This story was shared with permission from KUNR Public Radio. For an audio version of the story, please visit the KUNR website.
On October 1, President Biden signed the Lake Tahoe Restoration Reauthorization Act (S. 612) into law, which reauthorizes funding of the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act through September of 2034.
The Lake Tahoe Restoration Act of 2016 allocated $415 million to the Lake Tahoe Environmental Improvement Program, or EIP, for environmental restoration and improvement projects.
The act was set to expire in September of this year, even though according to the EIP’s website, only $121.8 million, or 29 percent, of the total authorized funds had been used.
This reauthorization act, introduced by Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, will allow for another 10 years of the program funding to be utilized.
The EIP has used funds for environmental projects including watershed restoration, improving forest health and water quality, and updating water infrastructure to help fight wildfires.
A 2025 plan for use of funds is laid out on the EIP’s website, and will prioritize the aforementioned projects as well as restoring the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout population, removing aquatic invasive species, and improving accountability and transparency of projects through their online tracking system.
Kat Fulwider is the 2024 fall intern for KUNR and the Hitchcock Project for Visualizing Science.
