Gore gets crash course on lake

Tahoe Daily Tribune

July 27, 1997
By Patrick McCartney
Tribune Senior Staff Writer

Lake Tahoe's value to the nation goes beyond its popularity as a recreational destination, Vice President Al Gore said at the opening Friday of the historic Lake Tahoe Presidential Forum.

Lake Tahoe's unique beauty stirs the soul and provides spiritual solace to humanity, Gore said during a workshop on the Tahoe Basin environment at the Lake of the Sky Amphitheater in South Lake Tahoe.

"There is a spiritual power that comes from beauty," Gore said at the opening of the event that would focus the nation's attention on Lake Tahoe. "Natural beauty like Lake Tahoe's concentrates the soul and leads to a deeper appreciation for the beauty of life that doesn't come from everyday life."

Over the course of the three-hour symposium, Gore received a cram course on Lake Tahoe's environment, distilled from three Cabinet-level workshops held in the basin over the last month.

Attending the al fresco workshop were Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt and Administrator Carol Browner of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Also attending were U.S. senators Harry Reid and Richard Bryan of Nevada and Dianne Feinstein of California, as well as Gov. Bob Miller of Nevada and senior federal, California and Nevada officials.

Dressed in short sleeves and perched on top of a tree stump, a relaxed Gore led discussions by four panels of Tahoe Basin residents representing a wide range of private and public interests. The panels addressed Lake Tahoe's declining water quality, the basin's ailing forests and patchwork transit systems, and the health of the basin's recreation-based economy.

Gore described the Vice Presidential Issues Workshop as a "pretty intensive crash course in the ecology of this region."

Woven throughout the workshop, which served as a prelude to Saturday's presidential forum in Incline Village, was the theme that the basin's economy and environment are interdependent. And that realization has forged alliances in the basin that transcend parochial interests, Gore was told by one panelist after another. "Those who love Tahoe are as diverse as her attributes," said Kathleen Farrell, the executive director of the Tahoe-Douglas Chamber of Commerce. "We are proud of the 'unholy alliances' that bind us together."

Indeed, the vice president and other federal officials singled out the cooperation among the basin's various communities as a lesson for the nation. On a morning hike on the trail to Mount Tallac, Gore stopped and explained why the administration had come to the Tahoe Basin.

"We intend to celebrate the unique partnerships that have occurred in all parts of the Tahoe Basin community," Gore said. "Many other places in the country don't have this kind of cooperation. But in this special place, the business community and environmentalists have resolved their conflicts and come together with one voice." Gore questioned the panelists about the details of the basin's beleaguered environment, seeking a clear picture of why the lake is losing its famed clarity and how the basin's forest has suffered from a century of logging, fire suppression and drought.

The next day, Gore reported to President Clinton at the Lake Tahoe Presidential Forum in Incline Village. The president unveiled the policy decisions arrived at over the last two months, and signed an executive order committing the federal government to the protection of Lake Tahoe.