There’s nowhere on Earth like Lake Tahoe, and the public lands that surround Big Blue are the heart and soul of life in our community. They are also integral to the plan to protect and restore the Tahoe Basin. Measurable progress is being made on environmental goals that were set at a time when many of these open spaces were still privately owned and subject to development.
Last week, I had the honor of testifying in Washington, D.C. before a congressional committee on preserving Lake Tahoe’s public lands at the invitation of U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. As a leader in the partnership known as Team Tahoe, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) and many partners, including the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, have been working for years on legislation to modernize a law called the Santini-Burton Act. Since its enactment in 1980, the law has provided funds for the USDA Forest Service (USFS) to acquire more than 16,000 acres of sensitive lands in the Tahoe Basin.
You may best know the lands acquired with Santini-Burton funds by the open lots in our local neighborhoods. The USFS owns 3,500 of these parcels in the Tahoe Basin. You may even be lucky enough to have one next door to you, providing open space. Thanks to the visionary foresight of Congressmembers James Santini of Nevada and Phillip Burton of California, the USFS used funds from federal land sales in the Las Vegas area to buy land in Tahoe to protect the basin from overdevelopment.
The Santini-Burton Act formed the backbone of Lake Tahoe’s conservation success story. Now, 45 years after the law was passed in Congress, approximately 90 percent of all lands within our watershed are publicly owned and managed. That means places like Pope Beach and the Tallac Historic Site, which once were private estates, are now public areas. Trails and trailheads throughout the basin serve as our backyards with endless open space for us to enjoy, alongside the wildlife which needs conservation areas to survive and thrive. The modernization of the Santini-Burton law would unlock funds to allow the USFS to manage these lands and protect our irreplaceable natural resources.
We’re fortunate to have a bipartisan, bi-state congressional delegation elevating the needs of Tahoe in Washington. Protecting Lake Tahoe has always been a shared responsibility, and our public lands are central to achieving the goals set for TRPA under the Bi-State Compact. But shared responsibility also requires innovation. As conditions change, from climate pressures to recreational demands, we must ensure our policies and environmental goals—or Threshold Standards—evolve as well.
Guided by modern science, TRPA is in the process of adopting new forest health Threshold Standards to improve wildfire safety and forest resilience at a landscape scale. And this year, we will also evaluate the Recreation Threshold to better address growing visitation pressures while protecting Tahoe’s expansive public lands.
At the same time, TRPA is working with water quality partners and the Tahoe Science Advisory Council to sharpen our understanding of the factors influencing lake clarity, including changing weather patterns and the lake’s complex biology.
Team Tahoe partners are investing millions in transformative projects. The Fanny Bridge replacement project in Tahoe City and the South Upper Truckee Marsh restoration on the South Shore have turned aging infrastructure and degraded landscapes into environmental successes that benefit the lake. It isn’t just public land acquisitions and watershed restoration projects that are behind progress toward our shared goals. Environmental redevelopment by private property owners requires installation and maintenance of best management practices to prevent erosion and reduce stormwater runoff.
Lake Tahoe is responding to our collective stewardship. Last year, a scientific, peer-reviewed Environmental Threshold evaluation report showed that nearly 80 percent of Threshold Standards are being met. From soil health to nesting bald eagles, the vitality of Lake Tahoe’s environment and communities are improving together.
Each individual action, every forest and wetland restored, all redevelopment projects completed, and every acre of land protected are part of a larger, interdependent system designed to carry stewardship forward as the original stewards, the Waší∙šiw—or Washoe people—have for millennia. Public lands shared by all are part of what makes Tahoe, Tahoe. The responsibility to protect and maintain them doesn’t fall to one person or organization or group of leaders. Your actions are just as important.
-Julie Regan
Julie Regan is Executive Director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.