CARSON CITY, Nev. – The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency will be receiving some additional oversight this year, as the Nevada State Legislature convened for their Interim Session, adding the Legislative Committee for the Review and Oversight of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the Marlette Lake Water System to the calendar.

The six member committee is made up of members of the Assembly and the Senate from various parts of the state. The members include Senator Skip Daly, Chair, Assemblywoman Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod, Vice Chair, Senator Melanie Scheible, Senator Robin L. Titus, Assemblyman Rich DeLong, and Assemblywoman Angie Taylor.

The committee held its first of six meetings on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024, during which they set guidelines for the committee and received presentations from the various relevant agencies.

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The meeting began with a 30-minute public comment section during which several members of the Tahoe area of Douglas County and Incline Village spoke. The committee room in Carson City was overflowing with attendees and a second room had to be set up.

While basically all of the comments focused on support of TRPA oversight, they varied in severity. Some commenters supported TRPA but thought extra oversight couldn’t hurt while others implied TRPA was corrupt and negligent.

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Natalie Yanish, a former Douglas County Commissioner candidate and current member of the Kingsbury General Improvement District Board of Directors said, “I don’t feel like the sky is falling,” in regards to TRPA’s decisions.

While one other community member said it was time to “refocus TRPA.”

This is not a new committee, the Legislature has provided oversight of TRPA and the Marlette Lake Water System many times since 1985.

Over the six meetings, the committee will review the budget, programs, activities, responsiveness and accountability of both agencies. They will also study the role, authority and activities of TRPA in regards to Lake Tahoe and Marlette Lake Water System regarding Marlette Lake.

The committee is allocated to make up to ten requests for bill drafts.

Following discussion of the logistics of the committee, the members received presentations regarding the history and organization of the agencies.

Tahoe Regional Planning Agency

Julie Regan, TRPA’s Executive Director spoke on behalf of the organization, starting with a brief look at the region and the history of TRPA.

According to Regan, in 1950, the Tahoe region had about 3,000 residents. The first ski resort, Heavenly, opened in 1956. The airport opened in 1959. US 80 opened in 1964 and the first high-rise casino opened in 1965. TRPA was created in 1969.

With those milestones and the 1960 Winter Olympics, the region experienced massive influx of residents. By 1980, there was a 16x population growth since 1955.

Following a highlight of some of TRPA’s accomplishments over the years, Regan discussed some of the major issues facing the lake including the gap in affordable housing, increased housing costs, commuting patterns and rising transportation costs.

Following the presentation, Regan fielded questions from the committee members.

When asked how many employees the organization had, Regan said they had about 70 employees, which she helped narrow down from the about 90 non-seasonal employees they had in 2003.

“When I started at TRPA, there were about 90 plus employees, with seasonals it was just under 100. So, we seriously changed our organizational size and only recently have tried to get to the right size. We’ve been very fiscally responsible but its taken a toll on our staff,” said Regan.

When discussing housing and new development, the committee members recognized the difficulties TRPA and the region face. With about 80% of the basin being public land, there is finite availability to build more and larger housing projects.

The committee and Regan both acknowledge that while TRPA started as an environmental organization, it has also had an economic lens.

“We understand that we have a business community that has struggled over the years and that was a big conversation… that the rules that we have can be very complex so we’ve been working over time so that people can be excited about following the rules and not afraid they’re going to walk in the door into the TRPA offices to say what will somebody find wrong with my property,” Regan said.

Division of State Lands, State Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

Charlie Donohue and Ellery Stahler then represented the Nevada Division of State Lands, State Department of Conservation and Natural Resources on a presentation regarding the Environmental Improvement Program and related Nevada programs.

Donohue started the presentation by explaining Nevada State Lands’ involvement in overseeing the Lake Tahoe Basin. In 1976, the state asserted sovereignty over the lake bed of Tahoe. The state was able to do this under the Equal Footing Doctrine which stated that when Nevada became a state, all navigable waters in the state fell under its jurisdiction.

There has been many programs and fundraising efforts over the years to help manage Lake Tahoe. The Nevada Tahoe Resource Team, which is made up of eight members from various state agencies, has overseen the lion share of that work.

“Since its inception in the late 90s, the team has implemented or funded 170 EIP projects, 138 are complete and 32 are in various stages, currently, of planning, design or construction,” said Stahler.

The division has various program areas including recreation enhancement, forest health and restoration, water quality and erosion and aquatic invasive species.

The division recently completed construction on a visitor’s center at Spooner State Park. They are hoping to soon complete at similar project at Van Sickle State Park.

In regards to forest health, the division recently completed defensible space work at Sand Harbor State Park, 84 acres of treatment at Bon Pland, which is a drainage area near Tunnel Creek and will be implementing a project to treat over 450 acres near and around Marlene Lake in Spring 2024.

There are several upcoming projects for the team, including acting as a funding partner for a permanent AIS Inspection Station at the intersection of Highways 28 and 50. They will also begin planning for a Spooner Meadows restoration project in 2025.

Marlette Lake Water System

Next, the committee received a presentation on the Marlette Lake Water System. The system was built in 1873, its purpose is water collection, treatment, and conveyance systems for domestic and industrial uses within the Comstock District (Storey County) and Carson Valley.

It provides all the water for Virginia City, Gold Hill and Silver City and the majority of the water system’s water is sold to Carson City. In Fiscal Year 2023, the system delivered over 659 million gallons of water to Carson City and Storey County.

The system is noted as a Historic Landmark and was originally operated with a flume system. The Flume Trail is now a popular walking trail outside of Incline Village.

In 2023, MLWS did major updates to the Division Dam which diverts the water to Storey County and Carson City. They added more control systems, flow monitoring systems, increased security measures and new valving.

They are currently refurbishing gates at the fish spawning area and improving access for the fish in lower water years.

Planned improvements include upgrades to the East Slope Transmission Line and the addition of three East Slope Catchments. They are also nearly done with the design phase of the Marlette Dam Rehabilitation project.

Proposed projects include upgrades to the Sawmill Transmission Line, Lakeview to I-580 Transmission Line upgrades and Lakeview to Carson City Transmission Line replacements.

The meeting concluded with representatives from Douglas, Washoe and Storey Counties as well as Carson City spoke about their priorities and use of Marlette Lake and Lake Tahoe. There was a second public comment period at the end, as well.

The next hearing will be held March 8.