Lake Tahoe plan OK’d by panel

Wednesday, May 17, 2000 | 10:32 a.m.

The forests and forest health subcommittee passed the bill by voice vote, and moved it Tuesday to the full House Resources Committee.

Sponsored by Reps. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and John Doolittle, R-Calif., the bill would require the U.S. Forest Service to identify projects to combat soil and water degradation at the Sierra lake, on the California-Nevada border.

The bill won endorsement from the subcommittee's chairwoman, Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, R-Idaho. She said she visited Lake Tahoe last weekend, "and I was shocked at the condition of the forest. It's a very sad situation."

Under the bill, which matches a Senate measure, the Agriculture Department would distribute funds to a group of political subdivisions coordinating Tahoe's cleanup. State and local governments would have to match the federal funding.

While the legislation sets a ceiling for federal funding for Tahoe, Congress still would 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.

Given state and local cooperation on the project, Gibbons characterized the lack of federal funding as the biggest obstacle to cleaning up the lake.

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

Sediment and chemicals washing into the basin 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.