Tahoe Conservancy announces acquisition of 31 acres in Upper Truckee

Call it the Motel California, Tahoe California, that is.

On Tuesday, the California Tahoe Conservancy announced it was acquiring 31 acres of land along the Upper Truckee River in South Lake Tahoe.

The 31 acres was purchased using $15.6 million in support from the California Wildlife Conservation Board, the Conservancy, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, the California Department of Fish, the Tahoe Fund and the League to Save Lake Tahoe.

The four acres of floodplain is now occupied by Motel 6, a vacant restaurant building, and a paved parking area. The rest includes 25 acres of mountain meadow and wetlands, a two-acre single-family homesite, and four acres of former floodplain.

Lake Tahoe lost nearly 30 feet of its famed water clarity following the development boom of the 1950s and 60s and damage to the Lake’s natural water filters. The property abuts the Conservancy’s 560-acre Upper Truckee Marsh property to the north. Tahoe Resource Conservation District’s (Tahoe RCD) 206-acre Johnson Meadow property lies across U.S. Highway 50 to the south.

“This environmental acquisition may be the most important in a generation to protect Lake Tahoe,” said California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. “By reconnecting the most important wetland that filters water flowing into the Lake, this investment protects the Lake’s precious water quality and also provides an important corridor for local wildlife. This project demonstrates the great value of the California Tahoe Conservancy, to work diligently over years—sometimes decades—to see important environmental improvements to fruition.”

The Conservancy will remove the 1970s-era motel and vacant restaurant and retire or transfer the property’s development rights and coverage for future use on town center redevelopment. The Conservancy will preserve the surrounding mountain meadow and wetlands. The acquisition presents opportunities to restore wetland habitat on the newly acquired property itself as well as future restoration at the Upper Truckee Marsh.

“We are grateful to our funding partners for making this possible,” said Conservancy Board Chair Adam Acosta. “This historic acquisition of the Knox Johnson and Motel 6 property achieves a decades-old goal and brings one of the last privately held sections of the river corridor under public ownership.”

The land protected by this acquisition is part of the homeland of the Washoe people.

“The Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California is supportive of the incredible work being done by the Conservancy,” said Washoe Tribe Chairman Serrell Smokey. “The Conservancy has been a great partner and their work to protect, preserve, and re-establish healthy ecosystems within the Tahoe Basin should be celebrated. Addressing decades of overdevelopment in very delicate and fragile ecosystems, such the Upper Truckee, is not something that happens overnight. While we celebrate this as a huge victory for the Tahoe Basin, it is also important to acknowledge that this will have profound and far-reaching impacts as we continue to imagine a healthy future for the Tahoe Basin with Washoe Culture and Peoples at the center.”

For decades, this land has been a top acquisition priority for state and regional partners. Acquiring the 31-acre property places over 96 percent of the lower nine miles of the Upper Truckee River in public ownership. The river drains a third of the Lake Tahoe Basin’s land area, making its restoration a key to protecting the Lake.

“From bobcats and bears to rainbow trout and the Lahontan redside, it’s hard to overstate the magnitude of this acquisition in terms of the benefits for so many of the Lake Tahoe Basin’s fish and wildlife species,” said CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham. “These species have been plagued by a variety of fish passage and wildlife connectivity challenges at this property for decades. We now collectively have the opportunity to address these issues and restore connectivity and access to the quality habitat they need throughout their various life stages.”

The Conservancy anticipates closing escrow and completing the acquisition in the coming weeks.