Nevada lawmakers may meet with California counterparts on Tahoe issues

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 1999 | 10:53 a.m.

Members of the Nevada Legislature's Committee to Continue the Review of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency are trying to arrange a joint meeting with California lawmakers in the spring.

"We'd like to do it. I think it's important to do it," said Assemblyman Greg Brower, R-Reno. Brower chairs the committee which will make recommendations on Tahoe-related legislation to the 2001 Legislature. The panel met Tuesday in Incline Village.

A formal meeting between members of the two states' legislatures has been advocated for years. While California state Sen. Tim Leslie attended one meeting of the oversight panel two years ago, it's been since 1979 or 1980 since several lawmakers from each state met to discuss Tahoe, according to the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

With both states now funneling millions of dollars into efforts to save the lake - which is losing its famed clarity at the rate of a foot or more each year - improved communication is critical, said Jim Baetge, TRPA's executive director.

"It's important, more so than ever in the past," Baetge said. "California and Nevada need to talk. Things are pretty good right now, but it can always go astray without that communication."

The Nevada oversight panel toured Tahoe Monday and on Tuesday was updated on multimillion-dollar efforts to save the lake in the wake of President Clinton's environmental forum at Tahoe in July 1997.

TRPA has identified $908 million worth of erosion control, stream restoration, forest health and other projects that need to be completed by 2007 if Tahoe has been saved. Earlier this year, the Nevada Legislature approved legislation locking into place the state's $82 million share of that cost.

While Nevada is in the forefront with its fiscal commitment, California is also taking aggressive steps to identify its $277 million share, the oversight panel was told.

"Nevada moved very quickly. California has somewhat lagged but is responding right now," said Carl Hasty, chief of TRPA's Environmental Improvement Program.

Legislation authored by U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,and Harry Reid, D-Nev., would provide the federal government's near-$300 million share.

Baetge stressed there's little time to waste.

"I don't think there's a scientist that would make an argument that we are not losing that lake and we are losing it at a rather rapid rate," Baetge said. "You're looking at a rather ordinary lake in about 30 years."