Indy Environment: Inside Nevada’s most historic endangered places
Good morning, and welcome to the Indy Environment newsletter. I'm Amy Alonzo, the environment reporter for The Indy.
The new year is fast approaching, which means this will be the last newsletter of 2024. It will resume in January, but until then, have a wonderful holiday season.
As always, I want to hear from readers. Email me at amy@thenvindy.com.
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The new year is generally regarded as an opportunity to start fresh — resolutions abound, grand plans are launched.
But in a society focused on what’s new, the preservation of old places — from culturally important indigenous lands to historic buildings in some of Nevada’s biggest and smallest cities — is an uphill battle.
There’s a future in the past, said Michael Green, executive director of Preserve Nevada, a statewide historic preservation group, and chair of UNLV’s history department. “If we lose sight of the past, we don’t know where we are in the present.”
Across the state, groups from Preserve Nevada to the Sierra Club are raising awareness of issues putting pressure on Nevada’s most threatened places, including Reno’s Lear Theater, Sparks’ Union Pacific machine shop and Southern Nevada’s Avi Kwa Ame National Monument.
The Lear Theater was built 85 years ago as a church by Paul Revere Williams, the first Black member of the American Institute of Architects. With a sweeping staircase leading to it, the Neoclassical Revival-style building boasts stately columns and can seat as many as 600 people.
The church moved to a different facility in 1998, and the building has since bounced between owners, standing empty for more than two decades. Last year, the City of Reno purchased it, dedicating $1 million in federal COVID relief funds toward external repairs and updates, but, earlier this month, the city redirected the money after no bids were submitted for the work and as the funds set to expire at the end of this year.
Now, the city is figuring out next steps for the theater.
Just a few miles to the east, another historic location flagged by Preserve Nevada received a death blow. Union Pacific’s Sparks machine shop will be dismantled to allow the company to expand its operations.
The City of Sparks had made efforts to preserve the 120-year-old railway building, once the largest terminal on the Southern Pacific lines and pivotal to the foundation of the city, the Sparks Tribune reported, with Councilman Don Abbott calling the building “living and breathing history.”
In Southern Nevada, advocates worry that Avi Kwa Ame, Nevada’s newest national monument, could be in the crosshairs of President-elect Donald Trump, who had a history of shrinking national monuments during his first administration and has vowed to review monuments created by President Joe Biden.
The monument includes stands of old-growth Joshua trees, including the world’s largest, and the site is sacred to multiple tribes who look to it as the center of creation.
Now, a federal lands bill introduced by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) overlays off-highway vehicle (OHV) trails over thousands of miles of the monument, “a gut punch after years of fighting to establish a national monument on this sacred site,” according to the Sierra Club.
It is “amongst the worst locations for OHV recreation,” Olivia Tanager, Toiyabe Chapter director of the Sierra Club, said in an email to The Nevada Independent. “It is a beloved, iconic Nevada landscape that many, many people worked extremely hard to protect permanently.”
In the weeds:
Huge north Tahoe project draws (another) lawsuit — The League to Save Lake Tahoe has partnered with nonprofit Sierra Watch to legally challenge the Placer County Board of Supervisors’ approval of a large-scale project that will significantly expand the Village at Palisades Tahoe, which they say will increase traffic and continue crowding an already congested area.
Despite vehement opposition from thousands of residents and Lake Tahoe conservation groups, the plan for the massive development was unanimously approved in November by supervisors.
The proposed development would add nearly 1,500 rooms to the village, including workforce housing and a mixture of hotels, condominiums and timeshares.
The vote came after more than a decade of public outcry and lawsuits. Alterra Mountain Co., owner of Palisades Tahoe, introduced the plan in 2011; the commissioners approved it but then faced a lawsuit. A complicated back and forth between county courts, grassroots protesters, the county and developers ensued; last month’s vote prompted the newest lawsuit from the League to Save Lake Tahoe and Sierra Watch.
