Browse > Home / Archive: 16. March 2007

Future of airport still up in air

March 16, 2007

The Lake Tahoe Airport supported robust commercial air traffic for 25 years, transporting 300,000 passengers in its peak year. Since 1983, environmental impacts of the airport have fueled ongoing debate about its role in the landscape and lifestyle of Lake Tahoe.

The future of the Lake Tahoe Airport remains undetermined, to the dismay of those seeking to resolve the issue.

Today, the airport's future lies in tension somewhere between proposals to expand Heavenly Mountain Resort, to construct a convention center near the City of South Lake Tahoe and to implement the Upper Truckee Restoration Project, which aims to minimize pollution that enters the lake. In its current state, the Lake Tahoe Airport presents a hurdle to the accomplishment of each mission, and simultaneously fails to provide services to local individuals, whose tax dollars continue to pay for airport maintenance.

The situation is not as simple as environmental impacts versus economic benefits. Local residents attribute many meanings to the airport, such as convenient transportation center, local revenue generator, ski-town image booster, annoying noise source, air and water polluter, unnecessary safety hazard, emergency evacuation center and even nostalgic memory maker. Any socially acceptable decision must take these meanings into account.

Agency involvement
The League to Save Lake Tahoe initiated changes at the airport when it sued the City of South Lake Tahoe in 1983 over noise ordinance violations by jet aircraft. Subsequent negotiations among the city, the league, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) and the California Attorney General resulted in noise regulations that decreased the financial viability of the Lake Tahoe market for air carriers. The last commercial service ceased in the mid-1990s.

With tension looming between the impending economic growth of South Lake Tahoe and restoration efforts on the Upper Truckee River, uncertainty over the appropriate role of the airport is ripening. In November 2006, the league, with TRPA, the California Tahoe Conservancy, and the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, issued an updated report that attempts to define the range of issues and possible futures facing the airport

Environmental effects
The Upper Truckee River deposits about 60 percent of fine sediments to the lake, contributing to the declining clarity of Lake Tahoe. The Lake Tahoe Airport, which sits just two miles from the shore of Lake Tahoe and runs along the Upper Truckee River for one and a half miles, is among a handful of human developments that have altered the stream channel. The groups that issued the 2006 report - each of whom have an interest in water clarity and watershed integrity - suggest a reduced role for the airport, including closure and restoration or shortening of the runway from 8,500 to 7,000 feet.

Safety issues
According to Lake Tahoe Airport Director Rick Jenkins, shortening the runway would be a safety hazard. At the elevation of the airport (6,264 feet), airplanes land at higher speeds than at sea level and require longer runways. But other high-altitude towns operate successful commercial airports with even shorter runways, such as Aspen, Colorado (7,820-foot elevation, 7,006-foot runway) and Jackson, Wyoming (6,451-foot elevation, 6,300-foot runway). Jenkins also emphasizes the capacity of the airport to support the refueling of air tankers during wildfires, although four other dispatch centers already exist within 15 minutes of Tahoe Basin and a smaller airport may still host helicopter refueling.

Economic benefits
Officials in South Lake Tahoe emphasize the airport as an economic asset for the city that could be an important revenue source in the context of future development and growth. In addition to the generation of revenue, the airport could play an important role in the event of an emergency evacuation.

Possible outcomes
Could shortening the runway at Lake Tahoe Airport allow some mitigation of environmental impact along the Upper Truckee River while still accommodating a renewed commercial aviation service to emerge? Could South Lake Tahoe generate enough revenue from a commercial airport to help fund other components of the Upper Truckee Restoration Project and mitigate the impacts of increased air traffic?

Because the groups involved will likely remain loyal to their missions and to their emotional attachments to the airport, realistic solutions will most likely come not from a victory of one group in the contest, but from consideration of the consequences that future scenarios would have on a public that currently derives little benefit from a constructed, yet stagnant, airport.

Reporters Sevil Omer and Claire Fortier contributed to this report.

Related posts: [ Off the couch and onto the river ] [ Impact of the Angora fire on water clarity ] [ Tahoe Summit: 10 years later ] [ Environment takes center stage leading up to Earth Day ] [ Tales from Tahoe ] 

Written by Keith Anderson · Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment