Funding for scientific research believed to be key to stopping the loss of clarity in the lake will be a focus of the Lake Tahoe Forum today on the North Shore.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Wayne Nastri is expected to announce approval of a $1.1 million grant to fund pollution studies for Tahoe at the invitation-only event this morning at Ponderosa Ranch, according to Laura Gentile, an EPA spokeswoman.
Other speakers at the event include Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.; Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton; Mary Peters, head of the Federal Highway Administration; Mike Chrisman, resources secretary for California; and Jack Blackwell, regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service.
Reid and other officials also plan to attend the dedication of the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences from 1 to 3 p.m. today. It will be at Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, a few miles north of the Ponderosa. It is open to the public.
The EPA grant money will fund an ongoing bistate research project into "total maximum daily load" to determine how much sediment and nutrients Tahoe can absorb without affecting its clarity.
The research will be done by University of California at Davis, Desert Research Institute in Reno and private consultants.
The study is scheduled to be done by 2007 to provide crucial data for long-term plans by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the U.S. Forest Service.
The grant is one of 14 to be handed out by the EPA. It will fund $15 million worth of watershed research in 17 states.
To date, $6.7 million has been committed to the Tahoe research. That number will probably increase to more than $8 million by 2007.
With monitoring and implementation costs, Curtis said, the total price will run about $16 million.
Contact Gregory Crofton at gcrofton@tahoedailytribune.com
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