To conduct research essential to saving Lake Tahoe's trademark clarity, the University of California, Davis, plans to build a new laboratory on a North Shore site near Tahoe City. Detailed plans of the new lab are now available for public review and comment.

Researchers and students have worked for decades in a dilapidated, 80-year-old, former fish hatchery, "doing world-class science in a Third-World facility," as longtime Tahoe scientist and UC Davis professor Charles Goldman has said.

Researchers and planners will hold an informational open house at the hatchery building about the new laboratory project on Wednesday, June 26, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The hatchery is located on the southwest corner of Lake Forest Road and State Route 28, one mile east of Tahoe City.

The need for modern research facilities in the Tahoe Basin is urgent, said UC Davis environmental planner Sid England. UC Davis and other research agencies have determined that modern development and resulting pollution have put the basin ecosystem at risk for incurable damage. If Lake Tahoe is to keep its famous cobalt-blue color, regional agencies need robust scientific data for setting long-term environmental policies.

The agencies responsible for those policies -- including Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, the U.S. Forest Service and Tahoe Regional Planning Agency -- are beginning major planning programs now, aimed at setting new environmental management plans by 2007.

To support those planning efforts, the longtime research programs in the region have just been expanded to become the largest scientific effort ever in the basin, a $6 million effort led by UC Davis lake expert John Reuter.

Since Charles Goldman began studying the lake 40 years ago, scientists from UC Davis and other institutions have had to conduct complex experiments in the crowded, unheated, leaky former hatchery.

Many studies simply cannot be done in the existing lab, so water and other samples must be taken for analysis to the Davis campus, a two-hour drive away.

The proposed new UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center would consist of a two-story, 13,600-square-foot building with offices and laboratories; a single-story, 2,800-square-foot support building; and a parking lot with 35 spaces.

It would be located on a wooded, 4.7-acre site approximately one-quarter mile southeast of the hatchery building. In addition to the UC Davis researchers, the research building would house resource management specialists with the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

As part of the new center, the historic hatchery would be renovated and serve as a regional public education center.

A Draft Initial Study and Environmental Assessment for the center has been written, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), state and University of California guidelines for implementation of CEQA, and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Code of Ordinances.

The assessment states that, with mitigation measures, the project should have no significant environmental impacts. Those mitigation measures will prevent or minimize impacts to water and air quality, biological resources, transportation and circulation, human health, scenic resources and cultural resources.

The environmental documents are available for public and agency review until July 15, 2002.

They are available at: the Placer County Library branches in Tahoe City (740 North Lake Blvd.) and Auburn (350 Nevada St.), and on the UC Davis campus at the Office of Resource Management and Planning (376 Mrak Hall) and at the Reserves Desk in Shields Library.

They also are online at http://www.ormp.ucdavis.edu/environreview/.

Comments on the environmental documents must be received by 5 p.m. on July 15, 2002. Comments can be sent by e-mail to environreview@ucdavis.edu or by regular mail to John A. Meyer, Vice Chancellor - Resource Management and Planning, University of California, One Shields Ave., Davis, Calif. 95616