Opinion: Explaining why Washoe Meadows State Park is being reheard
To the community,
Since the October meeting of California State Parks and Recreation Commission where the decision was unanimous to accept staff’s recommendations., the director of State Parks, Ruth Coleman, approved the Upper Truckee River Restoration and Golf Course Reconfiguration project. The approved project is the proposed Preferred Alternative described in the Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR): River Ecosystem Restoration with Reconfigured 18-hole Regulation Golf Course (Alternative 2 Slightly Modified). On Nov. 23, 2011, a lawsuit that objected to the procedure used to process the approvals for the proposed project was filed on the project.
The Parks and Recreation Commission will take the opportunity to reconsider the approved project at its January meeting. In light of the lawsuit, the commission wished to ensure that they have a process in place that will stand the test of a legal challenge in order to not delay what is the clear and proper choice for improving the environment of the park area and the lake. This is too important to the future of this area to not ensure it can proceed in a timely fashion.
All comments, letters, transcripts, and presentations from the October 2011 hearing will be incorporated and included by reference in this reconsideration. Although there is no need to re-present materials the commissioners already have received, the public is invited to attend the meeting and offer testimony if they so desire. A revised notice of determination (NOD) will be filed. The commission meeting will be at the next regularly scheduled meeting on Jan. 27, 2012, at 9am in the Community Room of the Brentwood Community Center, 35 Oak St., Brentwood.
Under statute, an agenda item must be heard within a radius of 100 miles of either Sacramento, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Bernardino, Eureka, Redding, Fresno, Ukiah, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, or Santa Barbara, whichever is closest to the project. In this case, since the project is in South Lake Tahoe, that city would be Sacramento, and Brentwood meets that requirement for the meeting location.
Cyndie Walck, California State Parks
Hmmm…interesting. It is always harder to do it over than to do it right the first time.
First, why is this an “Opinion” and not an official notification to the community…to fulfill legal obligations?
Second, why is the article published on Saturday, a day I believe has the least readership due to numbers of responses posted on previous articles?
Third, if there was not something to hide or be ashamed of, wouldn’t the meeting be held here in Lake Tahoe so the community members whose lives would be affected would be able to attend and make comment? Letters were summarily disregarded in the past process. Actually, so was any type of community feedback.
This must have been a very difficult “opinion” for Cindy Walck to write. It always is when one is trying to CYA.
Tired and disgusted with all this bureaucratic rhetoric.
Stop wasting our tax dollars on these junk projects.! The golf course is perfect as it is and the river is not an issue for the clarity of the lake. Why spend all this money, create all this controversy and piss off the public when the project is not even needed and a waste of our resources and time.?.. This makes zero sense… Cyndi., what are you and your staff doing? Is this all really necessary?
Please stop this madness. There is absolutely no good reason to undertake a project of this magnitude in the current economic situation. The very most that should be done is to reinforce the riverbanks at the weak points where the river turns. I understand that you environmental types are under the budget ax, but maybe the taxpayers should have some voice in how their money is spent. Stop the nonsense.
I just re-read this outrageous bureaucratic piece of literary nonsense and noticed where the meeting will be held, and the idiotic justification for the location of the meeting. How can you people sleep at night?
Cindy sleeps very well as she finds make work projects to keep herself on the government payroll with its fat salary and bennies and a gigantic retirement.
All this while using political science to shove this down the taxpayers throat.
Please stop with these unnecessary river realignment projects. Its bad enough that the projects are detrimental to lake clarity and the ecosystem. It’s bad enough that they are wasteing our tax dollars. But to disrupt a popular existing golf coarse for what, reduce the number of holes and blaze a smaller golf coarse into The forest is unjustified and moronic.
Saying something like this “Its bad enough that the projects are detrimental to lake clarity and the ecosystem.”
Without anything to back it up, actually is moronic.
All of the science says otherwise.
Robot, where is all the research? Here is mine, read it:
http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/partnerships/tahoescience/documents/final_rpts/P021Riparian_Ecosystem_Restoration_Framework_FINAL.pdf
No one has measured these projects to benefit water quality. Every measurement out there during and following these realignments shows an elevation in turbidity as a result of realignment.
Robot…, where is this science you speak of? Please inform us… The science shows this golf course reach could benefit from streambank stabilization. Simons work on mass failure frequency and the restoration effectiveness framework is pretty telling. The science does not support channel realignment and the TMDL shows that only 4% of the clarity loss is from streambank erosion. So what justifies channel realignment and declassifying land set aside for conservation.?
Here is some science on the topic that I found through other citizens who are frustrated with more of the same.
http://www.tahoepipeclub.com/Lake_Tahoe_Science.html
There isn’t any data in that document.
