Opinion: Communication would help solve Tahoe’s problems
By Natasha Eulberg
As a native Californian with fond memories of happy summers spent in close proximity to Lake Tahoe, the idea that environmental regulations protecting the region I hold so dear are in danger of falling through is troubling. And yet that situation is very much a potential outcome of the court case regarding the regional management plan update for the Tahoe Regional Planning Compact.
Sierra Club and Friends of the West Shore vs. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency threatens to lead the Tahoe region into dangerous territory regarding perceptions of environment and land management. The case largely pits concerns over the legitimacy of environmental carrying capacity thresholds against opportunities for (re)development, community revitalization, and long-term environmental benefits. The Sierra Club and Friends of the West Shore (FOWS) officially filed the suit against the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency in February in response to TRPA’s approval of an update of the 1987 management plan for the region. While the concerns of the plaintiffs regarding TRPA’s decision to turn over responsibility for establishing and maintaining environmental standards to local governments and the worries of TRPA and development interest groups over the stagnation and dating of environmental regulations are both legitimate anxieties, these claims mask a larger problem that the case presents for the Tahoe region:
If regional maintenance of environmental regulation is forfeited now, we lose our best hope for a cohesive, holistic, and – most importantly – successful management strategy for Lake Tahoe in the future.
If responsibility for environmental protections is left in the hands of local governments and interest groups, “environment” will inevitably be compared to (and potentially lose out against) “development” and “economy.” What we need, rather than this contrast, is a forum where the goals, concerns, and potential benefits of both environmental and developmental interest groups can be discussed, analyzed, and ultimately integrated into a management plan that neither attempts to banish human presence from the Tahoe basin, nor abandons the local environment to human exploitation.
I feel that this lawsuit represents a golden opportunity to create just such a forum. Rather than delaying implementation of the possible benefits that the proposed 2012 Regional Plan update has to offer by sluggishly trudging through the legal gauntlet, discussion could mold those benefits into a new plan that simultaneously addresses the concerns of environmentalists and community members, creating a vision for a Tahoe that everyone has a stake in.
Litigation isn’t the answer to this problem; it’s a divisive strategy that determines a winner.
Communication, on the other hand, seems as though it has a lot of potential.
Natasha Eulberg is a senior at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. She is from Sacramento.
Just think Natasha, there might never have been a battle at Gettysburg if communication had prevented the Civil War. Unfortunately such is not the human condition when feelings run strong. You’ll soon learn that life lesson.
Supposedly there were zero year around residents of the basin before European decent people inhabited the area, doing the math should be a very simple communication. Next topic of communication, what are acceptable environmental compromises. How are we going to communicate that it might take a minimum of $10 billion to mitigate existing ecosystem damage to the watershed. This might be more $s that the total $s already spent.
Clearly this was written by someone who has no clue about the process TRPA implemented to create the new Regional Plan. There were THOUSANDS of hours of meetings with the Sierra Club and FOWS trying to achieve an RPU compromise. The enviro groups wouldn’t budge. Now a college senior is telling the community that invested years of their work into the RPU to start over and “communicate” more? What unbelievable hubris!
Yeah for the sierra club and other environmental groups that take on the status quo, otherwise we would have a polluted lake and an overgrown town. Endless pressure, endlessly applied has kept the tahoe basin a world class destination.
If TRPA wasn’t such a phony self-serving corrupt government agency purposely catering to large corporate resreational development for fees – there might be the possibility of a genuine collaborative effort to strike a balance between local economy and environmental protection for the lake.
This Fed agency needs to be stripped of some of its authority and funding. It can’t continue to be all about the money and corruption of huge recreational corporations dictating the future of this region and further attracting even more throngs of tourists for a cheap mountain vacation.
The 2012 RPU is a corrupt document with huge corporate projects quietly negotiatied with TRPA which many people aren’t aware of. These projects are most obviously so very detrimental to the protection of Lake Tahoe and the quality of lifestyles we have enjoyed here for many decades in this mountain community.
The “communication” has been clear ever since Lake Tahoe was “discovered” by Fremont… WE HAVE TO DEVELOP LAKE TAHOE TO SAVE IT! Clear Cut Tahoe Forests for Nevada mining? check. Develop housing right on the Lake? check. Cut in Ski Resorts? check. Build massive Casinos? check. Build massive highways? check. Drain and develop Upper Truckee Marsh (Tahoe Keys)? check. Watch lake clarity fall from 100+ feet to 60 feet? check. TRPA says to do it all over again? Check.