wildlife and livestock and protecting populations of native trout.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Maggie Creek has a Beaver Creek tributary which flows from Beaver Peak in the Tuscarora Mountains.<ref>Template:GNIS</ref><ref>Template:Cite report</ref>
Environmental aspectsEdit
In 1942, the Nevada Legislature passed a law<ref>1945 Statues of Nevada, §18. United States Geological Survey Cooperative Underground Water Investigations-State Engineer. p. 483. (Note: Not the same as Nevada Revised Statutes).</ref> instructing the State Engineer to form a cooperative agreement with the United States Geological Survey to conduct ongoing water safety studies throughout the state and publish the results in a series called the Water Resources Bulletin.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The first covering the Humboldt was issued in 1962 (Bulletin 19).<ref>Template:Cite report</ref>
In 1985, USGS found elevated, but not unusual, contaminant concentrations in localized samples.<ref>Template:Cite report</ref>
Two studies led by USGS researchers, in 2002<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and 2003,<ref name=":1">Template:Cite journal</ref> examined mercury contamination originating from abandoned mines and both determining that mercury concentrations decreased sharply with increased distance from the former mining sites. The 2003 summarized its findings that "Water quality in even the worst cases is naturally attenuated to meet water-quality standards within about 1 km of the source. Only a few historical mines release acidic water with elevated metal concentrations to small streams that reach the Humboldt River, and these contaminants and are not detectable in the Humboldt."<ref name=":1" />
In 2007, USGS analyzed fish from the river's south fork and reported mercury concentrations ranging from 0.061 to 0.082 micrograms per gram of tissue, significantly below EPA guidelines of 0.30 micrograms per gram.<ref>Template:Cite report</ref>
In 2019, University of Nevada, Reno and USGS researchers analyzed samples collected along multiple points of river, concluded that concentrations of toxic elements, specifically arsenic—while consistently present throughout the sampled areas—did not reach levels posing severe environmental or public health risks and are the result of natural processes.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
- Wallace, A.R. et al. (2005). Metallic mineral resource assessment of the Humboldt River Basin, northern Nevada (USGS Fact Sheet 2005-3023]. Reno, NV: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey.
- Yager, D.B. and H.W. Folger. (2003). Map showing silver concentrations from stream sediments and soils throughout the Humboldt River Basin and surrounding areas, northern Nevada [U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2407-I]. Denver, CO: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey.