Federal land sale provides money for Lake Tahoe

Sandra Chereb

Wednesday, July 12, 2000 | 5:22 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - The sale of previously public land around McCarran Airport in Las Vegas has netted $4.6 million so far for the purchase of environmentally sensitive land at Lake Tahoe.

"This money will assist us in our efforts to restore the lake's clarity so future generations can enjoy this jewel of the high Sierra," Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said Wednesday.

The money comes from the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, which Bryan and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., helped craft.

Enacted by Congress in 1998, the law allows some federally owned land in the Las Vegas Valley to be sold to the highest bidder, with proceeds going to purchase other environmentally sensitive lands within the state.

One provision of the legislation transferred 5,200 acres from the Bureau of Land Management to McCarran Airport in Las Vegas to expand a buffer zone.

As the airport sells the land for commercial and industrial development, 85 percent of proceeds must be returned to the federal government.

Money from those sales is earmarked for the Forest Service to buy sensitive lands in the Tahoe basin because the land is within boundaries defined by the 20-year-old Burton-Santini Act.

Since that law was enacted in 1980, the federal government has sold about 2,700 acres in southern Nevada and used the income to buy land at Lake Tahoe.

"The Santini-Burton program has been inadequately funded over the last several years," Bryan said. "The proceeds from these land sales will give it the boost it needs to enable the Forest Service to continue their environmental restoration efforts in the Lake Tahoe Basin."

Sales of the airport property are expected to generate more than $50 million for Lake Tahoe over the next decade, Bryan said.