City denied Bijou Park Creek Watershed grant, for now

It's been one year since the City of South Lake Tahoe was denied a grant by the California Tahoe Conservancy (CTC) for their Bijou Park Creek Watershed and SEZ Restoration Project, and today, the Conservancy Board did it again.

On March 17, 2016, the CTC Board awarded more than $7 million for seven watershed restoration and forest health projects around the lake from money received through Proposition 1 funding. Thirteen different applicants submitted 32 grant requests totaling $30 million at that time, but there was just $13,950,000 to be awarded. That left $6,300,000 to still be given out at a future date.

At the time of the original denial, the CTC told the City they placed the project as one of three that might still get funding after further review, meaning it was one of the top ten projects. The other two projects have already been given funds for their grant requests (one was approved in September and the other in December). This brings the total awarded to $9,461,568, leaving a balance of $4,488,432 in Proposition 1 funds to give towards Lake Tahoe area water projects.

The City's updated request was on the CTC board agenda March 16, 2017. Instead of asking for their original amount of $4.67M, the City reduced their request and asked for $3M to implement sensitive stream zone improvements to the land where the recently purchased Knight's Inn is being demolished.

The Bijou Park Creek SEZ project is an opportunity to put in the improvements to the oft-flooded area prior to new construction going in on the property. A pipe runs under the current motel that takes water from the Heavenly Mountain Resort area to Lake Tahoe. The SEZ project would have created filtering systems to reduce the amount of sediment and chemicals that reach the lake. They want to pull the sensitive land out of what would be sold to a developer and make it more of a park like setting with pathways, a bridge and a creek that would replace the piped water under the motel, as well as less pavement. The City was also going to put in the SEZ improvements on two "sensitive" lots the CTC owns behind the motel, ones that are currently just dirt with no improvements.

"The most important thing is the partnership," said SLT City Manager Nancy Kerry of working with the Conservancy. "Use the CTC parcels that are just sitting there and make them SEZ."

"Time is of the essence," said Hal Cole, the City's representative to the CTC board. "The developer is not going to work on water quality improvements."

The City asked for their request to be reconsidered, just as the other two project were, before opening a new round of grant requests.

The CTC Board did not agree. They said it wouldn't be fair to the others that were turned down in the first round. Even though the City didn't get the grant in the first round, they were never officially turned down as the other 22 grant applicants were.

Everyone agreed that the Bijou Park Creek project is a good one that would be a benefit not only environmentally, but developmentally. What they didn't agree on was less than an acre of proposed SEZ (steam environment zone) improvements. The original submission said the City would create an SEZ zone of two acres, the new plan is closer to 1.1 acres. The difference being necessary sloped land around the stream being counted in the original plan, not counted in the new proposal. CTC said this was too much of a change.

The vote was 5-2 to deny the city reconsideration of the awarding of the grant. The only two on the City's side were Cole, and Paula Franz of El Dorado County.

Now the City will go back through the next grant request procedure with the CTC expected to award funds to projects by December, 2017.

The California Tahoe Conservancy earned $2.4M to facilitate the bond money for Lake Tahoe projects. Those funds went to staff time on planning and monitoring the grants.