South Lake Tahoe man sues the California Tahoe Conservancy after flooding of home

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - A South Lake Tahoe man is suing the California Tahoe Conservancy (CTC) after his home was filled with water for 80 days this past winter.

Damian Sowers, a lifelong local who lives on El Dorado Avenue, can now only visit the home his parents built 60 years ago. The house was filled with 16" of water that came in from the Upper Truckee River during the heavy 2022-23 winter.

The CTC started a restoration project in the Upper Truckee River Marsh in 2020 to correct old grazing and farming methods that straightened the river to have a drier meadow. The two-year-long project brought back water to the meadow, creating a healthier environment.

Sowers said he believes in the project and is a proponent of the restoration, but he says the way it was done with check dams was ill-conceived and the project's floodplain alterations were miscalculated by more than an order of magnitude.

"The marsh water level was above the 100-year flood elevation for seven months straight and it's currently sitting right at the 100-year level in the dry season, two dry seasons in a row," said Sowers. He hasn't seen any of the flood waters receding this summer.

"It's a permanent environmental change and the CTC effectively gave my house to the marsh," he added.

Sowers' home is currently resting on several feet of wood lifts. There is no floor to the lifted home, and it will need a new foundation of five feet to be able to withstand any future flooding.

(see the video tour this week with a neighborhood black bear leading the way)

He is suing the CTC to recover the money he has spent to empty the water from the home, clean the mold, and get the house lifted, and for the money that it will cost to rebuild. Sowers' insurance is not covering any of the damages.

To add insult to injury, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency has told Sowers that he cannot have the three-story house he once had. When the foundation is lifted five feet it will put the home, which is located below street level, above the Al Tahoe neighborhood height restrictions.

Steve Goldman, a former 30-year employee at the CTC and the agency's former natural resources director, said the 30+ check dams on the new project are not appropriate. He said the Upper Truckee Marsh has both high bedloads and high stream flows, neither of which work well with check dams. A check dam is a small, sometimes temporary, dam constructed across a swale, drainage ditch, or waterway to counteract erosion by reducing water flow.

The CTC said they cannot comment on the lawsuit though they did say they have been monitoring the Upper Truckee Marsh since the project was completed in 2022, and will continue to do so. Their board of directors meets on Wednesday morning and there could be a discussion on the matter during closed session.

It isn't just Sower's house that experienced flooding issues along the marsh. One neighbor had their house lifted last week and it is getting a new foundation, another El Dorado Avenue resident is talking with CTC, and the South Tahoe Public Utility District pump house also had flooding. Sowers is the only one with a lawsuit at this time.

"I'm imploring the Conservancy board to do the ethical thing in this situation and not force this into a multi-year court battle," said Sowers. "I still want the Conservancy to be successful with their restoration efforts, but the project needs to be modified so that more homes aren't lost, and the damage already caused to locals needs to be properly mitigated."

Sowers said he had tried to work with the CTC for over a year to solve this problem before filing the lawsuit.

"It was clear the project was going to destroy my house but they didn't make sufficient modifications to prevent this obvious disaster," said Sowers.

He is hopeful that he can recoup the expenses he's had to clear the water out of the home, mold mitigation, raise the house, live elsewhere for almost a year (so far), and then the upcoming expenses of installing a new foundation and floor, demolishing the third floor, as well as rebuilding the decks.

The lawsuit was filed on June 23, with a case management conference scheduled for October 17.