Consensus Sought on Personal Watercraft

Tuesday, Dec. 3, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's shorezone partnership committee will be asked to re-examine possible regulations governing the popular watercraft and listen to additional testimony.

While the meeting will not be a public hearing, interested parties may submit comments to the committee's members, who represent local and state agencies, private property owners and business interests around the basin.

The committee, which has adopted consensus positions on a number of shorezone issues, had previously proposed to expand the areas in Lake Tahoe off limits to personal watercraft.

Complaints over noise, safety and possible water pollution have prompted the committee and a TRPA policy committee to consider new regulations over the watercraft, whose numbers on Lake Tahoe have grown dramatically.

On Nov. 19, a committee of TRPA board members agreed to submit proposed regulations to the agency's full governing board in January, but asked that the partnership committee review the available information one last time.

Casino executive Steve Wynn, who serves on the TRPA board, said he will propose a hard-line answer to the environmental questions raised by watercraft use unless new information becomes available before the end of December.

Critics and defenders of personal watercraft have engaged in a spirited tug-of-war with the TRPA in recent months over possible regulation. The agency has received hundreds of letters from both sides.