Tahoe Project Podcasts

“Living in the Tahoe Basin is a privilege,” says Peter Kraatz, Deputy Director of Public Works at Placer County. “If you go back a hundred years there was a big push to turn it into a national park. It is not a national park. It is a sensitive landscape though. It got developed the way that it did. We are trying to correct the way it got developed in the past and make it a better place,” he says. Kraatz sees private property owners as stewards of the Tahoe Basin, in partnership with local government. He says, “I feel like in the Tahoe Basin we really should put a lot of emphasis on the fact that we live in a very special, place, in a very sensitive environment that has a higher bar for protecting the environment. If we want to continue to live around an incredible gem of a water body and still keep the economy going we have to look to ourselves for the solution.”

While operation and maintenance of roads is the critical element for the next decade in the strategy to meet the Clarity Challenge and restore Lake Tahoe clarity it is not evident how funds to do the work will be secured. Peter Kraatz, Deputy Director of Public Works at Placer County says in this interview, “I get a lot of complaints about the condition of our roadway surfaces which also adds to the water quality dilemma. We’ve got a lot of roads in Placer County that are already pretty beat up, pretty alligator cracked. That is a reflection of a fund source that just can’t keep up with our road condition, the snow removal we do, all of the things that we do to keep our roads safe. We are maxed out. It goes back to this question of where we find additional funding sources—not only to keep our roads in good condition, a safe riding surface, but also to do the things that we need to for sediment reduction and restoring Lake Tahoe clarity.”

Public Works professionals throughout the Lake Tahoe Basin are striving to meet the Clarity Challenge—to reduce the number of ultra-fine sediment particles that get to Lake Tahoe every year by one-third by 2026. This is no small task. Among them is Peter Kraatz, Deputy Director of Public Works at Placer County. In this 2012 interview Kraatz talks about the “preferred design approach” engineers use to design systems that reduce the transport of ultra-fine sediment to Lake Tahoe.

We now have the tools to understand how to prioritize. We know that doing everything everywhere is not the best strategy and now we have the tools to strategically make prioritization decisions for Lake Tahoe water quality. It doesn’t make sense to put our implementation dollars toward areas that don’t connect hydrologically to the lake. “The prioritization is critical,” says Bob Larsen, Staff Scientist at the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. “We have the tools to be able to assess where to put our dollars to make the biggest difference—to address the real problems. The actions we are taking under the Total Maximum Daily Load are directly addressing water quality. We can now have a conversation about the relative cost-benefit of taking one action over another,” he says.

“We all depend on the benefits of transportation infrastructure so we all have a role to play in mitigating the impact of that infrastructure on water quality,” says Bob Larsen, Staff Scientist at the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. He says, “Everybody who is living in and enjoying this Tahoe basin has the responsibility to deal with the problems that result from the infrastructure we all use. We all need to be part of the solution.”

On a dollar for dollar basis annual operations and maintenance activities are more cost-effective at reducing pollutant loading and are cheaper than large-scale capital improvement projects, otherwise known as infrastructure projects. In this interview Bob Larsen, Staff Scientist at the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board points out that, “the challenge that we have right now is to figure out how we can help local government do the more cost-effective operations and maintenance activities that are needed to improve water quality.” Funds for capital improvement projects have historically been easier to secure in the Tahoe Basin than have been funds for ongoing operations and maintenance. This situation is not unique to Tahoe, jurisdictions across the country are seeking revenue sources to meet the need for operation and maintenance of existing infrastructure.

Roadways, in particular the state highway system and some of the other high traffic roadways, are a disproportionate source of the ultra-fine particles that are causing the decline in Lake Tahoe clarity. In this interview Bob Larsen, Staff Scientist at the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, talks about the central question for today’s road managers in the Lake Tahoe Basin, “How can we better manage roads to reduce the amount of traction abrasives and roadway products that actually make their way into the stormwater and into Lake Tahoe?”

Bob Larsen is Staff Scientist at the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. In this 2012 interview he says, “I think the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) provided us with the opportunity to be more involved in the process [of solving Lake Tahoe clarity decline], to engage with the scientific community and our implementing partners to figure out, to better understand, the problem and to better understand what the potential solutions might be—to be a more-active partner in the restoration of Lake Tahoe’s transparency.”

