Lake Tahoe West Restoration Partnership

The goal of the  Lake Tahoe West Restoration Partnership  is to restore the resilience of Lake Tahoe's west shore forests, watersheds, recreational opportunities, and communities. The planning area includes 59,000 acres of federal, state, local, and private lands, from Emerald Bay to Tahoe City. 

The story map demonstrates how Lake Tahoe West will restore resilience to the west shore through a descriptive narrative and interactive navigation of the Lake Tahoe West project area. To learn more visit  LakeTahoeWest.org . 

The Problem

The Lake Tahoe West partners evaluated the current resilience of ecological and social values through a  Landscape Resilience Assessment  of the west shore. This assessment found that west shore forests are overly dense, uniform, and susceptible to high severity fire, insects, and disease, especially in lower elevations and canyons. In addition, approximately two-thirds of meadows likely cannot provide adequate habitat for meadow species under future climate scenarios. Eighty percent of streams on the west shore have barriers that may block fish from passing upstream. These conditions leave the landscape less resilient to prolonged drought, climate change, and extreme fire.

Areas in red (19,317 acres) have the potential for patches of high-severity fire to exceed 40 acres. The remainder of the landscape may have high-severity fire, but the patches likely will not exceed 40 acres except under extreme conditions. Source: EcObject v2.1 Tahoe Basin, FSIM.

In addition to non-resilient ecological conditions, the traditional single land owner, stand scale, and single objective approach to project planning cannot match the scale of the threat to west shore forests and watersheds. To address this problem, Lake Tahoe West's resilience-based approach is collaboratively led and addresses the entire landscape to improve the health of sensitive areas and species.

The Solution

The collaborative Lake Tahoe West Restoration Partnership is designing restoration actions across 59,000 acres of the west shore landscape of the Lake Tahoe Basin to protect communities and restore ecological resilience. Lake Tahoe West is investing in the best available science, including an interdisciplinary science team, led by the USDA Forest Service  Pacific Southwest Research Station , to understand how forest management today and decades into the future can restore resilient conditions in the face of a changing climate.

The Lake Tahoe West  Landscape Restoration Strategy  identified six goals to guide restoration.

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Goal 1: Forests recover from fire, drought, and insect and disease outbreaks

Photo of the west shore's forested landscape (Source: Dorian Fougeres)

Goal 2: Fires burn at primarily low to moderate severity and provide ecological benefits

Photo of California State Parks staff tending to a prescribed fire (Source: Todd Gilens)

Goal 3: Terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems support native species

Photo of the Lahontan cutthroat trout, native to the west shore (Source: USDA Forest Service).

Goal 4: Healthy creeks and floodplains provide clean water, complex habitat, and buffering from floods and drought

Photo of Cold Creek near South Lake Tahoe, following stream and meadow restoration (Source: USDA Forest Service).

Goal 5. Restoration is efficient, collaborative, and supports a strong economy

Photo of California Conservation Crew member working in the forest (Source: Anthony Cupaiuolo).

Goal 6: People live safely with fire and enjoy and steward the landscape

A native tree being planted by a volunteer (Source: The National Forest Foundation).

Restoration Actions on the Landscape and in our Communities

Context and Current On-the-Ground Work

Public land managers and fire protection agencies are currently implementing projects that reduce hazardous fuels near communities, improve defensible space, improve forest health, and restore meadows and streams. These projects include the Meeks Meadow Restoration Project, the The West Shore Wildland Urban Interface Healthy Forest and Fuels Reduction Project, The Dollar Forest Health Restoration Project, and others.

To view these projects, click on the arrow on the right of each map.

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Meeks Meadow Restoration Project

Purpose: Remove conifers and conduct prescribed fire to restore 293 acres of Meeks Meadow in partnership with the Washoe Tribe.

West Shore Wildland Urban Interface Healthy Forest and Fuels Reduction Project

Purpose: Implement vegetation and fuels treatments to improve forest health, reduce fire hazard, and modify fire behavior on 4,947 acres of Forest Service land to provide defensible space for developed private lands.

Dollar Forest Health Restoration Project

Purpose: Thin overly-dense understory trees and shrubs on 151 acres to restore forest health and reduce the threat of wildlife to north shore residents.

Liberty Utility Resilience Corridor Project

Purpose: Create healthier and more resilient forests, while reducing the risk of wildfires that could ignite from vegetation coming in contact with utility infrastructure or failures of infrastructure on 55 miles of power lines.

State Parks Mitigated Negative Declaration

Purpose: This plan covers vegetation management, fuel reduction, and prescribed fire on all California State Parks in the Lake Tahoe Basin, including 6,282 acres within Lake Tahoe West.

Program Timberland Environmental Impact Report

Purpose: Addresses fuel reduction on private, local jurisdiction, and California Tahoe Conservancy lands in the Wildland Urban Interface throughout the 8,500 acres on the California side of the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Fire Chief Mike Schwartz of the North Tahoe Fire Protection District explains the benefits of prescribed fire as a restoration tool.

Planning for the Lake Tahoe West Project

By pooling resources and collaborating across jurisdictions, Lake Tahoe West is taking an all-lands approach to restoring the resilience of the west shore to disturbance. Lake Tahoe West partners are currently planning restoration activities through the Lake Tahoe West Restoration Project, which will use a broad suite of techniques to restore ecosystems, protect communities, and create economic opportunities. The maps and images below depict proposed restoration activities being considered in the current Lake Tahoe West Restoration Project.

To view legends, click on the icon in the bottom left of the map.

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Work collaboratively with land managers to meet objectives across land ownership boundaries. 

Increase the pace and scale of forest thinning to reduce wildfire risks to communities, improve wildlife habitat, and create favorable conditions that allow for the expanded use of prescribed fire to achieve restoration objectives.

Restore meadows, aspen habitat, manage invasive species, increase habitat connectivity, and support native plants and wildlife threatened by climate change. 

Enhance engagement with the Washoe Tribe. 

This photo shows Washoe Tribal elders and Forest Service staff meeting at Meeks Meadow to discuss restoration approaches for culturally important plants.

Increase smoke forecasting, agency coordination, and public outreach to minimize smoke impacts from prescribed and managed wildfire. 

Combat climate change by decreasing loss of forest carbon.

Use biomass for renewable energy instead of burning in piles, and store carbon in woody byproducts. This photo shows the Loyalton CoGen facility which produces energy from forest restoration byproducts.

A Collaborative Partnership

The Lake Tahoe West Restoration Partnership includes the following partners:

 

Contact

Sarah Di Vittorio, Ph.D. |  sdivittorio@nationalforests.org  | 530-902-8281

Areas in red (19,317 acres) have the potential for patches of high-severity fire to exceed 40 acres. The remainder of the landscape may have high-severity fire, but the patches likely will not exceed 40 acres except under extreme conditions. Source: EcObject v2.1 Tahoe Basin, FSIM.