Lake Tahoe buoy, pier plan protested
STATELINE -- Environmentalists are criticizing the latest proposals to regulate boats, piers and buoys at Lake Tahoe, saying the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's plan doesn't go far enough to protect the lake.
A half-dozen critics unfurled protest signs outside a workshop last week at the agency's office on the south shore.
"Lake Tahoe is a national treasure, and we should treat it as such," Cory Ritchie of Stateline said Thursday. "We shouldn't litter it with piers and turn it into Any Lake, USA."
Laurel Ames said the demonstration was called because the Tahoe agency board's decision on shore zone ordinances is expected as early as June.
At the workshop, representatives from various interest groups engaged in sometimes tense discussion with agency Executive Director John Singlaub regarding the eighth alternative proposed to update the shore zone ordinances.
The latest alternative would allow construction of up to 138 new piers and the placement of 1,862 new buoys on the lake.
The previous alternative would have allowed the same number of new buoys but the development of 340 new piers, according to Tahoe Regional Planning Agency documents.
After a question from Tahoe board member Jerry Waldie about the justification for allowing new pier development, Singlaub said the latest alternative was a "political decision" bartered between California and Nevada agencies following concerns from California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi.
In January 2007, Garamendi wrote a letter to the agency stating new structures along the shore zone would be detrimental to recreation and block public access.
Maximum distances buoys could be placed from shore, mitigation requirements for pier maintenance, and unanswered questions regarding the types of public access allowed on Tahoe's California shore front were among the concerns expressed by Jan Brisco, executive director of the Tahoe Lakefront Owners' Association.
Brisco described the Tahoe agency's processes for pier maintenance in the newest alternative as "onerous."
LAKE DEAL
INCLINE VILLAGE -- A scenic alpine lake and private enclave overlooking Lake Tahoe that once served as a playground for the rich and famous should be in the public's hands by this summer.
The Incline Lake Corp. will receive a deposit of at least $46 million for 777 acres, including Incline Lake, atop a forested ridge of the Sierra Nevada between Lake Tahoe and Reno, landowners said in announcing a compromise deal with the U.S. Forest Service last week.
U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., suggested the compromise. It was arranged after the landowners and the Forest Service couldn't agree on the property's value.
The Incline Lake Corp. originally asked for $75 million, but federal appraisals put the value as "tens of millions" less than that, said Glen Williams of Terra Firma Associates, representing the owners.
The scenic property should transfer to the Forest Service in June, although the exact value of the land won't be determined for perhaps a year, Williams said.
The lake will remain closed to the public until next year while improvements are made, landowners said.
Since 1939, when the property was acquired from George Whittell by Norman Biltz, the "Duke of Nevada," Incline Lake has generally been off-limits to the public.
Past visitors included some of Nevada's most prominent personalities, such as philanthropist and dairy king Max Fleischmann, longtime U.S. Sen. Pat McCarran and Moya Lear, philanthropist and wife to Bill Lear, creator of the Lear jet.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