“I am inspired by the collaborative spirit at Lake Tahoe,” says Patty Kouyoumdjian, Executive Officer of the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. “I am very optimistic that if there are challenges I think that we are going to meet those,” she says. And there are challenges to executing on the plan to restore Lake Tahoe clarity. In this interview Kouyoumdjian reflects on the challenge of “being able to financially pay for some of these measures, not just in the short term but in outgoing years.” She also notes that while collaborative culture is an asset, the mechanics of coordinating across local, state and federal agencies can be a challenge unto itself but is essential to success. “We can’t solve our problems in the Basin with the work of just one or two agencies, there are other decisions and other actions that need to occur,” she says. “There are mechanical challenges to getting local governments and other leaders together and solving problems as a group,” notes Kouyoumdjian, but her outlook overall on restoring Lake Tahoe clarity is optimistic.

There is a clear path we can take to restore Lake Tahoe’s clarity according to Patty Kouyoumdjian, Executive Officer of the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. She says, “I think we are very clear on where the sources of pollution are and I think we are relatively set on what actions need to happen to improve lake clarity”. In this 2012 Tahoe Project interview Kouyoumdjian emphasizes the “true and hard and real measures that we have to reach,” talking about the reductions in ultra-fine particles that have to be made at Lake Tahoe by 2026. She says, we now have “a very clear roadmap of what we need to do,” to accomplish our goal of water clarity at Lake Tahoe.

How well are investments in the environment performing? Monitoring is conducted in the effort to answer this question. In this interview, Claire Fortier, Mayor of the City of South Lake Tahoe, argues that monitoring is useful when deployed in a targeted context, where the objectives are defined. In this conversation Fortier shares a little bit about the hefty price tag of monitoring and the drive for continual improvement based upon the monitoring results.

Claire Fortier is the Mayor of the City of South Lake Tahoe. In this interview she talks about monitoring. Monitoring—conducted in an effort to determine how effective projects have been in achieving the environmental goals of the Basin—has been a key topic of discussion at the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board meetings in this month before the vote on the Regional Plan Update. Here Mayor Fortier gives us some context on the topic of monitoring from the local government perspective.

The Tahoe Region is updating its vision of its communities and the way they will work in the twenty-first century. Discussions are now underway in the local communities around the Tahoe Basin about what they will look like and what their interface with the environment will be. Residents, part-time homeowners and visitors to the Tahoe area are invited to participate in these future-planning opportunities, says Joanne Marchetta in this fourth-in-the-series interview with the Executive of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

“Let the system focus on the places where you get the biggest environmental bang for the buck,” this is the advice that the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency took from the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). "The flexibility that we have built into the system is based on this new paradigm that says: focus on the locations where you can get the greatest pollutant load reduction," says Joanne Marchetta, TRPA Executive. The pollutants at issue are ultra-fine sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus. Creating the regulatory flexibility to enable jurisdictions to go after these pollutants is a high-priority undertaking in the Tahoe planning process.

In this interview segment Joanne Marchetta, TRPA Executive Director, responds to the question, "What is the role of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) in relation to incentive and means in the private sector?" In response Marchetta highlights how the TRPA is shifting into a more-regional role than it previously played. She says, “…[local government] knows that the way to protect themselves is to protect the environment here.” She underscores how the new regional plan envisions place-making happening in the hands of local citizens and local government, where TRPA plays a role in approving the plans and ensuring their consistency with the environmental sideboards set by TRPA while leaving local character to be determined by citizens.

Joanne Marchetta is the Executive Director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. The agency is bringing forward the Tahoe Regional Plan Update to its Board of Governors in December 2012. This Plan update has been the focus of much debate for nearly a decade. Will the Board vote its approval? Will it proceed without litigation as the governors of Nevada and California have sought? In this interview Marchetta shares her perspective on what is at stake.

The Meyers Community at Lake Tahoe is updating the Community Plan document which describes the desired future of the area. Toward this end a community workshop, open to the public, is being hosted at 5:30 PM on Wednesday, November 7th at 2211 Keetak Street, behind the Lake Valley Fire Station. An update to the general plan for Tahoe Paradise Park will be an important aspect of discussion.

