For most of Nevada, heavy precipitation is a good thing. It means more water is available for cities, irrigators and wildlife. But for residents in Lemmon Valley, north of Reno, it has reignited concerns about water that remains trapped from flooding during a historic water year in 2017.

Their frustrations were aired during hours of testimony and discussion at a Washoe County Commission meeting on Tuesday about a long-term fix for the county’s most prominent water issue. The commission also contemplated what to do about a sewage plant that sits in the corner of Swan Lake, where winter runoff collects in Lemmon Valley. Because the lake has no outlets, it is extremely difficult to remove water once it enters the valley and fills the lake.

In 2017, so much water inundated the lake that its elevation rose to its highest level since 1984, flooding several homes, a church and blocking access to homes for other residents. With water lost to evaporation, the elevation of the lake fell last summer.

But in December, the lake started rising again. This spring, it surpassed the high water mark from 2017, and the Washoe County School District fenced off part of a playground at a local elementary school where water filled a basketball court and baseball field, the Reno Gazette Journal reported. Even before the lake started filling again, residents of the roughly 5,000  person community eight miles north of Reno, expressed concerns about the stagnant water, urging the county and city of Reno to do more with new homes slated to come into the area.

On Tuesday, the County Commission heard a presentation from staff about potential long-term fixes to removing the water from the lake. So far, the short-term focus has been on containing the lake with temporary barriers to prevent rising water from entering homes. The question that county staff asked the commissioners on Tuesday was what a long-term fix should look like.

In a briefing memo, county staff said the current barriers were satisfactory for a two-foot rise in water, or about 2,400 acre-feet (an acre-foot is the amount of water that can fill one acre of land to a depth of one foot).

“However,” the memo said, “based on the above normal precipitation and rise in water levels this winter, a policy discussion needs to occur before staff can prepare requested projects to solve the rising water levels and continue to protect existing residences and businesses.”

Assistant County Manager Dave Solaro presented more than a dozen project concepts he had heard from engineers and residents over the past two years. The options varied widely. Some of the ideas Solaro’s team analyzed were as customary as raising a roadway to block water or to back homes. Another proposal was to build a reservoir. Others were more audacious. Those ideas looked at renting large-scale mechanical evaporators or trucking water out of the basin.

All of them were a testament to how much physical energy is required to move water. The report found that it would take more than two years to remove a marginal one-foot of water from the lake using twelve 1,200-gallon water trucks hauling 24 hours a day at a haul time of 20 minutes.

Solaro said he wanted clarification from the board about what their goal was in dealing with the lake, noting that the potential path forward would probably include a mix of mitigation projects.

Commissioner Kitty Jung said she wanted more information about how much the projects would cost. She asked for “black-and-white data” about how much had already been spent.But at the end of the day, she said that the county did not have unlimited resources to spend.

“Nobody has money,” Jung said. “That’s the bottom line. I know everybody feels great and it feels like the economy is booming. [But] our projections are not beautiful for the next five years.”

Washoe County plans to pursue funding from the Federal Emergency Management Program.

Whether the county decides to raise the road or construct a reservoir, the general consensus among the commission was that the goal should be to manage Swan Lake levels so water did not spill over into homes or businesses in the growing valley. The board asked staff to come up with a plan that contained the water and to brief the commission at a future meeting.

But residents, in public comment, said the county should go further and halt new development.

With more than 2,000 homes tentatively approved for the area, residents worry that population could rapidly grow, damaging the character of the area and bringing with it new flood risks. At the meeting, Lemmon Valley resident Danny Cleous was one of the residents supporting a ban.

He said “there needs to be a moratorium” to create a permanent plan.

Cleous has a class-action lawsuit against the city of Reno, which controls the main road in Lemmon Valley. The lawsuit alleges that the city failed to follow a 2007 study recommending flood mitigation infrastructure, the subject of a story in the Reno Gazette Journal last year.

The newspaper reported last month that the case could go to trial in June.

The commission also voted on Tuesday to approve emergency funds for upgrades to an access road for a sewage plant that sits on Swan Lake. Staff argued that the funds, which also cover other improvements, were necessary to deal with lake levels as they began rising this year.

Washoe County operates the sewage plant under a state environmental permit and treats the water. The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, which samples the effluent flowing to the lake each month, said there are “no public health issues related to bacteria levels in the lake.” Washoe County staff has also argued that the water is treated and closely monitored.

Yet there remains a gaping divide between that and how the residents see the lake. Residents have long expressed frustration about the discharge of effluent, especially as water levels have risen, including at Tuesday’s meeting. County staff said they plan to brief the commission again on the future of the plant, as some commissioners asked about how to better use the effluent.

“We are trying to develop alternatives to try and help us manage it in a different way,” said Dwayne Smith, who directs the county’s division for engineering and capital projects.