TRPA changing approach regarding individual BMPs
By Kathryn Reed
STATELINE – A communal approach to BMPs may save individual property owners money and angst, while also keeping more sediment from reaching Lake Tahoe.
While the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is not doing away with best management practices, it is headed toward being less focused on what individuals (those 43,000 parcels) are doing and more focused on communitywide efforts.
Through the total maximum daily load protocols mandated by the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board on the California side of the lake and Nevada Department of Environmental Protection in the Silver State, TRPA in part will be using the data they collect to help measure the volume of sediment reaching the lake.
Drip lines will still be required, but the emphasis by TRPA on individual BMPs is likely to decrease. Photo/LTN
John Hester, who is overseeing the Regional Plan update for TRPA, said staff is proposing being less focused on monitoring individual projects and instead looking at larger areas, including subwatersheds. He said the idea is to get away from a one-size fits all approach.
During a multi-hour presentation to the TRPA Governing Board last week, reps from both states and the TRPA outlined how using the total maximum daily load will be incorporated into the Regional Plan update. That update is expected to be voted on in December.
But it was stressed that the TMDL is not the sole mechanism for achieving lake clarity.
“There is some sense that TMDL is all there is,” Joanne Marchetta, TRPA executive director, said. She said that’s not accurate. “The whole system is much larger than that.”
She said the TMDL is one component of the stormwater management system, which in itself is just part of the bigger picture. After all, particles floating in the air also contribute to water quality issues.
“Fifteen percent of fine sediment is from atmospheric deposition,” Bob Larson with Lahontan told the TRPA board. “But we don’t know exactly where it is from.”
He said it is most likely dust from paved and unpaved roads. While past theories put the blame on the Sacramento Valley and Gobi Desert for polluting Lake Tahoe, Larson said that is not the case.
Road improvements – including better street sweepers, along with improved public transportation are ways the road dust could be decreased.
Marchetta went through the evolution of water quality programs in the basin starting in the 1970s.
She admitted the introduction of parcel-by-parcel best management practices “was not driven by science. It was driven by policy.”
The theory was every drop of water needed to stay on the property it landed on.
BMPs have cost homeowners and businesses a tremendous amount of money in the last couple decades with no measurement as to whether they did any good. It meant redoing driveways, putting in drip lines so the runoff from roofs didn’t cause erosion, and covering bare soil.
“Simple erosion control practices will continue to be required around roof drip lines and to stabilize bare soil, but area-wide solutions are being recommended to help property owners with things like their driveways,” Kristi Boosman, spokeswoman for TRPA, told Lake Tahoe News after the meeting. “The draft Regional Plan proposes to coordinate TRPA’s BMP implementation efforts with local jurisdictions so that limited resources are focused in the areas that achieve the greatest pollutant load reduction. These areas would be determined by load reduction plans and Lake Clarity Crediting Program load reduction strategies local jurisdictions have to prepare as part of the TMDL.”
Besides stormwater concerns, water quality is impacted by watershed management, invasive species, how threatened-endangered-sensitive species are handled, and whether it was a dry or wet winter.
Through the TMDL program, the five counties, one city, U.S. Forest Service, and two state transportation departments collectively are tasked with reducing fine sediment particles reaching the lake by 10 percent in the next five years and by 33 percent in 15 years.
Larson said if a switch were flipped today that stopped the sediment from reaching Lake Tahoe, it is estimated it would take five years for the lake to respond – to be at the desired clarity level of water officials.
BMP,s have always been a joke we worry about every lot and most do not pose a threat to the lake.
“He said it is “most likely” dust from paved and unpaved roads.”
So let me get this straight. The TRPA has imposed rules that have already cost many homeowners thousands of dollars for property improvements based on the fact that fine sediment particles can reach the lake from ALL basin properties, and have done so based on nothing more than supposition? NICE!
If the environmental group was in charge of traffic control they would give every one a speeding ticket to cut down on accidents
The leader says BMP’s were driven by policy not science. I rest my case against the octopus.
Go after the gross violators first i.e. Hwy 50, large landowners, parcels actually IN and NEAR watershed areas and those very near the lake (Tahoe Keys) and get real about individual homeowner’s BMPs whose ‘dust’ cannot possibly reach the lake.
At least the agencies seem to be getting REAL about these issues, now let’s see some rule change RESULTS.
…well said Earl-
Where did the information come from to say that if all sediment was stopped from entering the lake it would respond in 5 years?
Does motorized off-roading,motorcycles-atvs-jeeps, kick up any dust?
And yet I’m supposed to spend several thousand dollars putting in drip lines and a new driveway.
With BMP rules and policies such a moving target, and now admittedly not based on science, it is no wonder compliance has been so poor. Why spend thousands of dollars for BMP’s that next year will likely change again?
It would seem that simple filters on the street storm drains that empty into Lake Tahoe, with routine emptying and cleaning, would be more effective in trapping more sediment and particles than the driveway method. Storm drains on public streets in Tahoe Keys empty into Lake Tahoe unfiltered and unimpeded. Where is the science?
Thanks TRPA for making me spend money I didn’t have to put in my BMP’s that look terrible most of the time because they get full of pine needles that are hard to rake out. You’ve made some companies a lot of money for overcharging us to put in these BMP’s.
