Settlement talks continue in two-stroke engine litigation

Lawyers for the bistate TRPA, engine manufacturers, local boating concessionaires and a few interested boating enthusiasts plan another session June 25 in Sacramento.

"They are still meeting and still talking," said Mary Scoonover, interim legal counsel representative for TRPA. "I am not a liberty to say much more than that."

Key issues include next year's ban date, the use of MTBE-free gasoline, "grandfathering," and a ban on engines with little horsepower.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given personal watercraft manufacturers until 2006 to come up with an engine that cuts emissions by 75 percent. But the TRPA ban on two-stroke engines is scheduled to begin June 1, 1999.

Opponents of the ban want the TRPA to concentrate more on meeting emission standards and to delay the ban so that manufacturers have time to market a model that will meet the new standards.

"I will not endorse anything less than the 2006 date," said Robert Galvin, vice commodore with the South Lake Tahoe Yacht Club, who has joined in the lawsuit. "A federal agency has set a standard, and TRPA, which does not have enforcement powers, is willing to undermine that."

Many of the plaintiffs want to see some two-stroke engines, especially smaller outboard engines, exempt from the ban. According to Galvin, the TRPA is considering exempting engines with 10 horsepower or less - but many engines on sail and fishing boats are 25 horsepower.

The discovery of methyl tertiary butyl ether or MTBE - a gasoline additive used to increase fuel burn - in the lake has further strengthened the TRPA governing board's decision to ban two-stroke engines.

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