Study finds little impact from river pact on Lake Tahoe

Tuesday, March 24, 1998 | 11:40 a.m.

But some Tahoe residents claim that the report ignores shoreline erosion of Lake Tahoe caused by high lake levels.

The proposed Truckee River Operating Agreement is intended to fairly divide downstream water rights among private and public interests in California and Nevada, including farmers in the Fallon, Nev., area, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and Reno-based Sierra Pacific Power Co.

Besides conserving the endangered cui-ui and Lahontan cutthroat trout at Pyramid Lake, the agreement is intended to provide future water supplies for the growing Reno-Sparks area. Elements of the agreement have been worked out over the years in negotiations that resulted in a 1996 preliminary operating agreement.

The proposed agreement would increase the amount of water released from Lake Tahoe by 2,700 acre-feet a year, less than 1 percent more than the 455,200 acre-feet now annually stored at Lake Tahoe behind a 6.1-foot dam at Tahoe City. One acre-foot is enough to meet the water needs of two families for a year.

Storage would be increased at three of the six other dams in the Truckee River Basin - Prosser, Stampede and Boca - by 12 to 36 percent.

In a draft environmental impact report, federal and California agency staff say the changes in storage and releases at Lake Tahoe would create slightly less favorable conditions for Tahoe yellowcress, a shorezone plant listed as endangered in California.

Jerry Wells, the bistate Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's deputy executive director, said the agency will review the environmental report and submit comments.

Colleen Shade, a TRPA planner who has studied the Tahoe yellowcress, added that the plant benefits from a fluctuating shoreline.

"The yellowcress needs this kind of disturbance," Shade said. "It needs high water occasionally to kill its rivals ... and if the lake is kept at a low level, other species would germinate and crowd it out."

In the past, both environmentalists and private property interests have criticized Lake Tahoe's artificially high lake level.

Gregg Lien, an attorney who represents the Tahoe Sierra Preservation Council, condemned the proposed agreement for maintaining Lake Tahoe as a reservoir for downstream water users.

"High lake level is the single most important environmental issue facing Lake Tahoe," Lien said.

Jeff Cutler, the League to Save Lake Tahoe's assistant executive director, said the league will take a close look at the environmental report before commenting on the effect of lake levels on shoreline erosion, said