Locals and visitors alike mutually love Lake Tahoe. But many of us strongly disagree with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Shorezone Plan, touted as the best plan to save her. We feel the Shorezone Plan is an environmental mistake and puts the cart before the horse. Here is how.
Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) has a legal responsibility to check a whole spectrum of environmental thresholds every five years to see if they are moving toward the goal of 100 feet of clarity as well as other standards. If these thresholds do not show improvement towards meeting the thresholds as written in TRPA’ s Compact, then they have to reduce or eliminate different uses and developments in the basin in order to see an improvement at the next checkpoint.
The last threshold evaluation was 2001. TRPA has not yet released an evaluation of 2006 thresholds, even though it is required by law. No member of the TRPA board or staff responded to our request about when the 2006 Threshold Evaluation would be forthcoming. Our requests were simply ignored. So naturally we are concerned that they are planning for 22 years of development without these scientific measurements. They also shouldn’ t make promises that new development will help to meet the thresholds at some future date. They are clearly putting the cart before the horse!
TRPA fines the public who don’ t follow their rules. How can we get the TRPA board to follow the rules? We demand the scientific work get done that was due in 2006 – before they spend more valuable time on this unusable Shorezone plan. And regardless of the outcome of the next threshold evaluation, it is only one of many concerns we have with the proposed Shorezone Plan.
~ Kay & Donald Edwards, Zephyr Cove, Nev.
