Nevadans beat bushes for funds to preserve Lake Tahoe

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Sept. 8, 2000 | 10:12 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- As Congress winds down its session for the year, Nevada environmentalists today were working the halls of the Capitol pleading for $300 million in federal money to save Lake Tahoe.

"We're here to see that Lake Tahoe gets the help that it needs," said Rochelle Nason, executive director of the South Lake Tahoe-based League to Save Lake Tahoe.

Nason and two other league officials met with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., today and planned meetings with several other members of Congress, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Efforts to preserve the popular alpine lake and surrounding forested basin have been going on for years. President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore visited the lake in 1997 for a daylong summit, focusing international attention on the 1,600-foot-deep blue waters of the lake, a popular tourist destination that draws 2.5 million visitors a year.

But the fragile lake is losing a foot of clarity a year due to development and erosion and fire is a constant threat in the surrounding basin.

To preserve the lake, officials drew up a $908 million, 10-year plan that involves local, state and federal money.

Local government and business leaders are raising their share and California and Nevada have agreed to ante up, but Congress has been more reluctant. House and Senate bills that authorize $300 million over 10 years have been OK'd by committees but not approved by the entire Congress.

Reid said Congress is likely to pass the Tahoe bill unless other senators tack on other funding amendments for their own projects.

"On its own it would fly out of the Senate," Reid said.

The money is needed for erosion projects, a transportation program, closing old logging roads, restoring wetlands, fire restoration and prevention, and buying up land to protect it from development. The federal government has purchased about $105 million worth of land in the last 15 years or so, Nason said.

Lake visitors can see about 66 feet down into the lake. But water clarity has declined from more than 100 feet 30 years ago. Environmentalists and many residents have adopted a "Keep Lake Tahoe Blue" rallying cry. The lake is unusual because of its depth and because it has 63 tributaries and only one stream flowing out.