The nomination period is open for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s 2011 Best in the Basin awards program, which annually recognizes environmentally compatible projects in the Tahoe basin that stand out as the best designed, planned and implemented.

The Best in the Basin program calls attention to projects of all categories – from natural restoration to commercial or residential construction – that carry with them environmental net gains for Lake Tahoe and its communities.

For more than two decades, the Best in the Basin program has recognized those property owners, contractors, architects and planners whose work and investment should be held up as examples to follow.

The nomination period ends Oct. 21.

Categories are:

* new residential

* residential modification

* rebuild projects

* new commercial

* commercial modification

* commercial rebuild

* shorezone

* green building

* public service

* erosion control

* restoration

* BMP retrofit

* defensible space

* forest fuel reduction

* mixed-use project

* green remodel.

To qualify, projects must have been completed or near completion in the 2011 calendar year and before the close of the nomination period. For an entry form and information about last year’s winners, go online.

Those selected to receive awards will be publicly honored by the TRPA Governing Board in January.