I recently read an opinion piece on South Tahoe Now and felt the readers could use additional facts regarding Congress’s current efforts to modernize the Santini-Burton Act of 1980 (SBA). 

I want to do this by addressing some key questions.

“Will Santini-Burton lands remain permanently protected from development-enabling uses?”

The answer is yes. The only way that currently protected parcels could be developed is if Congress removed those protections which is not proposed. Currently, National Forest System lands within the Lake Tahoe Basin are administered by the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit of the Forest Service following their 2016 Land and Resource Management Plan (Forest Plan). The Forest Plan directs how the landscape will be managed. The direction is to “Retain National Forest System lands in the Lake Tahoe Basin in public ownership to fulfill the specific objectives for which they were acquired.” There is a specific direction regarding what can and cannot occur on land acquired under the SBA. Generally speaking, for these parcels, the “management emphasis is on protecting watershed conditions and community open space,” and that “development is prohibited on these environmentally sensitive lands except for dispersed recreation and erosion control improvements.” I encourage readers to search online for the 2016 Forest Plan. There is much more information on the management of land in general and specifically SBA-acquired parcels. 

In 2016, the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act was passed and it amended the Santini-Burton Act. It authorized the Forest Service to receive 1,981 acres from California and transfer 131 acres to NV. The purpose of these land transfer provisions was to save money through operational efficiencies, but these transfers have not been completed. Under the proposed legislation, funds would be available to complete this work. Land coming from California would be managed according to the Forest Plan. The land going to Nevada would be managed according to the authorities of NV State Parks.

The proposed legislation does identify the need and authority for the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California to have access to funds in order “to acquire and manage land of cultural significance to that Tribe in the Lake Tahoe Basin for the purposes of preservation, access, and land management.”

I feel this meets the original intent of the SBA and does protect the land long-term.

Will evacuation capacity be treated as a primary planning constraint?

While the proposed legislation does not direct any entity to consider evacuation capacity as a primary planning constraint, the Santini-Burton Modernization Act funding could help reduce hazardous fuels along evacuation routes in the basin. I will say, having participated in numerous meetings, conversations, and implemented projects over the previous four years, that evacuation route planning and management is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. The fix that the proposed legislation would bring to this issue is making available existing SBA-generated funds that were authorized in the original SBA but were inadvertently locked up when the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998 was signed into law. These funds would be available to manage SBA parcels and other land not only adjacent to evacuation routes, but throughout the basin to create healthier forests and contribute to making our communities more fire resilient.

Or are we witnessing a further retreat from protecting the Basin to accommodating development pressure?

This is a topic that could be endlessly debated. What I would like to offer the reader is how this proposed legislation would help current and future generations better coexist with the developed and undeveloped environment. More broadly, the original SBA intended to do just that. It identified a need for development in Southern Nevada and a need to limit development in the Lake Tahoe Basin. It found a reasonable and balanced approach to allow for and support such actions. The need to modernize the law is to restore access to existing funds, improve the kinds of and amount of management actions to address the issues that were present in 1980, are present today including tourism-based land use.

To be more specific, making the existing SBA funds available for not only forest and watershed improvement projects but also including projects that prevent and/or mitigate environmental impacts due to recreational use is a game-changer. As many readers may know, roughly 80 percent of the land within the Basin is administered by the Forest Service and the remaining 10 percent of public land is administered by state and local governments. This landscape is why most if not all of us live or visit Lake Tahoe. The SBA funds will help implement appropriate projects found in publicly vetted plans such as the recently signed Basinwide Trails Analysis, the Highway 28 and Highway 89 corridor plans, activities by non-federal entities that have a federal nexus, and preserving cultural sites and indigenous management practices of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California that are essential to protecting environmental and community resilience. 

Additionally, if the law is modernized, SBA funds can be used for scientific research to support decisions relating to land management activities. This knowledge will help land managers, public officials and communities adapt to an ever-changing developed and undeveloped landscape.

I think there was and is more to the law than stopping development. It recognized the need to stop development in environmentally sensitive areas, acquire the land, manage the land for limited purposes and it provided funding for said management. The proposed legislation pragmatically builds on the original act’s core purposes by giving back access to existing funds and including funding for projects that prevent and mitigate environmental impacts due to recreational use. With the ever-growing trend of outdoor recreation on our public lands, modernizing the Santini-Burton Act will allow the USFS to better protect these lands for future generations.

Erick Walker

Retired Federal Civil Servant