Tahoe plan headed back to court
Environmental groups on May 7 appealed a recent ruling by federal District Judge John Mendez upholding a regional plan update adopted by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. The appeal, filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, argues that Mendez “failed to analyze the RPU's negative impacts on soil conservation, water quality and air quality,” according to a statement from the law firm Earthjustice. “On top of that flaw, TRPA made erroneous findings that the RPU would protect Lake Tahoe's environment.”
Earthjustice, a law firm with offices in nine states and Washington, D.C., that has handled many major environmental cases dealing with air quality, fracking, Arctic drilling and climate change., is handling the appeal for the Sierra Club and Friends of the West Shore.
“The Agency's strange strategy to protect Lake Tahoe and its surrounding landscape from the damage caused by excessive urbanization over past decades is to promote even more development,” said Earthjustice attorney Wendy Park. “We will continue our fight to protect the lake from the misguided actions of the agency charged with protecting and restoring its environment.”
In a prepared statement TRPA executive director Joanne Marchetta said the plan “authorizes less than half as much new development as the 1987 plan, maintains growth caps and urban boundary limits on all development and authorizes no new hotel accommodation units, continues some of the strongest scenic protections in the nation and assures no new high-rises can be built, supports greenhouse gas reductions and smart growth, proposes modest infill redevelopment in a handful of existing town centers.”
The dispute has split the two green groups from some of its longtime allies, including U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada.