My desire to
pursue a career in City and Regional Planning came from my love of nature and
the environment. The value of
aesthetics and appreciation for the environment became lost somewhere within
increasing urban sprawl. The field I am
pursuing, that of development, appeals to me in the sense that I am greatly
interested in the art of careful
development. Ian Mcharg might call this “designing with nature.” It is of
utmost importance to me that we slow the spread of development and learn to use
the land that we do have wisely.
One of my favorite places on earth
is the Lake Tahoe basin, a magnificent jewel of a lake and charming community
of towns. Everything I could possibly desire is there – marvelous camping,
incredible and beautiful mountains, stunning scenery, limitless outdoor
recreation, and some of the best mountain biking I have found anywhere. The
Lake Tahoe basin is rivaled by few other geological wonders on this planet. I
must not be the only one with this attitude; every year I go there more traffic
jams ensue. I see increasing amounts of pollution, tacky casinos with
accompanying urban nightmares, and larger gridiron developments.
Lake Tahoe is a big place, but the
individual towns are small. It is my goal in this paper to discuss the history
and resulting urbanization of the entire
basin, some 18 townships or so, and how they have impacted the fragile
alpine environment around the basin. Finally, I will discuss conflicts and
concurrent solutions that are reversing the destruction. The Lake Tahoe Basin
is an incomparable place, but by its very nature is an easily scarred place and
difficult to heal.
The Lake Tahoe Basin was formed millenniums ago as a result of fault-sinking
tectonics. Fractures in thick granite bedrock allowed portions of land to
rise and sink creating tremendous depressions and impressive mountains. The
low permeability of granite and high amount of winter snowmelt runoff resulted
in a magnificent lake, one of the deepest in the world. At 22 miles long and
12 miles wide, it is the third deepest lake in North America and the tenth
deepest on the planet. If the water from Lake Tahoe was drained, it would
cover the entire state of California in 14 inches. The purity of Lake Tahoe
is legendary; the high percentage of precipitation going directly into the
lake and filtering properties of granite promote ageless pureness. Only in
the last few decades has this purity become threatened.
The Lake Tahoe basin is 205,000
acres in size and consists of 72 miles of shoreline. The surrounding rugged
mountains and difficult road accessibility have made urbanization difficult.
Only with newer developments of larger highways and year round maintenance
has winter crossing of the Sierras become easily surmountable.
The climate at Lake Tahoe
is relatively mild. The Basin enjoys sunshine on an average of 75% of the
year or 274 days. Otherwise, except for heavy snowfall, the climate tends
to be dry. The average temperature in January ranges between 18 to 36 degrees
Fahrenheit and summer highs can hit 100 degrees. Similar to the isothermic
conditions surrounding the ocean, the immensity of Lake Tahoe reduces temperate
fluctuations bringing warmer alpine temperatures. Therefore, conditions near
the lake seldom reach zero for any length of time. Even though the Basin is
located at 6,229 feet above sea level, the temperatures reflect conditions
of elevations much lower.
Lake Tahoe was
originally occupied by tribes of Washo Indians who would camp in lower valleys
during the winter and begin yearly exoduses to the basin during the summer. To
them, Tahoe was an extremely spiritual place, and they would spend the summers
hunting and fishing on the banks until fall when they would once again retreat
to the lower valleys.
In
the 1840’s gold was discovered in the Sierras and mining towns prevailed near
Truckee and Nevada city. In 1848
Lt. John C. Fremont was investigating a route from Nevada through the Sierra
and was camped at a nearby a river.
Upon questioning some local tribes of Washos he was given a map that
showed a mountainous lake. Traveling upstream in the directions given, Fremont
arrived at a pass and first saw the lake.
“We had a beautiful view of a mountain lake at our feet,” he said,
“about fifteen miles in length and so entirely surrounded by mountains that we
could not discover an outlet” (Strong, pg. 130) This was the first recorded
siting of Tahoe by a white man.
