Reid announces workshop for status check on Lake Tahoe

RENO, Nev. - U.S. Sen. Harry Reid will host a workshop later this month to receive a status check on programs, studies and other efforts designed to protect Lake Tahoe.

The July 18 workshop, titled, "Working Together to Preserve a National Treasure," comes about a year after President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore convened a summit at the lake to discuss environmental problems that plague the Tahoe Basin's delicate ecosystem and threaten the lake's famed clarity, which has been diminishing by about a foot a year.

Experts have warned that unless drastic measure's are taken, the decline will be irreversible within a decade.

"Now is the time to check in with all the agencies involved and make sure the improvement plans and preservation efforts are right on track," Reid, D-Nev., said during a news conference here on Wednesday to announce the workshop.

The workshop will be held at the Monument Peak Restaurant, at the top of Heavenly Ski Resort.

Reid, who orchestrated the presidential summit that brought international attention to Lake Tahoe, said cabinet members and Gore have been invited to the upcoming session, though it is yet uncertain who will attend.

Last year's summit was preceded by three workshops that focused on specific issues - water quality; forest restoration, recreation and tourism; and transportation.

Seventy-five percent of the 205,000-acre Tahoe Basin is owned by the federal government. Because of that, Reid said it is only fitting that the federal government share in the preservation of the pristine lake that straddle the Nevada-California line and its surrounding forests.

On July 26, 1997, Clinton signed an executive order pledging to double the federal government's financial commitment in the region to $50 million over two years.

Additionally, he directed federal agencies to work with local and state governments, environmental groups, businesses and the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, and to coordinate environmental efforts.

The president also called for:

- Increased funding and support from the Department of Transportation to upgrade roads and improve erosion control and storm runoff that deposits sediments in the lake.

- The elimination and rehabilitation of old logging roads by the U.S. Forest Service, as well as the clearing of brush and dead wood from federally-owned lots.

- Additional funding from the EPA for wetland and stream restoration projects.

- Funding to implement a coordinated transit system around the basin.

The summit, Reid said, showed that people with different views and concerns can work together for a common purpose.

"I'm especially happy how people are talking," he said. "We're so ahead of the game than we were 18 months ago."

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