Historic parcel bought for flood control

RENO - A 22-acre parcel in east Reno perhaps best known for its annual pumpkin patch will remain in agricultural use and aid flood control along the Truckee River.

The Ferrari Ranch off Mill Street was acquired last week by the Truckee River Flood Project in a $5.3 million deal.

It will be part of the Truckee River parkway, designed to ease flood damage by managing the river in a natural way, officials said.

Purchase of the Ferrari Ranch follows Washoe County's recent acquisition of other agricultural land in the same area.

In 2004, the 26-acre East Steele Ranch was purchased for $6.5 million. Last May, 55 acres owned by the University of Nevada, Reno was bought for $13.2 million.

"Each of these parcels along the river are pretty key to the overall flood-control strategy," said Naomi Duerr, flood project manager.

"This 22-acre parcel is an integral part of the river parkway and essential to the flood project."

Under a lease agreement, the land will continue to be farmed by the Ferrari family for the next decade.

And that, officials said, means the popular Ferrari Farm Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch, visited by thousands of children every fall, can also continue.

"The Ferrari family has worked this land for almost a century. My dad used to cultivate these fields with a horse-drawn plow back in the '40s," said Frank Ferrari Jr.

The family is glad the land can benefit the community through the flood project, as well as provide increasingly rare open space and wildlife habitat, Ferrari said.

The ranch and other land acquired for the flood project will be terraced and benched along the riverbank, a change that will allow floodwaters to spread and slow naturally during a flood.

That's a central component of the "living river" flood-control approach designed to avoid floods of the type that inundated much of the Truckee Meadows in January 1997 and to a lesser degree, New Year's Eve in 2005.

The $800 million project is envisioned to accomplish that goal without heavy reliance on levees and concrete flood walls.