Opinion: Olympians prove Tahoe is recreation oasis
By Joanne Marchetta
The roster of U.S. Olympic athletes competing in Sochi this year is testament to the Tahoe region’s reputation as an outdoor Mecca for mountain athletes. More than a dozen of our nation’s competitors at the Games hail from the Tahoe area and our communities couldn’t be more proud of these young athletes.
Lake Tahoe’s natural attributes make it an incredible place to live, work and play and we are hearing more and more that communities want recreation and the outdoor lifestyle to play a larger role here.
Joanne Marchetta
The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the Olympics are connected historically. Following the 1960 Winter Games at Squaw Valley an uncontrolled development boom ensued that spurred TRPA’s creation in 1969. Over the last 45 years, TRPA has evolved and since the update of the Regional Plan in 2012, the agency is embracing its leadership role in sustaining Tahoe as an outdoor legend.
Our updated priorities include raising TRPA’s focus back to the regional level that was originally envisioned when California and Nevada created the bi-state agency. The area plan framework of the Regional Plan encourages local governments to take on more responsibility for planning, environmental improvement, and project permitting, which streamlines the permit process for property owners while enabling TRPA to focus on issues that affect the entire Basin and build the partnerships to address them.
As conditions change in the Tahoe basin such as prolonged drought or less snowfall over time, how we connect people to recreation opportunities has regional importance to our $5 billion regional economy as well as our quality of life. Many of our Olympians could testify to both. They and their families had to support themselves while reaching for their Olympic dreams. The reality is that many families struggle to stay here and with a regional economy that is based on tourism, recreation improvements can bolster our economy while making Lake Tahoe an even better place to earn a living and raise a family.
Topping the regional list for needed recreation improvements is completion of a bikeway around the lake. Many key segments of this trail have been in use for years and TRPA has prioritized completing connections and seeing this project through. We share this goal with many partner agencies and the collaborative efforts are bringing forward new sections through Homewood, between Incline Village and Sand Harbor, and from Van Sickle Bi-State Park in Stateline to Roundhill Pines Beach in Nevada. Bike trails deliver air and water quality improvements while resulting in millions of dollars of economic activity to our local economy.
The southern anchor of the Stateline-to-Stateline Bikeway near Nevada Beach is already proving to be an amazing sample of the basin’s transition from gaming to outdoor recreation. People now can bike through the forest to one of several marquee beaches, or hike to the Tahoe Rim Trail right from the largest hotel base on South Shore without once getting in a car. Continuing to plan for and implement these types of improvements will help reduce driving and congestion, enhance our quality of life, and make Tahoe more competitive among mountain resorts.
Other than improving connections between people and recreation, in the coming year TRPA is focusing on basinwide sustainability initiatives, transportation improvements in key corridors, finding a stable source of funding for the Environmental Improvement Program, and supporting forest fuel reduction and defensible space efforts in one of the driest years on record. Also, regional partnerships are critically important this year for the lake. Already we are preparing for the possibility of drought conditions in the shorezone, making strides in aquatic invasive species protection, working with scientists on near shore-shoreline clarity and algae growth, and helping improve systems to monitor environmental quality as well as social and economic issues.
As a region and as individual communities mapping out their unique destinies, Lake Tahoe is on a path of positive progress. As we welcome home the many Tahoe Olympians who represented the U.S. in this Winter Games, let’s remember that we owe it to future Olympians to continue protecting our mountain lifestyle, improving our fragile environment, and preparing for a changing landscape.
Joanne Marchetta is executive director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
Self promotion is never becoming. Here is the best example I’ve ever seen in my life ! She’s really out done herself this time.
Success happens here DESPITE the TRPA, not because of the TRPA, IMHO.
“…Other than improving connections between people and recreation,…”
“…Lake Tahoe’s natural attributes make it an incredible place to live, work and play and we are hearing more and more that communities want recreation and the outdoor lifestyle to play a larger role here…”
Then why are these bureaucrats trying to limit, and reduce, the number of boats (including sailboats) on the lake with stricter dock and pier restrictions?
Talk about backwards. TRPA’s Plan promotes high-end luxury hotels, high-density buildings, and an overall view-blocking overbuilt Lake Tahoe for our future, with unaffordable ski passes, crowded roads, and an overflow of part-time minimum wage seasonal resort jobs. I wonder if our Olympic athletes would have been able to afford to grow up skiing and boarding here if what TRPA now promotes had been in place while they were growing up.
“we owe it to future Olympians to continue protecting our mountain lifestyle, improving our fragile environment, and preparing for a changing landscape.”