Regardless
of what beauty the lake held, little else was recorded about Tahoe until the
great silver mining boom of the Comstock Lode in Virginia City during the
1860’s. It suddenly became necessary for a more direct route to be established
from Sacramento and the mining towns of the Sierras into Nevada. In 1855 California constructed a wagon trail
from Sacramento to the eastern California border and in 1860 a toll road was
completed. Lake Tahoe, midway on the route, served as a stopping point for
hopeful miners, and businesses such as trading posts and lodges began servicing
the travelers. Pretty as Tahoe was, the main focus of the expeditions was hopes
of becoming wealthy as a result of the silver mines. Yet, as more and more
travelers passed through Tahoe in route to the new boomtown of Virginia City,
increasing amounts of people began appreciating the natural beauty of Tahoe. In
time, some travelers would settle in at Tahoe to service miners bound for
Comstock, innkeepers moved to the shores of the lake, and occasional tourists
on the way to Yosemite would stop by Tahoe for a peek. News of Tahoe spread to
San Francisco, and eventually it was chic for wealthy San Francisco businessmen
to vacation at Tahoe in the summer. As a final plus, in 1873 the steamship
“Governor Stanford” began to both carry mail and accommodate passengers around
the lake.
Although
Lake Tahoe served as mostly a midway point between Sacramento and Virginia
City, commercial fishing began to grab hold in 1859. The abundance of Cutthroat
Bass was a natural commodity desired by the miners in Nevada and soon hundreds
of pounds of Cutthroat bass were being scavenged out of the lake a day.
Although the supply was thought to be “unlimited”, in 1917 California placed a
ban on commercial fishing in Tahoe because the Cutthroat species was fished
near to extinction. With the supply of fish nearly depleted, entrepreneurs
looked to other prospects for profits.
In
1860 the profits were found. As a result of the mining operations in Nevada,
great amounts of lumber were needed to construct both the mines and the houses
of the miners. The “unlimited” amount of sugar pine in Tahoe brought sawmills
to the area; in 1861 a water-powered sawmill arrived at the east shore capable
of cutting 10,000 board feet a day. As logging operations picked up, faster and
more efficient methods were sought to produce and ship increasing amounts of
lumber from Tahoe to Nevada. Flumes and railway cars were constructed to bring
the huge amounts of timber down during the 1870’s and it reached a point where
more than thirty cars a day were hauling it. But after a fury of cutting,
clearing, and shipping, all “good” things had to come to an end. Most of all
the lumber had been cleared. Finally, the Comstock Lode mining operations
declined thus the largest contributor for the clearcutting operations
evaporated. The mills shut down, and the exploiters went their ways with most
of the natural resources of Tahoe gone. The population of Tahoe dropped to a
skeleton crew, and growth was feeble for the next fifty years.
After the logging
and mining industry had stripped the basin of a great deal of its resources,
entrepreneur Duane Bliss abandoned aspirations of his timber business and
focused on summer tourism possibilities.
He purchased a 169-foot steamship he named “The Tahoe” and offered tours
of the Lake for up to 200 passengers. He helped with plans and construction of
the Tahoe Tavern and the Tallac Hotel – major hotels catering to wealthy San
Francisco businessmen. Unfortunately, road conditions into the basin were poor,
and he eventually spearheaded a project to link the basin to the town of
Truckee by means of a railroad. In
addition to this, during 1895 California built the Lake Tahoe State Wagon Road
across Echo summit (South Shore) and the road gradually improved. Summer
resorts increased, but the steep and difficult mountain roads still discouraged
any rapid growth.
The
real “turnaround” for Tahoe seemed to happen in the 1940’s. In these years,
California authorized year-round maintenance and better signs on the poorly
developed highway 50, which brought a higher degree of visitors. As the
permanent population of the Lake grew, the need for a school became apparent
and one was built at South Lake that accommodated 35 students. Campgrounds
began to open, and summer home construction increased. By the early 1940’s some
150 businesses prevailed. The summer population of the lake
increased to 20,000, in the winter, 2000.
But this was still a fleeting percentage of the growth that was yet to
come.
In
1945 it was still difficult to circulate within the basin during the winter
because heavy snows made the area inaccessible. But locals, with little else to
do, began finding recreational opportunities to entertain themselves during the
winter months. Starting with locals strapping a pair of skis to their feet and
heading toward the closest hills, skiing caught on in the basin. Ski resorts
had already gotten a foothold in some of the neighboring areas on the way up to
Tahoe, but it wasn’t until 1948 that a hay and dairy ranch on the north side
was modified into Squaw Valley. Following the opening of Squaw Valley, Heavenly
Valley opened on the South Shore complete with two towropes and a chair lift.
