Congratulations to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) and a collaborative team of agencies and organizations who prepared the
Lake Tahoe Sustainability Action Plan! During its annual conference in Seattle this week, the American Planning Association honored this regional climate and sustainability plan with the 2015
National Planning Achievement Award for Environmental Planning. Receiving the award are Honey Walters, John Hester, Karin Edwards, and Poonam Boparai (left to right). John and Karin represented TRPA.
The Sustainability Action Plan is one of the first to take a regional approach to sustainability planning. In this plan, sustainability is multi-scale and relates to all aspects of community quality, environmental planning, and economic development. Major components of the plan include:
- GHG Reduction Plan with regional baseline inventories and projected emissions, a GHG reduction target, and quantification of reduction measure effectiveness.
- Climate Change Adaptation Plan that identifies measures to enhance the region’s ability to be resilient when faced with many climate change-related effects.
- Sustainability Actions for water quality, water supply, wildfire and flood hazard protection, air quality, job generation, economic activity, energy supply, mobility, goods movement, waste management, social equity, community noise, recreation resources, and public health.
“This award shows Lake Tahoe is leading the way in planning to improve sustainability and adapt to climate change. The Sustainability Action Plan is the blueprint to do that collaboratively here at Lake Tahoe and also offers a model for other communities and regions,” said Joanne S. Marchetta, Executive Director of TRPA in a
recent web release.
The plan preparation benefited from the cooperative efforts of many agencies and organizations through the
Tahoe Basin Partnership for Sustainable Communities, as well as public input through a community stakeholder group called the
Lake Tahoe Sustainability Collaborative.
Ascent Environmental greatly appreciates the opportunity to have led the consultant team preparing the plan. The team included Sierra Nevada Alliance, Environmental Incentives, HighBar Global Consulting, and Sierra Business Council. Also, gratitude goes to Heather Phillips, California Air Resources Board Air Pollution Specialist and formerly Ascent’s Project Manager for the Tahoe plan. If you have questions, please contact Ascent Principal
Honey Walters or Senior Air Quality and GHG Specialist
Poonam Boparai.
_____________________________________