Norma Santiago is the District 5 El Dorado County Supervisor, representing South Lake Tahoe and Pollock Pines in El Dorado County. In this interview Santiago talks about the Tahoe Regional Plan Update and the constituency she represents, highlighting the need and opportunity to build trust and solutions.

Allen Biaggi is a member of the board of the Tahoe Fund. In this interview Biaggi talks about the Fund whose goal is to build broad support and funding for public projects.

In this second segment of the 2012 interview with Allen Biaggi he talks about water quality, the advances made in Nevada with regard to water quality and about the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) which he calls, "a huge step forward because previously we had more of a shotgun approach … we now know through a rigorous scientific process, where the problems are, and can focus our scant resources toward that end. We can now spend our money wisely toward those reductions in fine sediments."

Allen Biaggi is a third-generation Nevadan from Douglas County. At the close of his 3-decade career in public service Biaggi served as director of the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources which oversees the divisions of environmental protection, forestry, state parks, state lands, water resources, conservation districts, the natural heritage and the wild horse programs. During his tenure he served as Chair of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency governing board. Now in his retirement, he serves on the board of the Tahoe Fund.

Casey Beyer is one of California Governor Jerry Brown’s two appointees to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board. This is part 2 in the interview. Here he speaks about the role of Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Board members in the final preparation of the Regional Plan document and in setting a course for the Tahoe Basin in the twenty-first century.

Casey Beyer is one of California Governor Jerry Brown’s two appointees to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board. Politics and policy were a part of his family life growing up in Tahoe. In this interview he shares a bit about his life as a native of Nevada and how he approaches representing the interests of the Governor and people of California in Tahoe decision-making.

The August 13, 2012 remarks of Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval are featured in this podcast. He underscores the “unprecedented collaboration” between the states of Nevada and California on the Regional Plan update, which he calls “a masterful compromise”. Highlighting Nevada’s recent contributions to environmental improvement at Tahoe he talks about the Total Maximum Daily Load memorandums of agreement the state is creating with Tahoe jurisdictions, about the fire fuels removal work undertaken at Van Sickle bi-state park and about positive trends in water quality.

This is part 2 in the interview with Leona Allen, firefighter and lifelong Tahoe resident. In this interview segment she talks about what she and her family did in the wake of the Angora fire which burned down her father’s house. Her father wanted to give something back to his neighbors. Today a model garden for defensible space using native plants is Allen’s “labor of love” on the lot where her father’s house once stood.

Welcome to part 3 in the interview with Patrick Rhamey, Vice President of Real Estate with Edgewood Companies. In this interview host Michelle Sweeney talks with him about the Edgewood Tahoe Lodge project. The existing Stateline Stormwater system treats runoff from properties that are on Edgewood Companies' land in the Tahoe Basin. Can this system serve as a model for public-private collaboration opportunities elsewhere in the Basin?

Welcome to part 2 in the interview with Patrick Rhamey, Vice President of Real Estate with Edgewood Companies. In this interview host Michelle Sweeney talks with him about the Edgewood Tahoe Lodge project--one of the first to apply new Total Maximum Daily Load methodologies to planning.

The proposed Edgewood Tahoe Lodge project includes a suite of upgrades to the Edgewood Company land at the lake. Today this land and associated ponds and wetlands remove about 400,000 pounds of sediment from flow to Lake Tahoe. Upgrades linked to the project, including an operations and maintenance plan, are projected to remove an additional 100,000 pounds of sediment from the system. The Edgewood Lodge Project is one of the first to apply new Total Maximum Daily Load methodologies to planning. In this interview Patrick Rhamey, Edgewood Companies Vice President of Real Estate, gives insight into the company’s approach to the project.

“If we are going to save this lake it is because people care and we work together and we make the necessary compromises and we take the action to do so," said Senator Dianne Feinstein on the occasion of the 16th annual Lake Tahoe Summit. Thank you for listening at TahoeProject.org.

