Member-only story
Lake Tahoe planning agency ducks environmental obligations
It’s not good when it takes a formal letter from a Nevada legislative committee chair to pry loose a required environmental update from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA).
This letter, sent Oct. 16, followed months of public testimony at the state capitol and TRPA headquarters in Stateline, Nevada. Just days later, California’s Attorney General’s office also sent a letter advising TRPA’s Governing Board that the agency failed, again, to meet a reduction in one of its key environmental milestones: Vehicle Miles Traveled. The correspondence referenced several previous warning letters. California’s Department of Justice further noted TRPA’s latest environmental threshold pivot was a “confusing mix of apples and oranges.”
Meanwhile, this month the League to Save Lake Tahoe and Sierra Watch filed a lawsuit against a controversial massive development at Palisades Tahoe. Conservationists deem the project significantly detrimental to Lake Tahoe due to worsening traffic congestion, increased air pollution and degraded Lake Tahoe Basin water quality. TRPA stands to receive $2 million in mitigation fees should the project go forward.
A bi-state agency, TRPA has spent nearly $3 billion in federal, state and private funding over two decades — and recently secured $300 million from Congress. It has…
