Action Initiatives
© TahoeCleanAir.org
Our Action Initiatives
Demand a Lake Tahoe Basin Cumulative Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
Give Granite Chief and Mt. Rose Wilderness Class 1 Airshed Protection Per the U.S. Clean Air Act
Stop Intentional Wildfire Growth
Demand a Lake Tahoe Basin Cumulative Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
The 2022 UC Davis State of the Lake Report signals a Lake Tahoe Basin in the midst of an “environmental freefall”, out of equilibrium and harmony. Many feel that the pro-growth, pro-development Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) and its “partners agency actions are not working, and are failing to meet the TRPA’s mission statement. This includes failing to meet the intent of the Bi-State Compact to protect Lake Tahoe.
TRPA and its “partner” agencies are proposing aggressive Regional and Area Plan height, density and coverage code increases without adequate individual and overall basin wide cumulative environmental and safety effect/impact EIS’s/EIR’s.
Cumulative data driven EIS’s/EIR’s are needed now to analyze basin wide environmental, health and safety effects/impacts from all past, current and planned projects and Area Plan changes, since the 2012 Regional Plan. This includes data driven basin wide, roadway by roadway capacity evacuation analysis to determine resident and visitor safety impacts during a wildfire evacuation and winter storm peril. Additionally, we need the cumulative impact analysis to assess the degradation and potential devastation of the Nevada pristine East Shore and the impacts of microwave radiation on humans and wildlife alike basin wide.
Lake Tahoe shore rocks covered with slimy algae © Shutterstock used by TahoeCleanAir.org with permission.
Give Granite Chief and Mt. Rose Wilderness Class 1 Airshed Protection Per the U.S. Clean Air Act
What is a Class I Wilderness
Airshed Designation
The Clean Air Act gives special air quality and visibility protection to national wilderness areas larger than 5,000 acres that were in existence when it was amended in 1977. These are “Class I” areas.
Because air pollution is often regional in nature, reductions in pollution to improve visibility in Class I areas are managed by the U.S. Forest Service, National Parks Service, and several Native American Tribes.
It will be a long road to the top! We anticipate strong resistance to our efforts from the business, pro-developer, pro-growth and trail building lobby’s, as well as the US Forest Service itself.
Help us with our local, state, and federal educational efforts to give both Granite Chief and Mt. Rose Wilderness Class 1 airshed protection by donating to our organization. Please provide your tax-deductible donation to support our efforts.
Granite Chief Wilderness
Granite Chief Wilderness air and view quality are in peril from the pro-growth, pro-development Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) and Placer County “partners”. Agency actions are promoting more and more large public and private projects resulting in dangerous human and roadway overcapacity. This includes aggressive agency proposed Tahoe Regional and Area Plan code changes to increase developer incentives by allowing increased project height, density, and coverage.
Additionally, Granite Chief Wilderness air and view quality has been devastated by years of intentional and massive wildfire growth policies of the US Forest Service. This includes intentional wildfire growth of the Caldor, Dixie, Tamarack and Mosquito fires, just to name a few.
Very recently, the Whitebark Pine was listed under the Engendered Species Act as “threatened”. Large forests of Whitebark Pine are located in the Granite Chief Wilderness.
The ongoing decline in this high-elevation tree species poses serious consequences for upper
subalpine and treeline ecosystems.
The large, nutritious seeds produced by this pine are an important food for many bird and mammal species, and white bark pine communities provide nesting sites and habitat for many other wildlife species.
Whitebark pine seeds are dispersed long distances by Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana), which cache seeds in a variety of terrain and plant community types, including recent burns and other disturbed areas. Unclaimed seeds often germinate and produce hardy seedlings. These seedlings can survive on harsh, arid sites, and act as nurse trees to less hardy conifers and vegetation.
Donate now to help us continue our education and activist efforts to actively support Class 1 Airshed protection of Granite Chief Wilderness!
Granite Chief Wilderness - © John Peltier
Mt. Rose Wilderness
Mt. Rose Wilderness air and view quality continues to suffer from the ongoing year after year assault from USFS intentional wildfire growth up and down the Sierra Range as well as air pollution from the Reno/Sparks growth area.
Easily accessible from Reno, NV on SR 431, Mt. Rose Wilderness faces significant human driven environmental impacts from increased human over capacity. This, since it was announced recently that new corporate projects will provide thousands of more jobs in the region. This will have significant increased environmental impacts on Mt. Rose Wilderness and the already mismanaged Mt. Rose travel corridor located directly adjacent to the boundary of Mt. Rose Wilderness.
As with Granite Chief Wilderness, the now threatened Whitebark pines are located within and adjacent to the MT Rose Wilderness at higher elevations.
Along with our support to give Mt. Rose Wilderness a Class 1 airshed protection, it is important to expand the boundaries of the current Mt. Rose Wilderness, to help protect the White Bark Pine within the currently USFS mismanaged Mt. Rose corridor.
Help our efforts to actively support Class 1 Airshed protection for Mt. Rose Wilderness!
© TahoeCleanAir.org
Stop Intentional Wildfire Growth
The intentional practice of US Forest Service methods of starting, expanding, and steering fire operations across the Western United States kills millions of living things each year, including people, animals, birds, fish, and wildlife.
Evidence shows the out-of-control US Forest Service policy of growing fires to “restore fire to fire-depleted ecosystems” often results in firestorms and burned acres far beyond anything previously recorded in California and across the 11 Western States. The tragic effects of these ongoing, intentional burn operations - day after day, month after month, year after year - result in far-reaching damage to our air quality, water and watershed environments, and life-sustaining habitats. Government agencies setting intentional fires in our pristine forest lands is among the greatest tragedies and on-going threats of our time.
In addition to direct destruction from intentional fire, agencies unleash billions of tons of particulate matter, including carbon black, phosphorus, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, mercury, PM1, PM2.5, PM10 and other toxic chemicals heating up our atmosphere and harming us all. These dangerous particles eventually find their way into our lungs, affecting our children, communities, the ozone, wildlife, and snowmelts. Toxic particulate contributes to pollution and algae growth in our streams, rivers, and lakes.
A deer lies dead in the aftermath of the Dixie Fire (Getty Images-Bloomberg) (Reproduced with permission to TahoeCleanAir.org)