City lawyer fires back over Lake Tahoe lawsuit

RENO - A Northern California city official fired back at a conservation group Tuesday, saying the environmentalists would do a better job protecting Lake Tahoe by spending more of their money on restoration than on litigation.

South Lake Tahoe, Calif., city attorney Patrick Enright said in a statement that the lawsuit filed recently by the League to Save Lake Tahoe is full of false claims that exaggerate the potential impact the city's newly adopted general plan could have on lake clarity as well as the extent to which it will ease restrictions on development.

Enright accused the league of misleading the public by failing to mention that the city already has agreed to modify parts of the plan that are inconsistent with the broader jurisdiction of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's update of its regional plan expected to be completed by December 2012. In the meantime, he said TRPA existing rules win out over city changes.

"While the League's Modus Operandi is to file lawsuits, which gains them publicity and donations, their lawsuits do not help improve water quality or lake clarity," Enright said.

"They would be more effective at preserving Lake Tahoe if they dedicated funds to do just that, improve, redevelop, remodel and restore the lake and there are plenty of opportunities for the League to do so," he said.

The suit says the planning blueprint, combined with intended road expansions, will result in increased ozone emissions, airborne dust and erosion - three of the chief culprits blamed for the decline in the clarity of the alpine lake's waters over the past four decades.

It also alleges the plan would allow for construction of 1,000 new housing units and six-story buildings spread over 100 acres in the community - something Enright said on Tuesday is not true.

TRPA spokesperson Amanda Royal said Tuesday the assumptions about the six-story buildings are based on city land-use maps that effectively zone at least 100 acres as "tourist" or "town center" - designations that allow for six-story buildings.

In the past, she said the city also has agreed to change neighborhoods from "residential" to "town center" to accommodate private property owner's plans for further development.

"This plan is not only bad for the lake, its vision for over 1,000 new condos represents pre-recession thinking at its worst," Royal said. "City leaders appear to want to make a scapegoat of a small environmental organization instead of facing the reality of their own poor environmental, economic and development planning."