Tahoe official recommends hefty fine for illegal logging

Monday, March 20, 2000 | 9:42 a.m.

Jerome Waldie, the California Senate Rules Committee's appointee to the TRPA governing board, will ask colleagues this week to impose a $2,000 fine for each of 80 violations he contends occurred during a logging project on the lake's west shore last spring.

A former congressman, Waldie presided over an evidentiary hearing on the alleged violations in late January and concluded a $160,000 fine is justified.

The agency's full governing board will consider Waldie's recommendation on Wednesday.

"We feel it was a blatant violation," said Jerry Wells, acting director of the bistate agency.

Last March, the TRPA authorized the removal of dead and dying trees from 113 acres the Tahoe City Public Utility District owned on Lake Tahoe's west shore near Homewood.

The district contracted with the Menasha Corp., a logging company based in Grass Valley, Calif., to handle the job.

But agency officials allege 49 old-growth trees were illegally harvested in violation of an ordinance protecting trees greater than 30 inches in diameter.

The TRPA staff also allege that 19 trees felled posed no threat to life or property and that 16 loads of felled timber were hauled away without proper approval.

Waldie concluded that both Menasha and the utility district should be fined for the 80 violations that resulted in an "irreplaceable" loss to Lake Tahoe's environment, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported Monday.

"With regard to the level of culpability, while I do not believe Menasha is an evil company that set out to illegally cut big trees, I found that time after time it cut corners and bent rules," Waldie wrote in a report to the governing board.

Menasha representatives have repeatedly disputed the planning agency's criticism of the logging project.

"Our assessment of the timber harvest isn't close to their assessment," said company executive Mark Salyer.