If this is how TRPA feels, then why is TRPA imposing a Plan that doesn’t support our local outdoor lifestyle (but rather, supports outdoor tourism where it is profitable, at least). Why is TRPA pushing to allow a massive 4-story structure in Meyers that most of the community doesn’t want? Why did TRPA and other agencies like the CTC “re-vision” the Community Vision that local community members had created for Kings Beach after months of hard work?
If you dont like what the reality is here than find somewhere else to go and whine. Lets see, lake arrowhead in so. Calif is a good example of what to not become. Really, whine all the time about how protecting our lake is wrong or not good for this community. It may not be about the boaters or about making a buck off every person that sets foot in the basin. I personally am glad that despite the whiners and haters the protections for lake tahoe are still in place and that the lake isnt turning into a giant polluted mud hole. Wahhhhhhh….
Ok. Who “exactly” was in charge of keeping Lake Tahoe clear and clean before the TRPA? The Chamber? City? Counties? States? People that had sewage pumped directly into the lake? People that had homes with septic tanks next to the lake? People that built right on the lake and blasted rocks and dirt into the lake? The Tahoe Keys famous Dillingham Construction company? Sure.
Ronald Reagan created the TRPA because everyone went into a panic after watching the lake loose 40 FEET OF CLARITY in a 10 year span. Is the TRPA perfect, of course not, no person or entity is. But, what “good ‘ol days” were there to begin with for Lake Tahoe once it was discovered by Fremont and the clear-cutting started?
And I absolutely agree that Lake Tahoe can be a world class training ground for Olympic Athletes that can directly compete with Utah and New York.
I am in favor of protecting the lake. However I am also totally aware of the fact that making this a recreational mecca (which it already is for Christ’s sake) is primarily going to attract the younger generations, who do the hiking, biking, skiing, but are among the lower income people in our screwed up economy, and going to leave the older generations out in the cold. Those whose age limits their wish to hike the Rim Trail, pump a mountain bike, ride a zip line etc (and who, by the way, have tons more discretionary income). these guys are going to keep taking cruises to warm places.
TRPA is totally in favor of mega projects which generate mega permit fees, because they need the money to pay their salaries and expenses.
But ultimately, since our entire economic and social system is based on continued growth which is truly impossible given the finite resources on the earth, the mega projects will fail due to lack of participation in the Tahoe area.
You can’t convince me that building out Meyers with 4 story buildings dedicated to training mountain athletes and a parking garage where people check in their cars for Blue go is going to be a godsend to the economy or save the lake.
I see Tahoe going the way of Glacier National Park.
I don’t have a time table, but…
The big hotels will fail (we are already seeing this), the ski areas will fail (we are seeing the beginnings of this and zip line canopy tours and super expensive hotels will not save them)
There will be a number of die hard skiers who will come.
Probably by then, Kirkwood will be the only place with snow dependable enough to attract skiers.
The lake will benefit in clarity due to the lack of activity around it, and hopefully with the problem solved TRPA will be closed.
Tahoe will be what it was in the beginning; a place for summer recreation with a small permanent population and a lot of second homes. The highways will remain open but less dependably. Remember, in the beginning there was a train that came here, and year-round boat transportation on the lake. A slower, less polluting time.
History repeats itself.
One comments complains that there are too many restrictions (buoys and piers)
Another comment complains that are too few (buildings allowed to be too high, roads too crowded)
Yep. That’s Tahoe to a T.
This is a setup for the Meyers Catalyst project to move forward. Getting all the PR ducks in a row.
Observer. I hate to clue you into current events. But, Lake Tahoe already has “mega projects” and mega developments all around the lake. We also have two major highways north and south. This is a little different then Glacier National Park.
Prior to the TRPA nobody cared about the Lake’s clarity except those “pin head” Scientist that were warning everyone for years.
Thankfully, for now, Lake Tahoe Clarity seems to have stabilized. It has taken a lot of hard work from a lot of different sources and the work will continue.
The TRPA might disband when Lake Tahoe clarity has reached about 100 feet again. But, if that milestone is reached, I certainly hope they do not turn over the water clarity job to the same entities that watched the destruction of Lake Tahoe and did absolutely NOTHING to stop it.
Arod. If you don’t like the Catalyst Project why hasn’t anyone in Meyers come up with their own plan(s) for improvements? It is easy to do nothing and criticize. Everyone in Tahoe has seen the improvements at Little Norway, Exxon Gas Station, Wedding Chapel, Storage/junk yards etc. Or, do you just want plans made for anywhere except Meyers?
We’ll have to wait and see if our local Olympians come home cheering “Thanks to TRPA WE WON” !!!