Business picked up, road conditions improved, and Heavenly Valley’s customers
increased to 20,000 a day within 20 years. Skiing was becoming increasingly
popular, but Lake Tahoe was still mostly unknown until surprisingly, in 1955
the Olympic Committee picked Squaw Valley as the site of the 1960 Winter
Olympic games. The result was millions of dollars of free publicity for Lake
Tahoe and the ski industry exploded. Not too long after the phenomenon of the
Olympics, winter traffic jams began to be the norm throughout the basin.
Evolving
parallel with the tourist and ski industry in Tahoe, the gambling craze began.
In 1931 gambling was re-legalized in Nevada and soon small casinos were
operating on the stateline. Most resulted in bankruptcy and buy-outs but the
exception was Harrah’s Casino. Harrah’s already had one branch established in
Reno and they decided to locate a second one at Stateline. The ensuing
popularity of Harrah’s Casino resulted in a second major casino, Harvey’s Wagon
Wheel, to move in and it became the first high rise building – consisting of 11
stories. Harvey’s went from a small independently run business to a major
casino operating 24 hours a day and consisting of an 18 story superstructure
with a six level parking garage and convention center. It also provided free
bus service to outlying cities. The boom was on.
As the ski and
gambling industry thrived, the Lake Tahoe-Sierra Chamber of Commerce was formed
and promoted tourism for both the North and South Shores. It provided a
platform directed toward promoting year round activities such as jeep trips,
hydroplane boat races, rodeos, drive-in theaters, camping and skiing. More and
more people flocked to Lake Tahoe as a result of the growing employment
opportunities, and the Dillingham Corporation – a development company –
purchased land from another development company and one of Lake Tahoe’s great
tragedies began. A huge development – the Tahoe Keys- began a four-year
construction process of a massive dredge and excavation of 5 million cubic
yards of granite on the southern side of the lake.
The Tahoe Keys was
no small operation. It consisted of several 150-foot wide lagoons, 2000 luxury
homesites, a convention center, and a large marina holding as many as 2000
boats. The development of this project destroyed a significant part of the
lake’s marshland habitat. Paralleling developments such as this, casinos, large
parking lots, motels, widened roads, supermarkets, ski shops, and shopping
malls began popping up all over the lake. The urban sprawl and destruction of a
fragile mountain ecosystem had begun.
From
the once abandoned logging area where acreage sold for a little over a dollar,
the population around the basin multiplied to the current count of over 75,000
permanent residents. Most of these residents are adults between 20-40 years old
who are exploiting the tourism business or seasonal vacationers with cottage
homes. Consequently, the count of yearly tourists is on the rise as well, for
the estimated annual amount of tourists has peaked at over 3.5 million. There
are traffic standstills and booked motel rooms most days of the year. At last
count the basin was occupied by over 40 gas stations, 52 restaurants, 2 papers,
7 banks, 8 schools, 16 churches, and 69 real estate offices. This expanded
growth has certainly had its impacts. Lake Tahoe is located in a granite basin
with limited outlets, resources, and septic options, thus as early as 1950 the
first urgent environmental impacts were observed.
Undoubtedly the biggest contributor
to uncontrolled development and tourism has been the gambling business at South
Shore. North and South Lake Tahoe had been at odds for years over the
increasing and obnoxious development of the casinos creating “strip mall”
developments with little concern for the environment. Numerous attempts have been
made to combine the California and Nevada sides into a multi-interest planning
council, but because of the increasing incomes produced by the casinos Nevada
has been less than willing to cooperate with building ordinances. There were
some attempts to create bi-state regional planning councils – and these
councils gave suggestions such as ordinances to limit casino growth to 45 feet
or to curtail new highways - but the commissions lacked any substantial
political backing due to the invested interests in gambling revenues from the
state of Nevada. In the rare cases where planning ordinances were implemented,
Nevada managed to inject clauses such as promises to protect existing casinos.
Thus, although much current debate is ensuing as to the degree of federal
intervention, much damage has already been done and Nevada is still
uncooperative.
