Opinion: TRPA’s leadership goes beyond the basin
By Joanne Marchetta
The environment of Lake Tahoe does not often turn on a dime. Environmental progress is measured in decades, not the nanoseconds of the digital age.
When the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and partner agencies started inspecting Lake Tahoe watercraft in 2008, all we knew was that we needed to protect our waters from the growing threats of aquatic invasive species. We took the necessary steps, but did not know then that the watercraft inspection program would one day help protect other water bodies as well. Five years later, Lake Tahoe aquatic invasive species experts are consulted across the Western states and are called to Washington, D.C., to help on the national level.
Joanne Marchetta
Lake Tahoe’s reputation as an environmental leader took an exciting turn last month. At a summit in Colorado, the water sports industry unveiled an aquatic invasive species boat filtration system developed in partnership with TRPA and other wildlife agencies. Spurred by the rise of watercraft inspection programs in the United States, a private company created a biologic filtration system, an innovation that can be installed in ballast bladders on many wake sport boats.
Leading aquatic invasive species researchers at UNR carried out extensive testing of the filter system in Lake Mead’s heavily infested waters. The system proved effective at keeping aquatic invasive species and their larvae out of ballast tanks, live-wells, and bait-wells. Its use, if it catches on, could save boaters wait-time and help keep the cost of the program down by eliminating the need to decontaminate most ballast systems at Tahoe.
The recent environmental innovation is already spurring change. The company has orders coming in rapidly from major boat manufacturers and dealerships. The result of collaboration will improve the efficiency of watercraft inspection programs here in Tahoe and across the country and could reduce the spread of invasive species to unprotected waters.
This is not the first time Lake Tahoe’s leading-edge policies catalyzed increased environmental protections beyond these shores. In 1999, when TRPA prohibited carbureted two-stroke watercraft engines in the Tahoe region, other water bodies, such as Donner Lake and San Pablo Reservoir, followed suit with similar regulation of the high-polluting engines. This was one instance where the environmental improvement to Tahoe was noticeable immediately. In the first year of the prohibition, a 70 percent drop in gas–related pollutants was measured lakewide. New federal EPA emissions standards for two-stroke engines came online in 2006 and most two-strokes are now cleaner burning, fuel injected engines.
The positive results of other Tahoe conservation programs that garner national and international attention are realized more slowly and doggedly. UC Davis last week released encouraging data from 2013 that shows the lake’s clarity is holding steady. After more than two decades of environmental guidelines and restoration projects, the decline of Lake clarity has halted and science is showing that with innovative strategies we can return Lake Tahoe to its historic depth of nearly 100 feet. Every year, planners from other countries visit Tahoe to take away lessons for harmonizing the natural with the man-made environment.
Tahoe is on a world stage environmentally for how we protect the urban and natural worlds for future generations. Few alpine lakes which claim such awe-inspiring beauty and pristine conditions also share the complexities of being a year-round vacation destination surrounded by diverse communities. Lake Tahoe is one of just three lakes on the West Coast designated an Outstanding National Resource Water and the only one outside the National Parks system with a mix of public and private property ringed by highways and a population in the tens of thousands.
These are among the reasons Tahoe’s environmental initiatives are so often used as models and drivers of environmental innovation. Our efforts to establish equilibrium between the human and natural environments provide both inspiration and instruction for communities grappling with similar issues. When we work to protect our shores, sometimes we are serving more than our beloved lake. We are setting an example of environmental stewardship for others far and wide.
Lake Tahoe communities are changing for the better and progress is coming from all sectors. As we strive to save the lake and improve our communities, it is important to recognize that we also carry the responsibility to share our innovations with others, which in turn pays dividends for Lake Tahoe.
Joanne Marchetta is executive director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
Joanne Marchetta, Is the plan for Meyers your new innovation also?
Be careful everyone, TRPA is going to start claiming credit for your kids graduating high school and college, for the next time you win on a lotto ticket or at the casinos, for bringing in future storms that we need desperately, and just about anything else they can think of.
The TRPA of today would never pass a jet ski ban. The TRPA of today caters to Edgewood and Vail. The TRPA of today imposes plans on communities they don’t want.
And finally, let’s look at the facts. The lake’s annual clarity is 5 feet less (worse) than last year. But TRPA’s press release announced things are getting better! If TRPA would use the money they seem to spend on all of this creative “look how great we are” press towards something like improving the Lake, we’d probably be seeing some actual improvements in the Lake (as opposed to press releases).
$167000.00 per year wow how do you support that kind of salary in a small little town for a do nothing job that we all hate
Are we all that stupid ?
More very, very expensive words with little actual content, IMHO.
Personally, I can’t wait to hear the bellowing from TRPA on how their lake protection efforts are really working come next year, after a winter when runoff is practically negligible.
They will claim credit for any lake clarity increase, which will probably be due to mother nature. i
observer: you should observe the long term data. And realize that you are full of poop.
looking at the long term annual averages, it doesn’t appear that clarity has recovered at all, here is a link going back to 1968
http://terc.ucdavis.edu/images/AnnualAvgSecchi_2013.png
I am curious what positive results joanne is referring to. At 1.7 billion spent so far with no clarity improvement, how long will it take before we adjust the program?
Yo Joanne your not doing Squat about the Green Stuff coming out of the Keys.
Gordon, if you use a polynomial trendline for clarity data, the trendline of the derivative is negative (decline in the rate of decline) and clarity is stabilizing since the mid 90s.
So there is clarity improvement.