What page are you getting your conclusion from?
That report is an inventory of all restoration project work in tahoe, including trout creek. Trout creek has had ample time to recover from temporary construction disturbances. The results of the science on trout creek found that pre‐ and post‐ stream restoration particle flux to date on the Trout Creek restoration failed to measure water quality improvements as a result of restoration. There were other objectives which were not fulfilled. We know there are significant short term impacts to water quality from realignment, no one disputes that. But if they have been unable to measure long term benefits, what is the point? The responsibility rests with the project implementers to demonstrate that these realignment projects are meeting the funding objectives. They have been unable to do this. The burden of proof does not lie with the critics which point out that their own studies show the realignment projects are ineffective.
Robot…, where is this science you speak of? Please inform us… The science shows this golf course reach could benefit from streambank stabilization. Simons work on mass failure frequency and the restoration effectiveness framework is pretty telling. The science does not support channel realignment and the TMDL shows that only 4% of the clarity loss is from streambank erosion. So what justifies channel realignment and declassifying land set aside for conservation.?
http://www.tiims.org/getattachment/a1d772bb-0670-48ae-8828-1d39b37c239f/Lake-Tahoe-Basin-Framework-Implementation-Study—.aspx?disposition=attachment
I don’t see that anywhere in the document.
Are you referring to this?
“One year pre]project and two years of post]project water quality monitoring using continuous turbidity probes
yielded inconclusive results that were likely due in part to the inability of the monitoring duration to properly
constrain the natural variability of hydrologic and water quality parameters and teh inherent complexity in
measuring a distinct annual pollutant load reduction signal (Smolen et al 2002, Smolen 2004).”
I want to learn more, where is your information coming from?
That quote was from p8.6 and the discussion continues on p8.7. The conclusion is not that turbidity got worse.
Is this conclusion from another source?
This study concludes that there were significant ecological gains in the Trout Creek project, primarily in depth to groundwater.
http://environment.yale.edu/kotchen/pubs/stream.pdf
Also, there is no “proof” in science.
Hi Robot, So we need more science that gives us less proof?
Trout creek is going to require perpetual maintenance which appears opposite to establishing what stream folks term equilibrium. Simons TMDL work demonstrated that streams in the basin are decreasing in sediment. The TMDL also demonstrated that the best improvement to clarity will come from urban runoff reduction. This trout creek project is not only a maintenance issue but also left a bad taste in local residents mouths. Agencies have yet still to complete the project and are now constantly managing beavers. That project was a nightmare and there is still plenty of erosion. Stop bringing backhoes into meadows and if so don’t require me to install bmps that reduce a couple pounds while you spend years driving heavy equipment in sensitive areas while importing dirt and playing god with an already healing system. Fix the banks and walk away… Everything else is a waste of time.
Here is another paper on trout creek, many of these conclusions were presented at last years tahoe science conference.
http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb6/water_issues/programs/swamp/docs/herbst_troutcreek092009.pdf
In the conclusions section you will find
“The revisitation of aquatic invertebrate community recovery at the Trout Creek restoration project suggests that composite indicators of diversity and size structure of the instream community have declined from the initial post-restoration gains. This finding suggests that improvements in stream health that were documented shortly after completion of the project are both diminished and in flux”
also
“…….the available data indicate that the efforts to date have not yet restored a healthy stream environment…”
There are projects that have measured benefits to the ecology and water quality, however these realignment projects do not fit in that category yet. Until they are measured to be effective, I and others will not support them. And as long as funding is going to ineffective projects, effective actions could be underfunded.
These projects make a hypothesis that they will improve the ecology and water quality. All I ask is to demonstrate through measurements that the money is achieving the objectives. From what I have seen the measurements do not support their hypothesis. We can agree to disagree I think these projects are wasting our lake clarity funds on what does not matter. By doing so we are neglecting the urban watershed, still.
Its hard to understand why I need BMPs on my property yet other agencies can import thousand of yards of dirt into stream zones and not even be required to stabilize it before they introduce water. These are not water quality projects… These projects are a waste of all our time and money. Aren’t there other things we can spend huge dollars on? Robot appears to be defending a failure. Did anyone else see the truckee during the rain event this last fall? It’s gonna take 50 years to get back to where it was prior to disturbance. How does that fit into a clarity challenge? Stay out of the rivers!
My goodness Chuck, those quotes are far from conclusive. Why? The words ‘flux’ and ‘yet’.
And this part: “This finding suggests that improvements in stream health that were documented shortly after completion of the project are both diminished and in flux”
The key phrase: ‘shortly after completion’
How does this back up your claim that it has been long enough and we should know? It doesn’t support your point of view at all. I can’t believe you think that they do.
