REN

“Lake Tahoe has one of the best aquatic invasive species plans in the United States.”

— Donald Maclean, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Lovers of Lake Tahoe can take some solace — and, for those of us in Northern Nevada and the Eastern Sierra, a lot pride — in those words.

Of all the threats that the lake has faced and still faces, invasive species may be the most dangerous. The march of a variety of species across the waterways of the U.S. has been inexorable. From the ballast of ore carriers from Europe to Lake Mead and Southern California, they have created havoc, covering shorelines and clogging water intake pipes.

Some have found their way into Lake Tahoe already, forcing officials and volunteers to spend money and time to eradicate them. Others have taken hold on parts of the Truckee River.

So far, however, a strict inspection program for boats entering the Tahoe Basin has managed to prevent the worst of the invasive species, especially the quagga mussel, from finding its way into the lake.

That’s why it’s imperative that the program — a model for the rest of the nation, according to Maclean — continue. A $750,000 allocation from the Bureau of Land Management will ensure that it remains in place through next year. Now it’s critical that officials in Nevada and California develop a long-range plan for funding the program while we still have a chance to keep invasive species out of the lake.

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According to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, inspectors have checked out more than 37,000 watercraft since 2009 and completed more than 18,000 decontaminations. About half of the cost is covered by the fees paid by boaters. The rest has come from money raised by the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, a 1998 law that allows a portion of the money earned from the sale of public lands in the Las Vegas area to be used for projects to protect the environment, including projects at Lake Tahoe. (The act also provides money for the state’s general education fund and the Southern Nevada Water Authority; a land sale in May raised $18 million, according to the BLM.)

There was concern that the SNPLMA money would not be available for 2015, but the TRPA announced last week that the BLM approved another $750,000 to continue the successful program for another year. The total cost of the program is about $1.5 million per year.

That money from the BLM is “gap funding,” however, the TRPA’s Joanne Marchetta explained in a press release. It will keep the inspections going while officials seek out a permanent source of funds.

But $1.5 million is a small price to pay for one of the best anti-invasive-species plans in the nation. We can’t afford not to have a permanent, sustainable source of funding in place.