The U.S. Forest Service will update its forest plan for the Lake Tahoe Basin this summer.

The plan directs every decision made on Forest Service land in the Basin.

Rex Norman, spokesman for the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit called the effort, “The single, most important guiding document that we have.”

First established in 1988, the forest plan is overdue for an update, typically done every 15 years. The Forest Service in the Basin postponed the plan’s revision to take advantage of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s Pathway 2007 collaboration and visioning process, Norman said.

Local Forest Service officials are also waiting for the go-ahead to engage the public’s involvement from the agency's headquarters, said Deputy Forest Supervisor Eli Ilano at the Pathway Forum.

“Any day now, we are anticipating a green light,” Ilano said.

The U.S. Forest Service put a hold on the management unit’s forest plan public outreach while controversial planning rules were hashed out at the national level, Ilano said.

The final Environmental Impact Statement for an updated 2008 planning rule was sent to the Department of Agriculture in February for a final decision on a policy that “will engage the public in the development, implementation and monitoring of forest plans,” according to a Forest Service press release.

Regardless, Ilano said the process will be moving forward this summer with public workshops, field trips and opportunities to inform the Forest Service’s action and land-use management.

“We’re basically setting policy for how to manage land and resources in Lake Tahoe, and the public gets to tell us how to do it,” Ilano said. “[The process] is much closer to people’s lives.”

Compared to the 1988 document, which incorporates site-specific prescriptions, the updated forest plan will be more strategic and flexible, focusing on general land uses across the Basin.

“Providing for an adaptive approach that adapts to changes like new science, advanced monitoring, as well as changing uses and trends,” Norman wrote in an E-mail to the Sierra Sun.

It will outline a vision, strategies and design criteria. The plan will incorporate the Pathway’s dialogue to create a document that will translate the regional vision into actions and on-the-ground projects.

“The regional vision is like a view from high above Lake Tahoe — a broad look across boundaries or jurisdictions,” Norman wrote in his E-mail. “The job of Forest Service planners is to take that broad vision and focus it to the specific roles and functions of national forest lands.”

Tahoe's Future Last week’s Pathway Forum signaled the end of a chapter in the visioning process and dialogue about the future of Lake Tahoe, said Julie Regan, spokesperson for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, which participated in the Pathway process to inform their regional plan update. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency participated in the Pathway Forum with the U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection. The collaborative Pathway dialogue was meant to inform each agency and get them on the same page as they update their respective guiding documents. “I think [the Pathway Forum] has been a good mechanism to get a lot more voices involved in our planning process,” said Executive Director John Singlaub of the TRPA. “Going beyond the usual suspects.” The Pathway process will now progress towards smaller and agency-specific dialogue, Regan said. Agencies will move forward with their respective plans and will consult Pathway participants as needed. “It’s a little less structured,” Regan said. “But the people who have dedicated so much time and energy can stay involved.”