Lack of money not stopping desire, regulations to improve Lake Tahoe’s famous clarity
By Kathryn Reed
HOMEWOOD – Money and cooperation were the overriding themes of the 15th annual Lake Tahoe Environmental Summit on Tuesday at Homewood Mountain Resort.
For the first time since then-President Bill Clinton started these summits, the governors of California and Nevada attended the event. But it was Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., who was the only speaker to have his speech interrupted by applause.
His desire to turn a greater amount of the regulatory control in the Lake Tahoe Basin over to the five counties and one city was met with strong approval by the few hundred people in attendance.
Govs. Brian Sandoval and Jerry Brown pledge to work together on Lake Tahoe issues. Photos/Kathryn Reed
Heller and others spoke of the need for TRPA’s Regional Plan to meet its latest deadline of December 2012 for approval by the Governing Board.
A meeting on Monday between Govs. Jerry Brown and Brian Sandoval sparked a mutual desire to travel to each others respective capitals to further the dialog about Nevada Senate Bill 271 and getting the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency to function better.
(Sandoval and Heller are former TRPA board members.)
“We need a road map and certainty about what is going to happen at this lake,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in reference to the need for the Regional Plan update’s completion.
Eye on sediment
While much was made of the need to reduce fine sediment from reaching the lake, the irony is all those people listening to the politicians on stage were sitting in fine sediment, stirring it up as they walked on the lower ski slope – which is on the other side of Highway 89 directly across from the very waters they are trying to protect.
At the summit, Brown and Sandoval, with Jared Blumenfeld, administrator for the EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region, signed the Total Maximum Daily Load document, which has a goal to substantially improve lake clarity.
The federally mandated and unfunded program says that in 65 years the white dinner plate-looking Secchi disc will be visible to a depth of 100 feet. Right now it can be seen at 64.4 feet.
In this year that saw the lake rise 3 feet from runoff, it declined in clarity by the same amount.
On the California side it’s Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board that oversees the TMDL, while it’s the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection on the other side of the lake.
“Ten years ago people thought Lake Tahoe’s loss of blue was because of algae. It’s about 25 percent of the problem,” Blumenfeld said. “The rest of the problem is sediment. Science has given us a road map. I like to call it a diet for Lake Tahoe.”
While Sandoval singled out the Sierra Colina project in Stateline being an example of a private entity working on eliminating 74 tons of sediment from reaching the lake each year via the project in and around Burke Creek, he skirted around the greater problem with that project in that it is held up in litigation.
Brown said, “The lake stands as a microcosm of the larger issues we face.”
He said it’s time builders and environmentalists get together to find a way to sustain the region economically and environmentally.
Where’s the money?
The problem is no one had definitive answers how to pay for that diet of reducing fine sediment reaching Lake Tahoe. Everyone talked about a greater need for cooperation, for there to be less reliance on the federal government, and a greater need for private entities to step forward.
One source of money will be the Tahoe Fund. A Monday night fundraising dinner brought in $200,000. While it’s a start, it’s a drop in the bucket – especially when one considers it costs nearly $2 million to build one mile of bike trail in the basin. And these trails are viewed as a means to reduce sediment by getting cars off the road.
Another $34 million from Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act money has been allocated for Lake Tahoe. But that source is also drying up.
While $1.5 billion has been spent in the last 10 years on projects designed to improve lake clarity, where the money will come from in the future is an unknown.
The Lake Tahoe Restoration Act has not be reauthorized, though Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is confident is will pass. He was confident last year, too, and Congress didn’t give the green light.
“We need to adapt to a new fiscal reality,” Feinstein said.
While that is true, no one is openly speaking about adapting to a possible new reality if Lake Tahoe’s clarity doesn’t improve and what that means for the eco-system as well as economy via tourists not wanting to see another brown lake.
Let’s take the $2M it takes to do 1 mile of trail and other funded projects and put the unemployed in this basin to work on them at a fair wage, instead of outside (for profit contractors)thereby creating jobs, cutting costs. These wages will go back into local communities making us all stronger, getting work done quicker by people who care about these communities. More bang for the buck. Invest in your community and your community will invest in you. Win/win.
The rise 3 feet was this year, clarity declined last year. Sierra colinas modeled load reduction is not gonna save the lake. The BLM rep didn’t mention anything About lake clarity then a commitment to the TMDL was signed. Meanwhile find sediment is the focus and the climate change diatom bomb was thrown in making our understanding of decline that much less clear. Everyones out doin thier own thing spending huge amounts of cash with little understanding of how it fits into the clarity objective, meanwhile clarity is declining. How does forest health activities and trout introduction make the lake clearer? No wonder clarity declined… Urban storwater is the problem with clarity, the TMDL concluded that, so why are the funds not focused there?
While we’re at it let’s “hold back the dawn.” No big deal at all. All we need is a few million regulations and lots of politicians making promises. Simple.
Also the League to save the Night and the Great Basin Club will pitch in with their multiple lawsuits. Easy to win this one with all the support.
I left out the need for a few zillion taxpayer dollars in the above recipe.
Sorry.
So, the “experts” got it wrong repeatedly over the years, and wasted tons and tons of money on schemes to rid the Lake of problems without success. Cool. At least now we know that climate change and sediment is the culprit and not the extended decks, windows facing the Lake and houses painted the wrong color. I guess all that green grass and fertilizer in the Keys is not part of the problem at all. We need more lawsuits from the League, that should clear things up. Maybe taking down those pesky American flags at the casinos that are inches too high will help, too.
I’m with Mr. Turnip Truck, if we can just stop all that sunlight, the algae cannot grow, problem solved.
-signed, an obviously frustrated taxpayer.
Maybe we could have a cover made for the lake during the day and uncover it at night. Could employ some local people to operate it. Maybe a local fabric store could make it. I just wonder what the clarity was when the comstock was running full steam and the lake was full of trees that were headed to the mines. I bet there was a little fine sediment introduced at that time. Maybe the league to sue everybody should sue some of the mining companies taht were involved in that so we never have to worry about logs being in the lake again.
Tahoe needs new business and new business investments…
We promote Tahoe business opportunities (twit Link) – if you have business interests/opportunities in Tahoe let us know – Video Production companies – audio recording – music education –
http://www.twitter.com/TahoeCommercial
PLUS we got the Tokochi Dragon and we’re takin it on the road this fall – Santa Barbara – Carmel – Santa Cruz – its the worlds first eco-friendly travel dragon… 22 ft long with a 14 ft wing span – lights up in the dark –
dances in the dark even!
(in a luminary sense)
Gets Attention –