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Funding approved to finish shorezone project

Gregory Crofton, Tahoe Daily Tribune

Trying to create building rules for the shores of Lake Tahoe could be compared to sidestepping up Gunbarrel: it’s slippery and takes a long time.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency has been working on an environmental study of the shorezone for 10 years. Two thick reports were scrapped and now the agency is working on a third.

The agency’s Governing Board on Wednesday approved the staff’s request for $75,000 to help finish the report.



It, along with $200,000 the staff got in May, will pay for a consultant to analyze what would be the impact of reducing the number of piers, boathouses and other structures at the shoreline.

The extra analysis needs to be done to make the shorezone report a more complete document, says the California Attorney General’s Office, according to Coleen Shade, the TRPA planner in charge of the shorezone study.



The Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board also wants to see the additional work completed because of water quality concerns, Shade said.

The shorezone study has taken more than 10 years to complete because it is an inherently controversial subject and deals with complicated issues like fisheries.

It also has been slow-going because other projects have bumped it off TRPA’s desk, such as the ban on two-stroke Jet Skis and crafting a budget for the Environmental Improvement Program in 2000, staff said.

In other action Wednesday, the Governing Board:

n Approved technical amendments to the scenic ordinances, agreeing to revisit one of the amendments next month. At one point, the board was led back into discussions regarding the content of the ordinances, but an amendment to reexamine some of the issues was voted down 10 to 2.

n Conducted a closed-session performance review for TRPA Executive Director Juan Palma, but agreed to put off a vote on his request for a 5 percent raise until next month.

n Approved a range of fee adjustments for permit applications.

— Gregory Crofton can be reached at (530) 542-8045 or by e-mail at gcrofton@tahoedailytribune.com


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