Advocacy

In December 2012, the TRPA approved a new regional plan for Tahoe. The next step is implementing neighborhood area plans. The League will be monitoring these plans as closely as it did the regional plan.

In another victory for Lake Tahoe’s environment, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the League in February 2012, that TRPA must analyze boat pollution from illegal buoys before approving new development. The League will be working with the TRPA to ensure that its new program has a go-slow approach for buoys and piers, looks at impacts of boating to lake Tahoe and has adequate protections to the lake. 

Transportation planning is the key to relieving dependence on the private automobile and improving air quality at Tahoe. Air and water quality are integrally linked, as science is showing that dust stirred up by cars travels to the lake and has a significant affect on clarity.

The US Forest Service is proposing a campground "retrofit" project for the Camp Richardson Resort campground that will include not only stormwater treatment, but an increase in the number of large (pull through) RV hookup sites over what currently exists on the site. In addition, the Forest Service is proposing to reduce the overall number of non-hookup (tent-sites) in the campground. Proposals also include developing large RV hookup sites in areas that are currently open space, and removing approximately 950 trees, including old growth specimens in the campground area. The League has numerous concerns and questions for the Forest Service on this project.

Read the League's April 2009 comments on the Camp Richardson Resort Campground Project.

The Forest Service has created a long-term plan for the Tahoe Basin that will govern how forests are managed and what types of recreation opportunities will be supported. The League collaborated with Sierra Forest Legacy and other conservation groups to ensure that the forest plan responds to climate change, wildfire risk, and protection of low-impact recreation opportunities.

Despite pressure to weaken this landmark long-term water quality plan, the League in 2010 successfully advocated to keep strong protections for Lake Tahoe in the TMDL, which was approved in November, 2010, by the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board.

In April, 2011, the TRPA Governing Board approved Boulder Bay, a project to give the Tahoe Biltmore hotel-casino on the North Shore a "facelift" by tripling the number of rooms to 275, adding 59 condos and 158 parking spaces, and erecting at least eight buildings between 45 and 75 feet tall that defied TRPA height limits.

The US 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the League in October 2012 that a private drive to this gated subdivision project could not be exempt from coverage limitations. To prevent a disturbing new precedent, the League had appealed an adverse lower court ruling. The TRPA’s 2009 approval of this project on Nevada's South Shore represented the first time in nearly 40 years that the agency permitted a new residential subdivision without counting its private road against the overall coverage limitations for the project. If the development had been allowed to proceed as proposed, large lots throughout Tahoe would have become easier to subdivide and develop, increasing pavement and coverage that endanger Tahoe’s clarity.

The 50-unit residential subdivision called Sierra Colina Village was planned for previously undeveloped land beside Burke Creek in the Stateline/Kingsbury area. The League and numerous other organizations and residents expressed concern, and the League initiated litigation.

Read the League's October 2012 media statement.

Read the League's court complaint.

Read our October 2008 comments on the Sierra Colina DEIS.

Homewood Mountain Resort plans to build an all-season resort with 349 residential and hotel units along Highway 89, a two-lane road that already experiences significant summertime traffic gridlock. During snowy conditions, this highway is frequently closed just south of Homewood, leaving only one available travel route through already-congested Tahoe City.

In August 2012, the TRPA board unanimously approved this 154-room hotel project planned for a 10-acre area within Edgewood Golf Course on the Nevada side of South Shore. Because of various direct water quality improvements, the League supported the project, but also urged the TRPA board to require retirement of developable land to compensate for the urban boundary expansion.

Read the League's June 2012 comments. 

In summer 2011, the League was invited to review a new, “streamlined” version of TRPA's 600 pages of ordinances.

In 2009, the League expressed concern about the Basin-wide implications of seemingly minor Community Plan boundary line realignments.

Read the League's statement on the Kings Beach Community Plan Realignment Amendment that was approved by the TRPA Governing Board on July 22nd, 2009.

In 2006, the League released a Draft Airport Impacts Report which examines a range of community and environmental impacts associated with the airport in South Lake Tahoe.

Read the full report.

Read the Executive Summary.

Read the Air Quality Appendix.

Heavenly Mountain Resort in 2010 proposed relocating its Umbrella Bar, and constructing a new lodge and safety hazard reductions on California Trail. The League expressed concern that these projects should conform with the approved Heavenly Master Plan. Discrepancies in coverage should be addressed and potential impacts to soil, vegetation and water quality should be avoided or properly mitigated. 

Read the League's January 2010 comments on the Heavenly capital projects. 

In, 2008, responding to proposals for widespread development on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe, the League conducted an analysis of the extensive cumulative impacts associated with all the projects in a three mile section of the Tahoe Vista, Kings Beach and Crystal Bay communities. Read the report.