Don’t trust the pipe club’s pseudoscience.
pescado, Your grasp of science is impressive plus you’re a Zappaphile…very interesting. I’m curious, what’s your take on the latest plan for Meyers and what are your thoughts on paid parking in the city of SLT? OLS
p.s. try not to pick on dogula. I don’t agree with her views either, quite opposite actually, but any woman who covers her young sprouting plants with an old flannel sheet … well, she’s alright in my book even if she is a libertarian.
Actually, Zappa is held in pretty high regard by most libertarians, myself included. Even though he was a Democrat, his politics were all over the map. Two interesting pages about his view on business, politics, and life:
http://hiphoplibertarians.blogspot.com/2012/12/was-frank-zappa-libertarian.html
and then this: http://the-libertarian.co.uk/frank-zappa-10-great-quotes/
. . . and they had a swimming pool . . .
Fish, I said clarity has not recovered and it hasn’t. Well unless you just consider the period of record published in the press release which only included data since 1997, the lowest annual average on record. A convenient starting point if one were making the case that clarity has recovered.
Assuming we are using the same second order polynomial based on annual averages dating back to 1968, the clarity for this model for 2013 was 70.4 feet. True this is half a foot better than the model represents as a historic low point in 2008. But considering clarity in 1968 was 102.4 feet, the model suggesting half a foot improvement is not reassuring to me particularly since the last several years have been so dry.
It’s going to take a long time to see who is right. If TRPA tactics are effective, time will tell. How much longer should we give them?
The settling rate for sediments in the lake is very slow. Expecting clarity to recover a even 10 feet in 50 years is unreasonable even under a scenario where all development was reversed.
The rate of decline has declined. That is progress.
Clarity was just the easy to understand concept used to promote conservation. The focus is holistic now, and has been for awhile. We are doing great things with the forests and should realize how lucky we are to have the resources allocated to our area.
In regards to Zappa, he also had some very harsh words for religion, the christian right, bigots, and everything about Reagan. You can’t really be a Zappa libertarian and advocate for your religious text to be anywhere near government. I really like Frank’s disdain for hippies, yuppies, and drugs. And I like his politics.
Thank OLS. I focus on science/mapping/programming, small town politics is not my thing and I don’t have much time for it, but since you asked:
The parking situation was executed terribly. We have an out of the basin company skimming from the ‘revenue’? That is almost immoral in my mind. I don’t know if paid parking should happen or not. It could make sense for the Harrison Ave area, which has a lot of commercial potential. I haven’t considered the pros and cons, or read anything.
I haven’t considered the Meyers issue much. I think that urban planning is important, having a vision for an area is a good thing. Meyers is missing something and could use some fresh ideas.
I think that some form of the Loop at stateline could be a good idea but I don’t trust that it isn’t being corrupted by the business interests. Pedestrian only areas are great. Just go to Burlington or Boulder and check out their areas. The same planner did both of those projects, and it worked out really well.
OLS if you have amazon prime there is a must see Zappa documentary called ‘The Freak Out List’ about the list of musicians found in the Freak Out liner notes.
There is also a Captain Beefheart documentary on youtube.
Corrupt business interests are SO much worse than corrupt government. . ./sarc
Corrupt business can’t continue WITHOUT corrupt government. Your on-the-take officials grease the treads and turn a blind eye to their cronies. Corruption goes from the top down. And in a small town like this, they’re all connected.
Crony Capitalism … a Tahoe tradition
Yo, Dog, you are absolutely on the mark, our economy and political system is indeed in the direction of fascism. Absolutely.
Thanks for enduring all the pigeon poop. You are a great American!
For the low informed …
Fascism is a form of socialism where business has a degree of autonomy and government pulls the strings from behind a curtain. But government is ultimately the holder of all the power so lots brown nosin’ …
With that in mind consider that as we all know now, the Obama administration is the most secretive administration in modern history. What deals have they mad with the Insurance and medical industries? Hmmmm?
Cosa, did I spell everything right?
CJ, how is it you and your ilk demonize government for kneecapping free enterprise one day then the next you allude to a conspiracy theory about the collusion of government and free enterprise?
Which is it?
“Tahoe is on a world stage environmentally for how we protect the urban and natural worlds for future generations.”
I’m confused Joanne …….. How do the multiple plans of hundreds of acres of high density recreational/tourist accommodation developments incorporated into the 2012 TRPA Regional Plan Update help to achieve your statement above ?
Can you please stop putting bogus articles in the newspapers if you won’t publically defend your own statements !
BP, It is not a conspiracy theory. Very poor comparison on that one.
It’s called crony capitalism, are you a denier?
Is Obama not the most deceitful president in modern times?
Dogula & cosa pescado, Dogula I clicked on the link you provided about Frank Zappa and Libertarians, pretty interesting but maybe a bit of a stretch. As you said Frank was all over the place politicaly. For your info my little brother is a libertarian (poor kid!) but he is still my brother and I love him nonetheless. Once he starts talkin’ about Ayn Rand and his beliefs, he will not shut up!
Pescado, thanks for the reply. Yes, paid parking was a disaster here from day one that’s why I’m voting yes on “P” this June. The Meyers plan is over the top gonzo. I’ve long advocated for cleaning up what we have with a few minor improvements. Joe Tvetens old place needs to go. Maybe there’s federal money available to remove the polluted soil and start out with a fresh approach.The Alpaca Pete building could be the new home to say, a Grass Roots 2 or maybe a Trader Joes or Whole Earth.
Frank Zappa influenced me a great deal as a young man. An amazing musician/songwriter and wasn’t shy about speaking out on his thoughts that challenged the norm, (right up my alley!). His words still ring true today.
Thanks to both of you for your input. OLS
“Fascism is a form of socialism where business ”
According to the definition of words, you are wrong.
“What deals have they mad with the Insurance and medical industries? Hmmmm?”
*made
“Cosa, did I spell everything right?”
No.