Tahoe agency kills extra season for two-stroke engines

Thursday, Sept. 25, 1997 | 11:21 a.m.

Carol Boughton of the U.S. Geological Survey's Nevada office said Wednesday a study had found low concentrations of a controversial fuel additive as deep as 100 feet in the middle of Lake Tahoe.

The study also detected the additive MTBE, as well as more volatile compounds, at every near-shore location tested, including Tahoe Keys, Glenbrook, Zephyr Cove, Incline Village, Tahoe City, Kings Beach and Homewood.

On a 10-2 vote, the TRPA governing board rejected a proposal that would have given the marine engine industry another season to come up with cleaner engines, in exchange for a promise not to sue the agency.

Board members criticized a draft agreement submitted by attorneys for the National Marine Manufacturers Association, saying the promise to forego a lawsuit was riddled with exceptions that made it unacceptable.

The agreement called for the TRPA to grandfather in all two-cycle engines now at the lake, would have allowed individual members of the industry association to sue, and would have allowed a lawsuit if any court ruled that the TRPA had exceeded its authority in phasing out the engines.

"In my personal view, this doesn't seem to me to be much of an agreement at all," said board member Jerome Waldie, who chaired the agency's legal committee that first reviewed the draft agreement. "It suggests to me that there is no real desire on the other side to reach an agreement."

Attorneys for the manufacturers and Tahoe rental companies said part of the difficulty stemmed from the industry's unwillingness to disclose proprietary information.

"Nobody has yet committed to us that by September, 1998 there will be viable, mid-range engines," said Larry Hoffman, a Tahoe City attorney representing the rental firms. "We have one more season, and then we're dead in the water."

But several board members said the announcement by the Bombardier company that it will have a lower-emission personal watercraft engine available this fall is evidence that the industry will be able to produce a cleaner engine by the time the Lake Tahoe prohibition goes into effect in June 1999.

"I don't think there is any reason whatsoever to give them a third year," said board member Steve Wynn, who led the agency's assault on personal watercraft. "I say hold their feet to the fire, and let the market take its course."

While the board overturned the extension, which had been proposed two months ago, it agreed to give the industry another month to decide whether to file a lawsuit or to submit a different agreement.