As lovely as summer is, it can also be challenging. Like the rest of you, I have been busy enjoying Tahoe’s lakes and trails and the warm weather that makes for easy living (put on flip-flops and out the door you go, no layers or shoveling needed!), but the throngs of visitors and cars can make moving around Tahoe/Truckee’s roads difficult, not to mention the constant road construction that only adds to the congestion. I live on the North Shore, and there are days when getting from one end of Tahoe City to the other seems impossible; often times, I abandon all hope of being able to reach the grocery store in a timely fashion, or arrive there only to find the parking lot full (see my March editorial note about the loss of Tahoe City’s Save Mart last fall).
So, it was interesting to read in MAP Executive Director Alexis Ollar’s My Shot opinion piece (see p. 27) that some parts of Lake Tahoe, particularly Sand Harbor, are experiencing a million more visitors than a decade ago. Placer County Supervisor Cindy Gustafson notes in her My Shot editorial on p. 29 that, according to one study, for every additional 10-degree climb in temperature in the Central Valley and foothills, 1,200 more vehicles travel to Tahoe just over Echo Summit to escape the heat. With the heat wave that hit Northern California over Fourth of July week, when Sacramento reached 109, I am guessing the number of cars driving to Tahoe was even higher.
These pressures on Tahoe/Truckee can lead to unfortunate events, like squabbles over public dock space at Donner Lake. One such dispute in June caught on video shows three women and three teenagers clashing after the adults threw some of the girls’ stuff into the lake, including an iPhone. The fight devolved into name calling and pushing. (You can read more about it in the online story here). This is an unfortunate case of people behaving badly and being unwilling to share limited resources.
Another unfortunate event that happened this summer is the massive sewage spill into Lake Tahoe in Carnelian Bay on July 18 after a Caltrans subcontractor hit a sewer pipeline, spilling 85,000 gallons of raw sewage into the lake. This left two beaches closed and many of us wondering what damage has been done to our magical blue lake.
With all these tensions on our region — both human and environmental — it is important to remember to practice patience. We need to have compassion for visitors fleeing intense heat at lower elevations, serenity while navigating Tahoe/Truckee’s busy roads that are frequently undergoing much needed repairs, and a realization among locals and visitors that all of us have to share access to our natural resources.
As Stacy Caldwell, the CEO of the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation, wrote in her story last month, Change is Inevitable: Speak Your Peace, “At times, tension can reach a point of breaking, it can threaten to unravel what ties us together. What I hope for us is that we can remain in our discomfort without letting it overwhelm us. What I hope for us is that we can continue to show up in these conversations and decision-making rooms with integrity and grace.”