The expansion is expected to generate 3,300 more vehicle visits per day along Highway 89. Vehicle traffic will simultaneously endanger residents in case of a wildfire evacuation, opponents say, as well as increase runoff — the leading cause of degradation of Tahoe’s water quality — into the Tahoe Basin.
Speaking of lawsuits — A coalition of nonprofit groups including Basin and Range Watch have filed a federal lawsuit to protect the Old Spanish National Historic Trail, which partially runs through Southern Nevada.
Spanning approximately 2,700 miles between present day Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Los Angeles, the trail was used by traders, explorers and settlers during the early 19th century.
Congress designated the Old Spanish National Historic Trail in 2002, and a statutorily required comprehensive management plan is required for the trail under the National Trails System Act. But the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management have not been able to agree on a plan, and the lawsuit attempts to hold them, as well as the U.S. Department of the Interior, responsible.
It just takes one: Roughly 1 out of every 100 boats inspected this year before entering Lake Tahoe was infested with an aquatic invasive species, according to final numbers issued by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the Tahoe Resource Conservation District.
More than 5,600 vessels were inspected, with 59 infested with invasive species. This is an increase over the 46 infestations intercepted in 2023, but down from the 129 infestations caught in 2021. Seventeen of the intercepted vessels this year had quagga or zebra mussels, species officials are working hard to keep out of Lake Tahoe.
Getting the lead out: Eight miles of defunct, lead-sheathed telecommunication cables have been removed from the bottom of Lake Tahoe. Estimated to weigh 63 tons, they were removed by a large barge transported specifically to the lake for the project.
The cables were discovered more than a decade ago by scuba divers and span from Baldwin Beach to Rubicon Bay. The oldest cable dated to 1929 and was owned by what is now AT&T. Lead is known to cause cancer, other illnesses and reproductive issues.
In 2021, AT&T agreed to remove the cables, but in 2023, the removal project was paused to allow for further analysis. Work resumed this fall with a team of consultants, including divers, biologists and archaeologists, ensuring the cables were removed without disturbing water quality, aquatic life or Tahoe’s natural setting.
Utah land lawsuit “lacks merit”— The Department of Justice has weighed in on Utah’s request for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on whether the federal government can indefinitely hold unappropriated public land, arguing that the lawsuit “lacks merit.”
Utah is seeking to skip filing at lower courts in its bid to have the nation’s highest court hear its case. The Department of Justice argued the state should follow standard procedure.
Utah has the second-largest percentage (70 percent) of federally owned land in the nation. Only Nevada, with 85 percent, has more. Utah’s proposition garnered support from Elko County commissioners, who approved a resolution and provided a modest financial contribution.
Currently, only an act of Congress can transfer federal land to a state.
ICYMI:
A huge NV Energy project has doubled in cost. Ratepayers are being asked to help fund it
Mountain bike trails wheeling in the tourism for rural Nevada
New Nevada climatologist brings lessons from Mount Everest to bear on state’s water issues
Nevada approves rule protecting workers from extreme heat after years of setbacks
A ski resort in the Ruby Mountains? No thanks, Elko County says
Clark, Washoe lands bills pass key Senate hurdle. Time to make them law is running short.
Here’s what else I’m reading (and listening to) this week:
A glut of solar-produced power sometimes threatens to overload California’s power grid, prompting the state to curtail production and sell it to out-of-state buyers — at times paying other states to take its excess. The Los Angeles Times has more.
Last week’s 7.0 magnitude earthquake in California had far-reaching effects, rocking the rare Devil’s Hole pupfish in Nevada’s portion of Death Valley National Park. Now officials are studying what affects it will have on the fish, according to KNPR.
A new study shows that when wild horse populations rise, sage-grouse populations decline, according to High Country News.
A closer look
Looking to cut your own Christmas tree? White firs make exceptional Christmas trees, according to the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, and can be found across Nevada.