With the lawsuit involving Washoe Meadows State Park favoring the plaintiffs, the state agency is moving forward with a plan to reconfigure the Upper Truckee River where it runs through the South Shore park.

While Washoe Meadows Community won the lawsuit, the documents and actions needed for closure are not yet all resolved in the court.

The latest proposal has Lake Tahoe Golf Course being reduced by 19 acres. Five holes would be moved out of the floodplain into less sensitive land.

This project would restore approximately two miles of the river through Washoe Meadows State Park and Lake Valley State Recreation Area.

It remains to be seen if this “volume six” of the environmental document will satisfy the group that successfully sued the state.

In the Washoe Meadows Community email sent out this week it states, “In our last email we noted that the first Appellate Court of Appeal issued an order to set aside the State Parks approval of the project to move up to nine holes of a golf course into Washoe Meadows State Park. Though State Parks appealed to the California Supreme Court, in January that court declined to hear the case. The matter was then sent back to the original court to finalize the remaining documents needed to close the case. In a stunningly awkward move, State Parks has proposed a new project even while the court has not specified the actions required for compliance with their ruling. Even more surprising, State Parks has attempted to limit public comment to a narrow band of topics regarding this newly proposed project. Washoe Meadows Community’s attorneys are reviewing State Parks’ actions since it is not clear if their actions are in compliance with the law.”

Comments on the draft of the preferred alternative and additional environmental analysis are due June 15. The document is online; scroll to El Dorado County. For more information, email utproject@parks.ca.gov.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report