Originally Published in the Tahoe Daily Tribune, 06/26/2025, Written by Katelyn Welsh

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced Monday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture intends to rescind a rule that has prohibited new roads and timber harvest on 30% of National Forest System lands, including portions in the Truckee-Tahoe basin.

“The intent of the 2001 Roadless Rule is to provide lasting protection for inventoried roadless areas within the National Forest System in the context of multiple-use management,” the USDA Forest Service’s website states. Not only does the rule prohibit new roads and timber harvest on these areas, it keeps them open for a range of recreational activities, including climbing, hiking, mountain biking, paddling, and backcountry skiing.

These inventoried roadless areas constitute close to a quarter (23%) of Forest Service-Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit lands and a combined 80,000-plus acres on Tahoe National Forest and Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit forest, according to maps on the Forest Service’s website.

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Photo: Tahoe Daily Tribune

Originally Published in the Tahoe Daily Tribune, 06/25/2025, Staff Report

The Nevada Division of State Parks is seeking the public’s input on Spooner Lake & Backcountry State Park for the development of a new park master plan. The intent of this master planning effort is to provide a comprehensive management strategy for the state park over the next 20 years.  

Spooner Lake & Backcountry State Park welcomes approximately 100,000 visitors annually.  The park spans over 12,000 acres and features over 60 miles of trails, numerous historic sites, and vital wildlife habitat.  The master plan will aim to best balance the increasing recreational demands of the park with preservation of natural and cultural resources.  

To support this planning effort, Nevada State Parks has launched an interactive StoryMap to provide information on the existing conditions of the park.  Nevada State Parks encourages the public to explore the StoryMap and share their feedback by completing the online survey, which will help guide the development of the Spooner Lake & Backcountry Master Plan. Public input is critical to the development of a successful plan. 

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Forest fuel reduction projects happening throughout the Tahoe Basin this year are using a tool known as mastication around communities to connect fuel treatment projects and bolster defensible space within the wildland urban interface. The Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team (TFFT) is highlighting several of these projects to educate residents and visitors about work they might be seeing in and around Lake Tahoe communities this year, and the crucial role mastication plays in helping firefighters protect people and the lake. The TFFT is a multi-agency partnership committed to reducing wildfire risk and improving forest health across the Tahoe Basin.

As wildfire seasons grow longer and more intense, TFFT partners are using every tool available to reduce risk and protect communities. Mastication is one such tool, and it plays a key role in making forests more resilient. Mastication is a mechanical treatment that helps reduce wildfire intensity by grinding up small trees, brush, and woody debris into mulch. Specialized equipment, known as masticators, move through the forest and chip excess vegetation into chips that are spread around the treatment area as the equipment moves. Some masticators look like a compact tractor, while others are separate machines that attach to the arm of an excavator.  Masticators clear out ladder fuels – those small trees and brush that allow fire to climb into the forest canopy – and help create defensible space around neighborhoods, roads, and critical infrastructure.

“Reducing flame lengths and limiting wildfire intensity provides critical time and space for firefighters to respond,” said Carrie Thaler, Fire Chief for the USDA Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. “We will continue to use every tool in our toolbox to reduce wildfire risk in the Tahoe Basin to protect our neighborhoods and communities.”

Mastication can stand alone as a treatment or complement other fuels reduction methods like thinning or prescribed fire. It is especially valuable in areas where burning isn’t practical, such as directly next to homes, recreation sites, or along busy roadways.

TFFT Partners Put Mastication to Work

The TFFT is prioritizing mastication projects across the Tahoe Basin this summer. These projects reflect the partnership’s focus on strategic, collaborative action to protect communities, critical infrastructure, and evacuation corridors. Recent and upcoming work includes:

• Incline Village and Skyland – Targeted mastication to create defensible space within and around neighborhoods and reduce fuels within the wildland-urban interface.
• Pioneer Trail Area – In South Lake Tahoe, TFFT partners are creating shaded fuel breaks, including a 200-foot-wide treatment near the Golden Bear neighborhood.
• Elks Point and Nevada Beach – Continued mastication along high-use road corridors to prevent roadside ignitions and improve access for emergency response.

“Mastication is a strategic, cost-effective technique to help us protect Tahoe Basin communities,” said Annabelle Monti, TFFT Program Manager. “When integrated with other tools, it helps not only reduce the intensity of wildfires, but also gives firefighters safer, more effective conditions to work in if a fire does occur.”

