Tourism congestion on SR 28 on Nevada's side of Lake Tahoe. SR 28 is one of the main roads needed for evacuation. The posted speed limit is 45 mph - but tourists jump out of their cars routinely and walk along the road. (Photo: Pamela Tsigdinos)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Overtourism, conflicts of interest, developer-initiated blight, vast pollution combined with microplastic contamination, and the lack of a comprehensive Tahoe basin evacuation plan are just some of the public safety and environmental problems raised by Tahoe residents during public comment at this year’s first two interim Nevada legislative oversight committee hearings.

Unfortunately, members of the Legislative Committee for the Review and Oversight of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) and the Marlette Lake Water System have so far failed to pose any probing questions about these critical issues or move to have these topics explored in more detail on a future agenda. Furthermore, emails obtained in April by a resident through a public records request demonstrate an alarming chumminess between the oversight committee chair staff and the TRPA government affairs manager.

Correspondence leading up to the first two meetings reveals that the oversight committee leadership has little interest in TRPA accountability or supervision—in other words the actual job of oversight. There was, however, an extended email discussion ahead of the March 8 legislative meeting held offsite at TRPA headquarters in Stateline, NV, about snacks and lunch as part of a pre-meeting bus tour of recent tourism and development projects arranged for committee members, TRPA staff and their tourism “partners”’

During that meeting, legislators and staff barely glanced up or engaged in any way with resident-initiated topics about serious issues, including the lake’s health and the Tahoe basin’s increasing degradation and environmental threats. Some checked their email; others kibbitzed with one another and sometimes shared a private laugh. It was as if public comment was merely something to be endured.

The legislative committee’s response to agenda presenters was an entirely different story. Committee members exhibited an unusually friendly rapport and served up softball questions.  After multiple references to a gathering earlier in the day it became apparent to Tahoe residents (post-tour) that Tahoe tourism presenters benefited immensely from their previous interactions.

The agenda omitted tour details so I queried the committee chair, Democratic Sen. Skip Daly, asking if the tour was an open meeting law violation. The chair never responded. The public records request provided evidence that there was email discussion about how the public might be involved, but the pre-meeting tour was never publicly noticed.

Mind you, Nevada taxpayers provide several million dollars to TRPA’s operating budget. (TRPA also derives hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government and California.) However, legislative oversight agendas to date have been shaped to accommodate and highlight economic interests, tourism revenue and attractions, and whatever TRPA prioritizes as part of its expansive development and public relations plan.

In the late 1960s, Nevada and California governors (Paul Laxalt and Ronald Reagan) worked together to protect Lake Tahoe. But it was the Tahoe Regional Planning Compact, ratified in 1969 by Congress, that paved the way for what was supposed to be Lake Tahoe’s guardian angel: a one-of-a-kind environmental super-agency. Challenges ensued. It took a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2002 to keep it functioning as a check on development.

More than 20 years ago in a piece headlined Fighting for Tahoe’s Life, The Los Angeles Times wrote: “the ruling is monumental in a broad sense because it upholds the power of state, federal and local government to restrict land uses to protect the environment.”

Today, TRPA’s original mission now seems flipped on its head. In 2010, environmentalists and residents first raised the alarm about a disturbing shift taking place at the agency. Scientists employed by TRPA specializing in air, soil and vegetation got laid off. Developers are now considered TRPA’s “customers,” and the agency acts to accommodate and facilitate big-money interests that buy Tahoe land promising trophy luxury projects in Nevada and California. Two particularly egregious examples sit astride the state line in North Lake Tahoe: the former Tahoe Biltmore and Tahoe Inn. Both are now owned and controlled by private equity investor developers. Today, the properties are boarded up, blighted eyesores with none of the much touted community enhancement and environmental promises delivered.

By definition, a governmental oversight committee should flag important issues, act as a fiscal watchdog and ensure the public interest is served – particularly when key issues regarding public safety, the environment, and water quality are at stake. Some friction between an oversight committee and the agency it oversees is natural and expected. This dynamic should provide necessary checks and balances — not act as a rubber stamp or an enabler.

Furthermore, Nevada’s legislative committee is the only body with the power to exercise any sort of accountability for TRPA. California’s assembly does not have an equivalent counterpart, although nearly two-thirds of the lake sits inside our western neighboring state. There is no such federal oversight committee despite the U.S. Congress sanctioning and funding the agency.  The March legislative oversight committee meeting took place before TRPA and its ‘partners’ headed to Washington D.C. to lobby for the more federal funding tied to the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act now up for reauthorization.

There are four Nevada legislative meetings left in this calendar year. The next one is May 3. Tahoe residents urge the oversight committee to refocus TRPA on what should be its core functions: protecting and restoring the now polluted lake and shorelines and enforcing codes against environmental malfeasance and overdevelopment. It should not be a tool for gluttonous developers eager to amass and hold property.

The singular natural beauty of Lake Tahoe and its surrounding basin environment — unique in its designated federal, state and local recognition and funding — should be a model for environmental protection, sustainability, water quality, and ensuring the safety of residents and visitors in the event of another catastrophic wildfire or extreme weather event.  

Nevada legislators: please listen to the Tahoe residents who know the lake’s challenges and aren’t paid to give you dog and pony shows about Disney-fying Lake Tahoe.