In addition to the
damage of the casinos, the introduction of man into a fragile alpine
environment has had many other ramifications as well. “In earlier days, the purity
and clarity of Lake Tahoe’s water had been legendary.” (Strong 111) But the
construction booms and major dependence on septic systems resulted in great
amounts of sewage running into the lake, and in
September of 1961 two million gallons of effluent from a septic treatment plant
overflowed. This resulting sewage, high in nutrients and other organic matter,
caused increasing eutrophication and higher amounts of submerged aquatic
plants. This, as a consequence, “interfered with swimming and boating, and
drifted onto beaches leaving them untidy, foul smelling, and attractive to
flies”. (Tahoe Sierra Tribune, 1969) Because of the high retention rate of the
water in the lake and the average flushing time of 675 years, clarity of the
lake has diminished on the average of one foot per year. Therefore, Tahoe has
lost 25% of its clarity since 1968 and algae increases 6 percent per year.
Originally, most local people were more interested in the profit potential for Tahoe land than
the environmental impacts of runaway growth. But as “casino crowds” kept
coming, South Lake residents begin opposing wider highways and population
growth. In 1970 concerns about development escalated, and the newly formed
Tahoe Regional Planning agency (North Lake) hired Robert Bailey, a
geomorpologist, to do an extensive study of the Tahoe Basin. He studied acreage
in regards to flood risks, landslides, high water tables, poorly drained soils,
fragile flora, fauna, and easily erodable soils. His conclusions were
disheartening. He concluded that 76% of the Tahoe Basin was a “high hazard”
area and that construction should not take place in any marshland or on slopes
that might be subject to erosion. He had inspirations to restrict population to
134000 at any given time – which is more than he desired and probably more than
the precarious alpine environment could accommodate. Due to lack of South Lake
support, businesses with invested interests, and bitter confrontation by
Nevada, he resigned. Struggles like this continue.
Presently,urbanization and inevitable destruction of the Tahoe basin has slowed. Due to
the amount of National and State regulation over Forest land, government
intervention, political strengthening of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency,
and new concerns by residents, positive results are beginning. One victory was
an ordinance implemented in 1975 which stated that “any construction besides
single family homes on individual lots would be banned unless the project could
be shown not to stimulate growth.” (TRPA General Plan) These ordinances were
spurred by the major environmental concerns resulting from expansion and
applications for new and existing casinos. A note to add to this: California
has 4500 motel rooms within a half-mile of stateline.
One of the recent battles in the Tahoe area has been with owners of motorized watercraft. The
increasing amount of ski boats, jet skis, and other assorted motorized water
craft has led to significant amounts of noise, conflicts with other
recreationists, and most importantly the release of gasoline and other oily
compounds into the lake. A 1997 study by US Geological Survey scientists
concluded gasoline compounds were detected to a depth of 90 feet. One of the
great victories regarding Tahoe was won this year: a ban on all two-stroke jet
skis was implemented on Lake Tahoe.
This is because up to 40 percent of two-stroke jetski oil and gas is
discharged unburned into the water. The importance of this triumph should not
be downplayed. As a final and separate
note pertaining to a similar subject, I would like to mention that Lake Tahoe’s
air violated state and federal quality standards 82 times in 1989.
Lake Tahoe is a fabulous place. It is an extremely delicate place as well. The lack of outlets and slow purging
time of the basin provides difficulties to maintaining purity. Trees and
natural flora must endure snow cover three-quarters of the year and are poorly
adapted to human trampling. Surrounding mountains tend to trap local pollution
in the basin and cause higher tendencies toward smog. We must also consider the
animal populations that are increasingly more affected by our infringing on
their habitats.
We have taken a delicate alpine environment and through jetskis, gridiron modification, excavation, highway
development, and splattering of neon pollution posed a major threat to the
longevity of health of the basin. The consequences of our actions may be
irreversible, but we can slow our
destruction before the carrying capacity of the land dwindles to zero. I am as
guilty as the next tourist in regards to driving in the basin, stomping through
the towns, and patronizing the casinos. But perhaps we can arrest further
development and promote more sensitivity to the symbiosis between us and the
Tahoe ecosystem. Maybe we can do a better job at “smart planning”
My objective in this essay was to
describe the history and urbanization of a sensitive place, and how our
selfishness taints it. I have discussed some mistakes and some sound solutions
in hopes to protect the land from our greed and preserve the integrity of the
basin for eons to come. If we do not learn to appreciate the land for its
intrinsic natural value instead of its economic value we will “develop” places
such as Lake Tahoe into having no value at all.
Books
Tahoe, An Environmental History: Douglas H. Strong 1984
The Saga of Lake Tahoe: Edward B. Scott 1957