House panel considers $300 million bill to clean up Lake Tahoe

Bart Jansen

Thursday, May 11, 2000 | 10:29 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Business and water officials from the Lake Tahoe area appealed to a House panel Thursday for $300 million in help to clean up gasoline and other problems clouding the historically crystal blue lake.

The gas additive MTBE is creeping toward the lake at a rate of 9 feet per day, according to Duane Wallace, board member of the South Tahoe Public Utility Department.

The agency has already closed one-third of the community's wells because of the contaminant that smells and tastes like turpentine. But the tiny community heavily reliant on tourism is unable to clean up the lake and its surroundings on its own.

"I would have liked to have brought a sample of MTBE contaminated water for the record, but most likely would not have been allowed on the plane with it," said Wallace, who is also executive director of the South Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce.

"Frankly, the longer we wait, the more costly and damaging the MTBE problems becomes," he told the House Resources subcommittee on forests.

A bill from Reps. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and John Doolittle, R-Calif., would authorize $300 million over 10 years to clean up the water, prevent erosion and buy private land to prevent further development.

The Agriculture Department, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, would distribute the funding to a group of political subdivisions coordinating the cleanup. State and local governments would have to match the federal funding.

An identical bill is pending in the Senate.

While the legislation basically sets a ceiling for federal funding for Tahoe, Congress would still have to appropriate money for the cleanup project as part of the budget.

Nearly three years after President Clinton pledged $50 million over 10 years to the effort, he offered only $3.65 million in the budget for the year starting Oct. 1. Lawmakers are working to increase that figure.

Part of the argument for federal funding is the lake's national stature of the lake.

Sediment and chemicals washing into the basin straddling the Nevada-California border could irrevocably harm the lake within a decade. The lake has been losing clarity at the rate of about a foot a year, according to one study.

More than three-fourths of the surrounding forest is owned by the Forest Service. But more than one-third of the forest is dead or dying from disease. Pine trees along the surrounding slopes are withering and turning rust colored.

"Lake Tahoe, one of the largest, deepest and clearest lakes in the world is recognized nationally and worldwide as a natural resource of special significance," said Randy Phillips, deputy chief of the forest service. "However, the clarity of the lake is declining and the water quality of the lake continues to degrade."