Aug. 17 Tahoe Enviro Summit-Clinton attends

JEFF DELONG
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
Posted: 8/18/2007

Former President Clinton on Friday lauded a decade of successful efforts to preserve Lake Tahoe, urging government officials, businesses and Tahoe residents to continue a task he said was of global importance.

In an event watched by hundreds and in which heavy emphasis was placed on dangers posed to Tahoe by wildfires and climate change, Clinton said much work remains to be done.

"I ask you to keep this process up," Clinton said in keynote remarks at the 10th annual Lake Tahoe Forum. "You owe it to yourselves and your neighbors and the world to preserve this."

Senators from Nevada and California, citing hard lessons learned from Lake Tahoe's disastrous Angora Fire that destroyed more than 250 homes last June, vowed to step up programs to thin an overgrown forest and prevent further tragedy.

U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he intends to work with Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne and others to speed the thinning of Tahoe's forest and other treatments to reduce fire danger on an emergency basis.

"We have not focused nearly enough on fuel reduction," Ensign said. "We have to love this lake so much (we) get the bureaucracy out of the way."

Failure to do so, Ensign warned, could produce devastating fires with environmental impacts that could "reverse all of the progress we have made."

A look at costs

The Lake Tahoe Forum celebrated 10 years and a $1.1-billion-dollar effort to protect a lake Mark Twain once wrote offers one of Earth's fairest pictures.

Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore and top cabinet officers headed the first forum in 1997, which jump-started an aggressive attempt to save a lake that has been losing its famed clarity at a steady rate for nearly 40 years.

Since then, efforts to protect the lake have included building erosion control projects, restoring streams and wetlands, enhancing forest health and improving mass transit. Those successes were commemorated during Friday's event at Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village.

"We realize we have a lot more to do. We also realize what we've done has been good," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. The veteran lawmaker organized the first Tahoe summit a decade ago and hosted Friday's event.

Also speaking was Gov. Jim Gibbons of Reno, who like others emphasized the continuing danger posed to Tahoe by wildfire.

"It is very clear not enough has been done to reduce this threat," agreed U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "There is danger all around."

Feinstein called on the U.S. Forest Service to immediately use $10 million in unspent funding for fuels removal around Tahoe's vulnerable communities and to join the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency in streamlining regulatory review of such efforts.

Feinstein also cited a UC Davis report released last week that shows Tahoe suffering from the impacts of a warming climate, with both its air and waters growing warmer and more precipitation falling as rain instead of snow.

"Global warming is indeed hitting Tahoe hard," Feinstein said, adding that recent research "signals a major change in Tahoe's weather patterns."

Tahoe and Clinton

Clinton, who said he was first struck by Tahoe's beauty as a young law student while visiting with his then-girlfriend Hillary Rodham in 1971, complimented the cooperation among the varying interests working to protect the lake but emphasized the responsibility they bear.

"All of you who live here carry the responsibility to make the wisest and best use of this treasure for the whole world," Clinton said, adding that concerns over wildfire impacts are "very real."

Tahoe, Clinton continued, is "at the intersection of the two greatest challenges faced today" -- global warming and the depletion of natural resources by a growing human population.

The former president emphasized the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions largely responsible for a warming climate, noting that Nevada is in a uniquely strong position with its vast resources of renewable energy, including wind, solar and geothermal.

"Nevada could become virtually self-sufficient ... and sell power to people all over the world," Clinton said.

Cooperation among the government agencies, businesses, environmentalists and others striving to save Lake Tahoe should serve as a national model, Clinton said.

"When we're in the solutions business, this is still the best country in the whole world."