Thinking Big at Tahoe

Environmental battles rarely are won as most people think of winning--as the successful conclusion of a struggle. Thus, the battle to “save” Lake Tahoe continues, even though impressive progress has been made in the past two years to manage growth in a way that will do the least damage to the environment of the once-pristine Sierra Nevada lake.

In 1987, the California-Nevada Tahoe Regional Planning Agency adopted a sensible new plan for development in the lake basin, but only after years of litigation by the California attorney general’s office and the League to Save Lake Tahoe. Late last year, another impressive step was taken with the approval of a 1,500-page plan for correcting environmental problems in the popular year-round resort area.

The so-called 208 plan, drafted to meet the demands of Section 208 of the federal Clean Water Act, calls for a $300-million program to control erosion and to restore damaged wetlands. Significantly, the plan prohibits further development in stream environment zones. A major source of pollution in the lake, causing degradation of its famed clarity, has been runoff from erosion in the flood plains.

But problems at the lake, particularly in the South Shore area of South Lake Tahoe, Calif., and Stateline, Nev., would get even worse if the regional planning agency yields to the desire of the giant Nevada casinos at Stateline to build a sports palace and additional garages holding 10,000 parking spaces.

Other than pollution of the lake itself, the major problems at Tahoe are traffic congestion and air quality, particularly in the South Shore urban complex. The sports center and parking proposals are contained in a draft of the proposed Douglas County (Nev.) 20-year growth plan. But the bi-state regional plan requires that local-growth measures balance commercial development with environmental-mitigation measures, and particularly transit facilities and other actions that will diminish congestion and air pollution. The Douglas County plan has no such mitigation program.

That is not the way to save Lake Tahoe.