We should have allowed the free market to decide best management practices all these years instead of TRPA. Then we wouldn’t have anything to argue about now concerning “lake clarity”.
Same bunch of self centered green pigs that made me take out the driveway I bootlegged in 1984 now wants me to pave my driveway.
I wonder how much money has been made by landscape engineers and worthless planners who use to work for the TRPA??
The BMP rules are a joke, and not the funny kind of a joke. The worst polluters should be the first to comply. Tahoe Keys, Edgewood, any lakefront development, any marina and maybe even STPUD and all the other sewage outfits around the basin. How many sewage leaks due to broken pipes do we read about every year? Plenty!
That old retired guy in Sierra Tract or the Ski Run neighborhood, living on a fixed income?… leave that guy alone. They can’t afford it and in many cases can’t do the work themselves. His level driveway with a modest yard ain’t hurting the clarity of the lake! Go after the big dogs first and if you want to go after the senior citizens and the working poor later… well I guess thats up to the powers that be.
Crazy world we live in. Take Care, Old Long Skiis
Oh sure!.. go after the “job creators”… Every dollar that the successful rich people and businesses have to spend to satisfy these liberal greeny pigs is a dollar not trickling down to the whiny working class and seniors. When will these people get with the program?
The average guy has shallow pockets unlike Caltrans, NDOT, USFS and California State Parks. No money to challenge TRPA or Lahontan. Conscience decision in the 80’s on who to go after. A huge amount of land is owned by state and federal agencies and they are the largest contributors to sediment reaching the Lake. Time to get the priorities straight.
A class action lawsuit should be brought against the TRPA. Any area attorneys up for the challenge?
obviously, the tahoe keys is the worst violator, its construction having effectively destroyed the filtration system of the upper truckee watershed. the keys continues apparently with impunity to dump pollutants into the lake and use far more than its fair share of water, without metering. go after these guys now, trpa.
Mr. Fox
I clicked on your name which led me to a very cool website. Thank you!!!
Take Care, Old Liberal Long Skiis
Fromform-
Your a kook. What are you gonna do to the Keys residences. If your so upset, then go buy up all the properties and turn it into wilderness like the LTSLT wants to do to everything. The reality is…. Tahoe should have been a national park, but, guess what, man got here first. Good thing, otherwise we would all be living in Truckee(not bad, not Tahoe). Fromform, what subdivision do you live in? You may be a polluter too. You probably drive around with a keep lake Tahoe blue sticker!
Right on “concerned.” And fromform, there is more than enough water to waste. STPUD’s sophmoric slogan is nonsensically stupid.
Oh, and what defines waste in your opinion?
earl, i am just sayin that i am metered, they are not, and apparently won’t ever be. i view this injustice as a waste of my money, since i subsidize them…
oh, and ‘concerned’: ‘your’ illiterate, which leads me to other conclusions about your general intelligence and judgement…
Just because you are getting screwed you don’t have to wish it on your neighbor.
Any water district under 3000 hookups is not required to meter. STPUD’s service area should have been exempted also but our legislature wouldn’t listen to logic or rationality or science.
STPUD has less than 12,000 water customers, so if they split into 4 districts less than 3,000 customers each, then we can get rid of meters. We are just sending our water to the truckee river customers in Nevada not Ca.
Fromform- were all glad your metered, because your lawn is too big. Your just pissed because the Keys does not have water meters. Tough luck budddy.
Unless Fromform owns property at Tahoe Keys and consequently is a member of TKPOA, he or she does not subsidize Keys water. The Keys water company is wholly owned and operated by the member-owned HOA. Since the TKPOA water company has fewer than 3,000 customers and connections, it is exempt from water meter requirements.
All of us are incredibly lucky to live in the Lake Tahoe basin. We should all take our responsibility to protect the Lake seriously. And it is our responsibility.
orale
We are indeed lucky to live in Tahoe. That doesn’t give the environmental community the right to lie, steal, and over reach.
They are a disgrace and have given the environmental movement a black eye.
I wasn’t talking about the environmental community, although if I were, I would suggest that lumping them all into one negative stereotype is not constructive.
I was talking about personal responsibility.
I’ve had enough of the envirowackos trying to shove that reality-based sciency kinda stuff down the throats of the producers in our country who know full well there’s Plenty of resources to waste for 100’s of years to come! We would be much better off allowing free-market business people deciding what’s good for the future of Lake Tahoe.
Wow, what a bunch of complaining babys there are in this community. I, for one, am proud to be one of the “enviro whackos”that you like to point fingers at for having “ruined” Lake Tahoe and kept it from becoming some economic fortress. All those complainers out there who enjoy the beautiful, clean lake we all share should be glad there are enviro whackos who take the time to fight for the protection of this basin. Without the “enviro whackos” this lake could look like So many other destroyed lakes. But hey, if im rich it doesnt matter, Money trumps everything. NOT!!!!If you dont like the rules than just leave. We wont miss your whining!
nature bats last, Just FYI, Dick Fox has been exposed as a satirist of the serial whiners…. as for the rest of them… you’re spot on.
A major fire in tahoe keys would require STPUD water flows, because STPUD have storage (tanks). So does the TKPOA pay for that storage of water, I think not.