This is the press interview with Senator Dianne Feinstein and Governor Jerry Brown following the 2012 Lake Tahoe Summit

Welcome to part 4 in the interview with Leo Drozdoff, Nevada Department of Conservation Director and John Laird, California Natural Resources Secretary. Are we entering a new chapter in the relationship between California and Nevada with the new Regional Plan and the bi-state effort that has gone into it? John Laird says “If this is paradigm shift then people will have to act in that new paradigm for a few years before we know it”. Hear his and Leo Drozdoff’s reflections on the accomplishments of the past year and their words about the states’ commitment to Tahoe into the future.

Welcome to part 3 in the interview with Leo Drozdoff, Nevada Department of Conservation Director and John Laird, California Natural Resources Secretary. Here they talk about efforts to improve water quality at Tahoe, about the Total Maximum Daily Load effort to reduce pollutants to the lake and about California and Nevada’s differing approaches to environmental protection.

In August 2011 Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and California Governor Jerry Brown said to Leo Drozdoff and John Laird, “Well, you are it,” referring to the leadership role they were being asked to take on the states involvement in the Tahoe Regional Plan update. Leo Drozdoff, Nevada Department of Conservation Director and John Laird, California Natural Resources Secretary have made building a positive rapport between the states of Nevada and California a priority. Their efforts have been to make the states a “helpful, productive force in Tahoe” says Drozdoff in this interview. This is the first in a four-part conversation featured at Tahoe Project.org.

Welcome to part 2 of 4 in the interview with Leo Drozdoff, Nevada Department of Conservation Director and John Laird, California Natural Resources Secretary. This interview was recorded following a presentation the two made at the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, Regional Plan Update Committee on August 2nd. They presented the recommendations of a California-Nevada Consultation process which Secretary Laird referred to as an “historic” accomplishment, “but not the end, just the beginning”.

On August 2nd, 2012 Attorney Daniel Siegel, representing the California Attorney General’s Office, commented on the Tahoe Regional Plan and the California-Nevada Recommendations presented by California Secretary for Natural Resources, John Laird and Nevada Director of Conservation and Natural Resources, Leo Drozdoff. These comments were provided at the Regional Plan Update Committee meeting of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. The question at the close of this segment is asked by Shelly Aldean, Vice Chair of the Governing Board representing the Carson City Board of Supervisors.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, Regional Plan Update Committee, received on August 2nd 2012 the California-Nevada Consultation, Regional Plan Update Recommendations presented by Nevada Director of Conservation and Natural Resources, Leo Drozdoff and California Secretary for Natural Resources, John Laird. Following is a 6-minute segment of their remarks compiled from their 30-minute presentation.

Leona Allen is a lifelong Tahoe resident, a Lake Valley Fire Protection District firefighter and a founder of the Lake Tahoe Basin Fire Academy. In this interview she shares insight into wildfire preparedness, her family's experience of loss in the Angora fire and the success of the Fire Academy where she is among the program faculty at Lake Tahoe Community College.

Welcome to part 2 in the interview with Dr. Darcie Goodman-Collins in which she talks about the League to Save Lake Tahoe's focus on water quality, about the proposed transfer of authority to local government and more of the issues central to the Regional Plan update.

League to Save Lake Tahoe Executive Director Dr. Darcie Goodman-Collins has been at the helm for five months now. She has seen to the consolidation of League staff into one office and is committed to the organization’s becoming more involved in the community. Learn more about the changes at the League in this Tahoe Project interview with Darcie Goodman-Collins.

"How do we maintain this real place? That is a challenge that keeps me awake at night," says Tony Lashbrook. In this, part 2, of the conversation with the Truckee Town Manager hear Lashbrook's reflections on Truckee's authenticity and unique assets and about his team's search for prosperity when the traditional tools for redevelopment are no longer available.

Physician Jonathan Finnoff is the Director of Sports Medicine at Barton Health,serving Lake Tahoe and the Carson Valley. Dr. Finnoff directed sports medicine programs at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for five years prior to coming to Tahoe. Now he is developing the sports medicine program at Tahoe. This involves working with a multidisciplinary team of doctors and nurses in teaching, expanding the clinical repertoire and conducting research. Dr. Finnoff and his team recently hosted a sports medicine board review course in South Lake Tahoe.

