News Releases
Contacts: Carl Young, League to Save Lake Tahoe - 530-541-5388 The League to Save Lake Tahoe (often known by its motto “Keep Tahoe Blue”) and the Tahoe Area Sierra Club have reviewed the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s (TRPA) new shorezone proposal, and issued the following joint statement today “TRPA’s plan permits a massive amount of development and pollution with no assurance of protection for Lake Tahoe.” said Rochelle Nason, the League to Save Lake Tahoe’s Executive Director. TRPA’s proposed plan allows over 1800 more buoys, 6 boat ramps, and 235 boat slips. Over the next 22 years, 220 more private piers and 10 more public piers could be built; ultimately over 400 additional piers could be permitted. “It’s an alarming amount of new development,” said Roger Rosenberger, Chair of the Tahoe Area Sierra Club. “especially since the latest science is telling us that in order to restore the lake’s clarity, we need to reduce the amount of pollutants entering the lake by 35%.” According to TRPA estimates, the additional piers and buoys and boat ramps and boat slips translate into 60,000 additional motorboat trips per year, producing hundreds of tons of additional hydrocarbons and NOx (oxides of nitrogen) – a pollutant that feeds algae and contributes to the loss of Lake Tahoe’s famed clarity. “TRPA’s proposal is heading us in exactly the opposite direction of where we should be going,” claims Carl Young, Program Coordinator for the League to Save Lake Tahoe. “The majority of the environmental standards for the area have yet to be achieved. Until we do, we shouldn’t be adding to the problems we already have by allowing more pollutants to enter the lake.” Admittedly, TRPA is in a bind. Demand for boating access is constantly increasing. Many lakefront property owners who don’t already have one of the 727 private piers presently around the lake want one of their own. “That’s where all of us come in,” Rosenberger said. “This lake and over 80% of the land around it belongs to the citizens of California and Nevada and the rest of America. It’s up to us to preserve it for our kids and grandkids and their kids and grandkids.” The Sierra Club and the League to Save Lake Tahoe urge the public to contact their State and Federal representatives and let them know how important Lake Tahoe is to them – either directly, or via letters to your local paper, or by e-mailing TRPA at trpa@trpa.org. Interested citizens may also want to contact members of the TRPA Governing Board; their names and contact information are at trpa.org. The current TRPA proposal is inadequate. “Spend now, pay later” is how Carl Young of the League characterizes it. “When new construction is proposed at the lake, negative impacts can sometimes be compensated for by undertaking mitigations that offset the negative impacts. Unfortunately, in this case, even though TRPA admits there will be negative impacts, they have not spelled out what the mitigations might be and whether or not those mitigations have been tested and will truly offset the negative impacts of all those additional piers and buoys.” Both the League and the Sierra Club agree that this is entirely unacceptable. “And probably illegal,” states Carl Young of the League. “Under the Federal Clean Water Act, Lake Tahoe has been designated as an Outstanding Natural Resource Water. That law prohibits the degradation of any body of water with this designation. We believe that TRPA’s current plan will cause that kind of degradation.” Perhaps there are mitigations that could be implemented that would offset the negative impacts of all the new piers and buoys. But we can’t analyze that because TRPA hasn’t spelled out what those mitigations are. Our position, as Young puts it, is that “The TRPA Governing Board should postpone a vote on the Shorezone Plan until all of the details of the environmental mitigation programs have been provided, with evidence that each program will be effective enough to offset the impacts of new shorezone development and uses of the Lake.” Some TRPA Governing Board members already see the wisdom of this approach. The Sierra Club and the League are hopeful that the public’s input will convince the rest. # # # |