The post Tahoe planning group exerts outsized influence on legislative oversight committee appeared first on Nevada Current.

Traffic backed up on Hwy 50 as people evacuated ahead of the Caldor Fire in August, 2021. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Think about the past dozen years of your life.  How much has changed? A few things, perhaps? It’s hard to argue the world isn’t markedly different. 

Let’s look closer to home. The size of Reno’s metro population, for instance, in 2012 was 415,000 people. Today, it’s 531,000 and counting. The number of building permits issued since 2020 in Reno alone was 31,128. 

Yet, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) COO, staff and advisory planning commission want the public – incredulously – to believe that in 12 years nothing in Tahoe’s environment has changed.  

This assertion from the TRPA’s recent meetings would be laughable if the implications for the Tahoe basin environmental health weren’t so dire.  TRPA executives and staff want to rely on a simplistic environmental checklist for transfers of land coverage, conversions of entitlements, transfers of development and extensive code amendments. In doing so, this will forever transform Lake Tahoe’s environment. 

As though inhabiting a parallel universe, the TRPA staff maintains that there will be ‘no significant impacts’ from its significant proposed amendments and that its 2012 Regional Plan Environmental Impact Statement reflects today’s reality.

Let’s recap a few of the changes: 

• Lake Tahoe has been warming at a record rate of 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit a decade since 2012. Toxic algae blooms populate the shoreline.  
• Climate headlines from the Tahoe Environmental Research Center in November 2012 noted that rising temperatures foreshadow forests more susceptible to diseases and fires.  
• In other sciences news, December 2012: Scientists say Lake Tahoe area overdue for another earthquake.
• In 2017, a Tahoe Transportation District report noted that in 2014 alone 24.4 million visitors entered the Tahoe Basin, equating to 9.4 million vehicles.
• The Caldor fire in 2021 burned nearly 222,000 acres, roughly the size of San Diego. Tahoe’s wildland urban interface (WUI) double hazard zone risk is now well documented. Confusion and horrors from Lahaina, Caldor and Paradise wildfire evacuations remain fresh.
• Pandemic visitation to Tahoe led to all-time highs in hotel and vacation rental room revenue. Accompanying traffic congestion is awful summer and winter with epic gridlock.
• Population growth surrounding the Tahoe basin continues to soar. To the west of us, Folsom, CA, plans to add 11,000 homes to accommodate some 30,000 people. Marketing materials extol easy proximity to Tahoe. 
• In July 2023, a research team found Lake Tahoe’s lead levels along with other toxic materials surpassed the EPA-approved limit by more than 2,500 times.
• Also in 2023, the scientific journal Nature revealed Lake Tahoe has higher concentrations of microplastics than some of the garbage patches swirling in the world’s oceans.
• Invasive New Zealand mud snails, anyone? They made news in August 2023.
• There are currently a dozen large-scale projects under way in the basin, but there has not been a cumulative analysis of their impact on the limited infrastructure.

These facts are just a sampling of what a curious citizen can find in a quick online search. Now pack into Tahoe still more new multi-story buildings, food trucks, tiny houses, and many accessory dwelling units with near non-existent parking requirements (who needs a vehicle in mountainous terrain, right?). All this and more are on the drawing board for the ecologically fragile Tahoe basin – all at the same time. 

This story problem requires more than your average fifth grader (oh, and that’s right, they weren’t alive when the last full TRPA EIR was completed). So, you be the judge. From 2012 forward, with the above headlines and the new proposed buildings, related construction bottlenecks, people – let’s not forget pet waste – and the parade of international visitors, do you think there might be some extra impact on the Lake, the surrounding habitats, and the Tahoe infrastructure?

If your answer is yes, then you must agree it’s time for an updated comprehensive environmental impact review and some proper analysis before TRPA loosens up land use requirements and gives the greenlight to developers. 

Imagine if all the goodies packed into TRPA’s latest round of developer-friendly amendments to encourage more high-rise buildings and new dwellings were allowed, say, around the rim of the Grand Canyon. 

While Lake Tahoe doesn’t have the protection of a national park or national monument it is supposed to have protection from none other than the TRPA. This development juggernaut is so large and unpalatable a PR firm was hired to sell the plan to the public. (Doesn’t a good idea sell itself? And wouldn’t those funds be better used to clean up the trash around the lake?)

If unchecked, these extensive land use changes are just the start. Phase 1 began during the pandemic when most of us were busy trying to stay alive. We’re in phase 2, but there’s still time to demand that an updated environmental impact report be completed before, not after damage is done. TRPA’s governing board meets Dec. 13.

More than 450 pages of public comment have come in so far. Let’s continue to speak up for the lake. Learn more from one of many local grassroots teams united in concern. Wouldn’t sound environmental policy with local community involvement and support, and strong leadership that protects Lake Tahoe and its fragile environment be a better direction for the TRPA governing board? Let’s say yes to that.

With the click of this link send a letter to the TRPA governing board and the state and federal officials with oversight and funding authority. 

We don’t want future generations to ask: what happened in 2023 and 2024? Why did TRPA further endanger the lake and allow developers to pave over more of paradise?

The post What’s Changed in Tahoe Since 2012? Far more than TRPA admits appeared first on Nevada Current.