Tony Lashbrook is Manager of the Town of Truckee. He was the first department head hired by the Town when it incorporated in 1993. Truckee was on a wave of economic expansion based on its ability to accommodate second home construction when the present housing crisis and economic downturn hit. The Town of Truckee looked to California redevelopment programs as a way to move into a new era of progress in the Town when the state withdrew support for that program. In this interview hear Lashbrook’s perspective on the modern era’s boom and bust as manifest in Truckee.

The proposed Edgewood Lodge project would make Edgewood Tahoe a destination resort. Edgewood Companies has overseen the demolition of old tourist accommodation units and now will replace those units by building a lodge on the Edgewood site that features 194 units. In conjunction with the lodge project, Edgewood proposes to integrate several environmental improvement upgrades to the land the company owns. “We value being good land stewards. We feel a strong responsibility to the environment. So when we put together the lodge project we felt it important to focus not only on the economic elements but the environmental attributes. So we have developed a project that includes environmental benefits that go far beyond the mitigation that would be required for the project itself. Today we capture about 350,000 to 400,000 pounds of sediment. We keep it from going into the lake. With the lodge proposal we propose to take the number of pounds of sediment captured per year to 500,000 pounds,” says Scharer.

In this interview Chuck Scharer, CEO of Edgewood Companies, talks about Tahoe as a marketplace in transition and gives insight into how Edgewood Companies aspires to be a catalyst for change in the Tahoe Region. “This marketplace needs to evolve into that recreation marketplace that we can be and that we should be,“ says Scharer. “We need to focus on our natural resources. Edgewood companies is in a unique position to be able to deliver the lake and recreation to our customers,” he says.

Cindy Gustafson has been instrumental in establishing the Tahoe Fund where she is the volunteer Chair of the Board of Directors. In her capacity as General Manager of Tahoe City Public Utility District, she and her staff serve Tahoe’s west shore with water provision, sewer collection, and park and recreation services. In the thirty years she has been at Lake Tahoe, Gustafson has been a leader in securing funding for, and administering, capital projects including bike trails, sidewalks, water and sewer system upgrades, public parks and environmental restoration projects.

Welcome to part 2 in the interview with Cindy Gustafson, Chair of the Tahoe Fund Board, in which she says “We need to find ways for people to be here in the Tahoe Basin while making [their presence] less impactful to the environment.”

Lake Tahoe’s nutrient composition seems to be changing. Invasive species such as weeds and clams and nutrients added to the lake such as nitrogen and phosphorus can change the floor of the lake which in turn affects the animals that can live there. Before they become flies that occupy beaches on a lakeshore, midges live on the lake floor and look like small worms. Different midge species can survive in different nutrient conditions on a lake floor. The species of midges able to survive on the floor of Lake Tahoe are changing. Listen to the interview with midge expert Barbara Hayford for insight into this observed change and what it may indicate about the state of the lake.

Dr. Barbara Hayford is an expert on midges—those very small, two-winged flies that sometimes hover around one’s head at the water’s edge. Her expertise has taken her from Wayne State College in Nebraska all the way to Mongolia’s Lake Hovsgol, to Crater Lake in Oregon, and now, Lake Tahoe. The composition of midge species in a lake can indicate the state the lake is in, for example, whether a lake has a lot of nutrients or a little.

Welcome to part 2 in the interview with Marion Whitmann in which she talks about the collaboration involved in Asian Clam research at Lake Tahoe. Between 2008 and 2011 the Asian clam population in Lake Tahoe increased and their range expanded. As these clams continue to grow they could have more impact in the future.

Dr. Marion Whitmann is an expert in Asian Clams which are an invasive species in Lake Tahoe. These clams don’t have any natural predators in Tahoe and as a result have taken over significant swaths of the lake floor where they cause damage to the ecological system and can sometimes cause economic damage by spurring algae blooms and other effects damaging to Tahoe’s water and beaches.

Welcome to part 2 in the interview with Lars Anderson, plant physiologist and aquatic weed specialist. In this conversation Anderson shares insight into how aquatic weeds got to Tahoe in the first place and how everyone can help prevent the spread of aquatic invasive weeds.