I. Washoe County Place, People
Geography and climate Washoe County covers 6,540 square miles of urban and rural land. Anyone who has been lucky enough to explore all of Washoe County knows that it extends north to the Oregon border. On the west, it shares a border with California. The southeast part of the County hugs the northeast shores of Lake Tahoe and meets the Sierra Nevada Mountain range. The terrain varies from desert valleys to alpine forests with elevations ranging from 3,900 feet to 10,000 ft. Two tribal reservations exist within the County, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation (475,000 acres around Pyramid Lake) and the Reno Spark Indian Colony (15,263 acres in Hungry Valley, and 28 acres in central west Reno). For more detailed County maps, see Appendix 3. Most people, infrastructure, and GHG emissions are found in the “Great Basin” region in the south part of the county, specifically, the Reno-Sparks metropolitan area.
Figure 1: Washoe County (yellow)
People Nearly half a million people live in Washoe County, with 260,000 people in Reno, and 108,000 people in Sparks, Washoe County’s two largest urban areas. Almost 132,000 people live in Unincorporated areas of Washoe County. The racial and ethnic demographics of the County are diverse, with residents who self-report as white alone (60%), Hispanic or Latino (26%), Asian alone (6%), Black or African American alone (3%), American Indian and Alaska Native alone (2.3%), Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander alone (1%), two or more races (4%).
Figure 2. In southern Washoe County, unincorporated County (orange) surrounds the cities of Reno (pink) and Sparks (green).
What we hear from the community In conversation with community members, we hear that top climate-related concerns in our region include cost of living, heat, air quality, and fire risk. Appendix 5 shows impact data and quotes from our Survey, including the following:
“We are retired and are so thankful that we no longer have to go out when the AQI is high or when it's very hot on a daily basis in order to make a living. We have added MRV13 air filters and a heat pump to our HVAC system so that we can better filter out smoke and keep our house cool enough when it gets very hot. I grew up in Reno and never remember having the high AQI days we had in 2022 when California's fires were so bad.”
“I find myself restricted to being indoors on days where there is poor air quality. I commonly check the AQI to see how healthy the air is before going out. High AQI reports have led me to cancel plans to attend events to stay indoors instead.”
“Air quality is super important to my family and a determinate on whether we will continue to live in Washoe.”
Climate action can address these concerns, and it can be restorative. Examples of approaching climate action from an Environmental Justice perspective are:
- Inclusive public outreach and community-guided project planning;
- Prioritizing vulnerable communities when delivering County services, like expanded tree cover; and/or
- Avoiding actions that can cause harm, like adding more vehicle traffic to neighborhoods that already suffer from poor air quality.
Implementing the CAP to achieve climate equity We also recognize that vulnerable communities often experience the biggest negative impacts of climate change, but these communities are usually not responsible for the large amounts of GHG emissions that cause climate change. For this reason, actions in our CAP are focused on encouraging large organizations and industries in our region to reduce their emissions as quickly as possible. We also prioritize initiatives that can provide relief and direct benefits to vulnerable populations such as increased tree cover, cost savings on energy, or cleaner transportation options that make our roads safer and that pollute less.
Focus communities in our region Some of the populations in Washoe County who particularly want to support include:
Children Nearly 25% of the population, or about 125,000 people, in Washoe County are children younger than 18 years old. Children are more susceptible to heat and poor air quality. Further, children are not responsible for the decisions, made over decades, that have caused climate change, urban heat, and air pollution, but they will inherit the consequences of climate change for the rest of their lifetimes.
Seniors Senior citizens make up 16% of the population of Washoe County, about 80,000 people. Seniors are more vulnerable to heat and air quality problems. Of these, 11.4% of Seniors in Washoe County, about 8,000 people live below the poverty level.
Low-income families According to the Nevada Tomorrow Foundation, 10.9% of people live below the poverty level in Washoe County, or about 55,000 people. 17.3% of households have severe housing problems (eg overcrowding, high housing costs, lack of kitchen, or lack of plumbing facilities). Income inequality is rising in Washoe County.
Figure 3: Truckee Meadows Tomorrow data shows income inequality raising in Washoe County since 2014. The Gini Index is used here, where 0 indicates perfect income equality (everyone receives the same income) and 1 shows complete inequality (one person has all the wealth in the region).
The cost of housing is also high. 52% of pre-tax income is needed to make a mortgage payment on a median-priced home. The percentage is 105% for low-income families. Nearly half (49.7%) of Washoe County renters spend 30% or more of their household income on rent.
Of five cost of living inputs (grocery, housing, utilities, healthcare, and transportation), the costs of groceries, housing and transportation are particularly high compared with a typical middle class family’s income (see Appendix 6). Low-income families can benefit from energy savings and reduced transportation costs. However, up-front financial investments, such as installing heat pumps or purchasing electric cars, may be out of reach.
Native residents Indigenous people have developed knowledge through centuries of interaction with the environment in Washoe County. Today, Washoe County’s Native Peoples are climate leaders as they maintain practices and policies designed to honor and protect the land, water, and wildlife of this region for future generations. According to the US Census Bureau’s 2023 population estimates, approximately 11,000 people in Washoe County self-identify as American Indian or Alaska Native alone. Members of several Tribes live in Washoe County, some on Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and Reno-Sparks Indian Colony (RSIC) tribal lands (see Appendix 3 for map). Washoe County recognizes our region’s rich Indigenous history, deep connections to these lands, and wisdom that can guide the future stewardship of this region.
Hispanic / Latino residents The Hispanic / Latino population makes up nearly 25% of the population of Washoe County, or about 100,000 people. This population is largely concentrated in a few zip codes: Lemmon Valley / Stead (86506), Sun Valley (89433), Sparks (89436, 89434), Hidden Valley (89502), and Pleasant Valley (89521). See Appendix 3 for map. According to the Latino Research Center at the University of Nevada, Reno, these zip codes experienced the highest rates of COVID-19, score highest on the community needs index, and, by way of community stories, are targets for gentrification. Gentrification can cause housing instability and increase costs for residents. See Appendix 1 for a full definition of gentrification.
Rural communities Rural areas in Washoe County are defined as the land stretching from the boundaries of the Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Authority’s Truckee Meadows Service Area across the remainder of Washoe County. See map in Appendix 3. Rural areas typically include ranches, agriculture, forestry, scattered residences and business or commercial services, and certain types of industrial and recreational uses not compatible with urban or suburban development. Approximately 30,000 people (6% of residents) live in rural Washoe County in towns like Gerlach and Empire. Rural residents have less access to services and often longer wait times when infrastructure like water or power connections fail. This CAP offers solutions that can help rural residents increase their resilience when impacted by natural disasters, power outages, or other service disruptions. As one example, learn more about the work Washoe County is doing with Gerlach to help it become climate-resilient.
Residents with respiratory conditions. The impacts of climate change can make existing health outcomes even worse for people with existing respiratory conditions. For example, in Reno, researchers reported a 17.7% increase in COVID-19 from August 16 – October 10, 2020 that was attributable to air pollution caused by wildfire smoke. Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires. Warming temperatures have contributed to a nearly doubling of the land area burned in the western U.S. over the past three decades. Washoe County is preparing for these trends to continue.
According to Nevada Tomorrow data, 6.9% of adults in Washoe County have COPD and 9.8% have asthma. In the County’s summer 2024 Clean Air survey, respondents who reported having a family member in their home with a respiratory disease (184 people, 44% of respondents), rated climate action “very important” or “somewhat important” at a higher rate than the 235 people (56% of respondents) who did not report having a household member impacted by respiratory disease. Only 66% of people in this group said climate action was “very important” or “somewhat important.”
Of course, many people identify as belonging to two or more of the groups above, compounding their experience with the impacts of climate change. We acknowledge these intersecting identities and offer climate actions that support those who are severally impacted by climate change.
Evaluating Environmental Justice in our region
Using census and other public-health data, the Environmental Protection Agency has created an online Environmental Justice mapping tool, EJScreen. Washoe County uses this tool regularly to identify census tracts whose population are experiencing greater challenges with various environmental justice factors related to air quality, water pollution, risk of wildfire, extreme heat; health disparities such as asthma; and critical service gaps such as broadband gaps, lack of health insurance, housing burden, transportation access burden, and food deserts.
The mapping tool can be accessed via the EPAs website, and Appendix 7 has a summary of factors for Washoe County.
As one example of the mapping capabilities available, Figure 4 below shows the EJScreen map for Diesel Particulate Matter in urban Washoe County. The Diesel Particulate Matter (PM) Supplemental Index combines the environmental burden indicator for diesel PM with the supplemental demographic index (an average of five factors: % low-income, % persons with disabilities, % limited English speaking, % less than high school education, and low life expectancy) for each census block group.
The environmental burden indicator for diesel PM measures how much diesel PM (a mixture of particles from diesel exhaust) people might be exposed to in terms of micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3). EJScreen presents diesel PM concentrations using percentile rank, ranging from 0 (lowest) to 100 (highest).
Figure 4: EJScreen map showing census tracts with greater exposure to Diesel Particulate Matter in urban Washoe County. This is just one example of many maps showing relative exposure to environmental challenges on EJScreen.