So you want to make the claim that the health of the Trout Creek ecosystem has not increased?
OK, well what do you say about the decrease in depth to groundwater? That is a good thing, and everything in the system is better off.
You also claim it has been long enough that we should know… 10 years? A system that evolved over millions of years and was impacted over many decades… you expect it to rebound in 10 years? That is preposterous.
Do you want to try again, or are you just going to deny and not engage in the discussion that is a part of skepticism?
I don’t know why everyone seems to think that the project is all about BMPs. Think bigger picture. ***It isn’t just about the water in the lake***. You are the people who are making it only about the water, the clarity is ust one indicator of the environmental quality in the Tahoe Basin. It is about forests, and meadows. Meadows, by the way, are the most important and threatened ecosystem in The West. Complaining about BMPs and urban runoff as a comment to a meadow restoration project is out of place to say the least. You just want to complain about something and making a nice straw man to beat on by harping on only clarity.
“Hi Robot, So we need more science that gives us less proof?”
*DOES NOT COMPUTE*
*ILLOGICAL STATEMENT*
*ILLOGICAL STATEMENT*
That is a statement of scientific illiteracy.
The meadows are fine… Leave them alone… Robot, pseudo scientist like yourself are the reason this water quality program has failed to such extremes… Stay out of the meadows…. They do not need our help.
Like i said, The burden of proof rests with those spending millions of our tax dollars on realignment in the name of water quality and ecological benefits. Where is the science? Some aspects of these projects made sense in regions that were already modified or channelized. In spite of limited science, these projects can make some sence to make the channel look right? Such as lake Christopher at cold creek, portions of trout and the airport reach of the utr. I don’t see much science that these projects are any better for water quality or say macron vertebra, higher groundwater sure that us beneficial. But at least these were modified reaches.
Time will tell if it’s better to realign say the sunset reach and make it look like the airport reach. You have seen the airport moonscape right? It’s gonna be better than the rock lined old channel eventually. But to expect the new utr moonscape is an improvement on the natural sunset reach channels that were never modified, well that does not compute.
We are not getting anywhere with this effort to restore meadows relative to what was impacted by urbanization as long as we are not restoring sez regions that matter like the keys and the roads and subdivisions which were built. We already got the low hanging fruit for restoration, now they want to restore regions that don’t need restoration . Understood that you will nit be persuaded by this, but also understand i am not by yours either. It dies occupy the time though to discuss but I do think it’s about the lake. If nit for the lake there would be far less interest in the area
This is not about the river or the lake, but about taking park lands from the people to hand to a private developer for golf course expansion. Otherwise, the State Parks would restore the river without cutting down all the trees and expanding far into the reach of the park. They are rehearing the project because they messed up and they know it. I find it interesting that she had to detail that the meeting meets the requirement of being within 100 miles of Sacramento… in fact they have purposefully moved the meeting FURTHER away from the people who most want to go and it is now 171 miles from Tahoe. They could have had it within 100 of Sacramento and had it anywhere in town if they wanted (only 87 miles from Sac). They clearly do NOT want any input from the residents of the Tahoe Basin. This is state govt at its worst.
Reread the article and have one question.. Cindy you say, “In light of the lawsuit, the commission wished to ensure that they have a process in place that will stand the test of a legal challenge in order to not delay what is the clear and proper choice for improving the environment of the park area and the lake.” Since when does expanding a golf course have ANYTHING to do with “improving the environment”!!
if you ever went down the Truckee River and checked out the Golf Balls, and then on a calm day floated out in front of CowPie Beach you could follow the Golf Balls all the way to the Blue line
The only benfit of this project will be the elimination of the Golf Balls
As far as the health of the Truckee and Trout Creek, I fish them every summer, the fish are big and there are plenty of them.
Wow, I am not impressed with the knowledge of this project from these comments.
Have you considered all of the facts.
This project was approved for the reasons that it benefits everyone involved, except for those that want to keep the park to themselves. The reasons tax dollars are being wasted now, is a lawsuit based on a technicality in Sacramento.There is plenty of room for everyone.
It is a beautiful park and last I heard parks is going to keep it that way.
With all due respect Mary… The golf course will RESTRICT the use of the land to one sport and paying “guests” only. At present it is used by hikers, bikers, horses, snowshoers and cross country skiers, just to name a few. I have no interest in keeping the park to myself and would love to see the state place signs as to the entrances (something they have only done for the golf course so far) and encourage its use by all Californians. This park is a gem and I love to see people using it. It makes me sad that the state wants to give it to a developer from out of the area to cut down over 2,000 trees and restrict citizens from using the land.