Pyramid Lake is the terminus for the Truckee River which begins high in the Sierra Nevada at Lake Tahoe. Water from the Truckee and Carson Rivers is used to irrigate lands on the Newlands Project in the vicinity of Fallon, Nevada. The Newlands Project was originally known as the Truckee-Carson Project and was the first project authorized for construction by the then United States Reclamation Service, now the Bureau of Reclamation. The project was renamed the Newlands Project in honor of Francis Newlands, the author of the 1902 Reclamation Act and a staunch supporter of western reclamation.