Stay Informed

To explore fuels reduction projects happening across the Tahoe Basin, visit tahoelivingwithfire.com and view the interactive project map. 

To receive updates when fuels reduction work is happening near you, sign up for the USDA Forest Service Fuels Reduction Notification List by emailing sm.fs.paltbmu@usda.gov. 

Images

Image: Mini-Masticator_Amonti_crop

Caption: A compact masticator reducing brush that can act as a ladder fuel, carrying fire into the forest canopy. Credit: Annabelle Monti

Image: Masticator_USFS_CC4 (3)

Caption: A masticator clears roadside vegetation during a wildfire in Willamette NF, Oregon in 2023. Credit: U.S. Forest Service Flickr, CC 4.0

Media Contact

Jeff Cowen

Co-Chair, Fire Public Information Team

Tahoe Fire & Fuels Team

jcowen@trpa.gov

(775) 589-5278

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About the Tahoe Fire & Fuels Team

The Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team consists of representatives of Tahoe Basin fire agencies, CAL FIRE, Nevada Division of Forestry and related state agencies, University of California and Nevada Cooperative Extensions, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, the USDA Forest Service, conservation districts from both states, the California Tahoe Conservancy and the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. Our mission is to protect lives, property, and the environment within the Lake Tahoe Basin from wildfire by implementing prioritized fuels reduction projects and engaging the public in becoming a Fire Adapted Community. For more information, visitTahoe Living With Fire.

Written by Julie W. Regan, Executive Director of TRPA, 06/20/2025

Imagine Lake Tahoe with high rises ringing all 72 miles of shoreline and waters that are muddy or gray. This picture is what we might be seeing today if many Lake Tahoe champions had not come together in the late 1960s to form the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). While the “fairest picture the whole earth affords,” as Mark Twain once described Lake Tahoe, still takes our breath away today, the Tahoe Basin is facing new and unprecedented threats.

The clarity of the lake itself is susceptible to changes in and out of the Tahoe Basin, especially during summer months. The annual Lake Tahoe clarity report released by UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center this week indicates that while clarity is holding steady overall and clarity during winter months may be improving, summer clarity is declining.

TRPA is working with the Tahoe Science Advisory Council to learn more about the drivers of clarity in the lake and to understand the role factors like extreme weather, warming temperatures, aquatic invasive species, and wildfire smoke are playing. Just as important to this research are continued strategies to restore clarity, which averaged nearly 100 feet when UC Davis researchers began measuring it in the late 1960s. At that time, a city the size of San Francisco, complete with freeways and a bridge over Emerald Bay, was planned for the Tahoe Basin. TRPA’s creation led to protections for sensitive lands, regional environmental standards, and caps on future development.

However, damage had already been done. The lake lost about 1 foot of clarity every year for 30 years before stabilizing in the 2000s. Over the last 20 years, year-round clarity has averaged 69 feet. Scientists have pointed to fine sediment from erosion and polluted stormwater, and algae growth from additional nitrogen and phosphorus entering the lake as the main factors in lost clarity. In 2011, TRPA, state water quality agencies, and local governments adopted the Clarity Challenge, a science-based plan to achieve the 100-foot clarity goal by 2076. The plan calls for property owners, land managers, and local governments to reduce pollutants entering the lake through erosion control projects, stormwater treatment systems, and restoration of wetlands damaged by earlier development.

Despite the mixed trajectory of lake clarity, the Tahoe Basin is meeting or exceeding interim targets for reducing pollutants. Under the Lake Tahoe Environmental Improvement Program (EIP), public and private water quality investments are keeping more than 500,000 pounds of pollutants out of the lake every year, just from urban areas alone. Scientists tell us these reductions are improving water quality, and we need to stay the course while supporting research to better understand the complex drivers of lake clarity.

As with any landscape-scale restoration program, TRPA and our EIP partners can’t do this alone. You can help reduce erosion by staying on trails and parking on pavement instead of road shoulders. If you are a property owner, ensure your property is certified with the required stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs). Reduce vehicle trips and engine emissions by using bike and pedestrian paths, taking advantage of the new Emerald Bay shuttle and free microtransit, or carpooling to get around.

I believe wholeheartedly there isn’t a better summer experience anywhere than at Lake Tahoe. With changing conditions around lake clarity, new threats from aquatic invasive species, wildfire, and more extreme weather, preserving that experience takes constant care and vigilance from us all. Whether you are here for one day or have lived in the Tahoe Basin for decades, everyone who loves this special place must work diligently to protect it.

Julie W. Regan is Executive Director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency