The Mirror That Is Lake Tahoe

As I write this, in a room on the 15th floor of Harveys Resort, I can look out the window and admire Lake Tahoe, “Lake of the Skies,” its indigo waters as flat this day as a mirror. From the same window I also can see a billboard touting Bill Cosby (“Join the Coz!”), and the start of a daily traffic jam that would make many a Los Angeles commute seem almost fluid by comparison.

I can see hikers and bicyclists--short pants, tank tops, deep tans--bound for lakeside trails and campsites, and gamblers--short pants, tank tops, pale skins--clutching chip tubs as they wait for a tour bus on the shimmering asphalt below. I can see cattle grazing in a pasture next to Caesars. In short, Lake Tahoe at a glance: “The Yosemite of Lakes,” as the Interior secretary put it last week, but also Vegas with trees.

That the California-Nevada border cuts through the lake is but one sign of a split personality. This is a place where T-shirt shacks crowd most every corner, but where private cabins may be painted only in government-approved colors. Cars are said to be slowly killing the lake, and the most common expression of concern is a “Keep Tahoe Blue” bumper sticker.

And now, into this hodgepodge of tall pines and craps tables, comes President Clinton. On Saturday he is to put the oratorical finish on the Tahoe Environmental Forum, an extraordinary exploration of the lake by environmentalists, entrepreneurs, loggers, Cabinet officials, scientists, casino owners, cabin dwellers, and assorted California and Nevada politicians.

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According to the White House, the forum is meant to celebrate how Tahoe’s factions lately have worked together to protect a natural treasure, a model for the rest of the nation in how ecology and economics can march forward as one. “We want it to look at the successes,” said a White House aide, “to show what has come of the partnerships, partnerships between the states, between business and environment, between public and private.”

Not all the Tahoe leaders involved in the forum would agree: Rather, they see their coming moment in the media sun as a chance to present the lake as an ecological calamity in the making--to solicit federal help, either in terms of dollars or at least leadership. In preparatory workshops over the past few months, they have painted Tahoe black for wave after wave of top White House officials, and trailing reporters.

Environmentalists have described how auto emissions and soil erosion are turning the lake’s famously clear blue waters a murky green. Timber experts have warned that dead trees rotting throughout the forests could feed a horrendous fire. From the business community have come complaints of a stagnant economy, overburdened by regulation.

Their campaign has led to some upside-down boosterism. On Sunday, for example, National Guard helicopters flew visiting reporters and dignitaries over the lake. Enthused U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.): “This is the best way for people to see what we are talking about. From the air, you can see the dead trees, the traffic congestion. . . . “

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Tahoe organizers fret that Clinton will talk simply about the wonderful job they’re doing. There is, however, something to that story line. No matter how far Tahoe has left to travel on the road to restored beauty and community bliss, it nonetheless has come a long way from its years of acrimony over such items as a proposed (circa 1964) lakeside freeway and, conversely, the construction moratorium of the 1980s.

Now the builders talk of “in-fill” and “redevelopment,” paying homage to the economic benefits of a blue lake, while the environmentalists preach “balance” and the need for a tax base. No more do they pine for national park status; they’d settle for adequate drainage and a workable bus system.

“We’ve had to accept that the casino industry is here to stay,” said Rochelle Nason, executive director of the League to Save Lake Tahoe. “We have had to accept that a significant population is here to stay, that a number of subdivisions are slowly being built out. The business community has had to accept that not all these subdivisions will be built out, and that new subdivisions cannot be created.”

In this sense, as Clinton surely will point out Saturday, Lake Tahoe has embarked early on a trail that the rest of California and the West inevitably must follow. As wishy-washy as it sounds, there can be no more all-out victories in the shaping battles over land and water, over what to preserve and where to build, over how blue the lake and how green the economy. No side gets it all its way anymore. In the mirror that is Lake Tahoe, gaudy, beautiful Tahoe, that fact is easy enough to see.