Weakened Environmental Plan for Lake Tahoe Challenged in U.S. Court | WPN World People News

Two Tahoe conservation groups, the Sierra Club and Friends of the West Shore, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday challenging new rules for Lake Tahoe that seriously reduce protections for the treasured mountain lake. The new Tahoe Regional Plan Update, approved in December by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA), shifts authority over future development decisions to local jurisdictions. The plan also allows those towns and counties to adopt weakened pollution controls that do not meet the minimum environmental requirements established by TRPA.

Lake Tahoe is one of the largest and deepest mountain lakes in the United States, and TRPA’s fundamental purpose is to restore the lake’s water clarity and health.

“In 1980, Congress, along with the states of California and Nevada, specifically entrusted a regional body to oversee all environmental protection and land use at Lake Tahoe, including project approvals, to ensure that local governments do not allow runaway development,” said Trent Orr, attorney with the public interest law firm Earthjustice, which represents the conservation groups. “The 1980 Compact requires TRPA to approve all projects within the region, and to establish minimum regional standards for project approval. They can’t legally cede that power and leave it to the local governments that failed to protect Tahoe in the past. There is no reason to believe that cash-strapped local governments would adopt and enforce adequate environmental protection measures in the face of lucrative development proposals.”

Lake Tahoe is one of the largest and deepest mountain lakes in the United States, and TRPA’s fundamental purpose is to restore the lake’s water clarity and health. Under the challenged plan, water quality monitoring does not require actual monitoring water quality of runoff; it only tracks whether runoff catchment basins have been installed where they are needed.

The plan also encourages replacing low-rise buildings that surround the lake with taller, bulkier structures. Near the casino corridor of South Lake Tahoe, height restrictions have increased under the new rules from three to six stories; in smaller villages such as Tahoe City, two to four stories; and in Nevada, casinos can reach up to 197 feet, or 19 stories.

“This new plan fails to recognize that an increase in buildings, rooftops, and pavement will mean an increase in the amount of polluted rain and snowmelt—runoff that flows directly into the Lake,” said Laurel Ames of the Tahoe Area Sierra Club in California. “Stormwater from pavement and roads is the leading cause of the Lake’s loss of clarity. Allowing more pavement and roads seriously undermines efforts to clean up the once pristine lake.”

The revised plan also allows local governments to set development regulations that do not meet minimum regional standards, including standards for how much land can be paved, or “covered.” This violates the Compact’s requirement that TRPA establish “a minimum standard applicable throughout the region.”

“This is a wrenching departure from past practice and is not in line with the spirit or law of the bi-state Compact created to protect the lake,” said David von Seggren of the Toiyabe Sierra Club in Nevada. “The people of Nevada, just like the people of California, care about the ecological health of Lake Tahoe. Rather than weakening the Compact or threatening to pull out completely, our leaders should be urging TRPA to develop the region in a way that not only protects the ecosystem but actually improves it.”

Susan Gearhart with Friends of the West Shore agreed that environmental protection should be TRPA’s first priority. “We support a responsible plan which needs to leverage redevelopment to actually achieve restoration of critically sensitive areas, instead of facilitating urbanization, which will exacerbate traffic and congestion,” she said. “For generations, residents and visitors have enjoyed the high Sierra alpine splendor of Lake Tahoe. We must preserve those qualities that make Tahoe so special, and that we all love—clean water and clean air.”

source: Earthjustice