Runoff project appears ready for TRPA’s OK

Monday, April 26, 1999 | 11:51 a.m.

The Governing Board of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency was supposed to have discussed it last month, but a late discovery that the project may have been miscalculated prompted officials to postpone the talks.

The proposal should more forward at this week's meeting, said Gary Midkiff, a project consultant.

"We don't expect any more problems," he told the Tahoe Daily Tribune.

Some of Stateline's casinos already have storm water treatment systems on their properties, which include sand and oil separators, sediment traps and infiltration trenches.

The planned project calls for more individual systems to be built with the treated runoff to be routed to a common treatment facility for removal of even finer particles and hydrocarbons before the water is discharged into wetlands on Edgewood Golf Course before going into Lake Tahoe.

Untreated runoff is believed to be a significant factor in Lake Tahoe's declining clarity, and officials of the bi-state agency consider the project vital.

The problem discovered last month was that while the amount of paved areas had been calculated, not all the casino roofs had been tallied, meaning that more water could enter the system.

To compensate for that, the project's proponents plan to treat runoff from the Horizon Casino Resort's roof on the Horizon's property and divert it to another wetlands on Edgewood.

Midkiff said the runoff from the roof is fairly clean water and will receive enough treatment before it reaches Lake Tahoe.

Planning of the area-wide drainage system for the casino core began in 1988. It's now scheduled for completion by the end of June 2000.

"Everyone's anxious to get this into place," Midkiff said.