In the News

UC Davis and Sierra Nevada College Will Build
date posted: December 22 2005

Lake Tahoe Report #70
June 7, 2004
By John Cobourn and Heather Segale


Earlier this year, University of California, Davis, and Sierra Nevada College announced that an urgently needed Tahoe environmental research and education facility will be built on the Sierra Nevada College campus in Incline Village. The Desert Research Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, and the RAND Corp. will be collaborators in the $24 million project, to be called the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences. The project is an unusual combination of public and private institutions in two states and is supported by federal, state, private and foundation funding. Under development for a decade, the center will be an international leader in science and teaching on the preservation of alpine lakes and their watersheds.

The new building will house offices and laboratories of the UC Davis Tahoe Research Group and the Desert Research Institute; exhibits and educational programs in the Thomas J. Long Foundation Education Center; offices, laboratories and classrooms for Sierra Nevada College students; and conference space for 150 people.

UC Davis began studying Lake Tahoe when Charles Goldman began his career there in 1959. Since 1975, Tahoe Research Group scientists have worked in a crowded, leaky, unheated former fish hatchery near Tahoe City, "doing world-class research in a third-world facility," as Goldman puts it. Nonetheless, the UC Davis Tahoe Research Group has become a leading research institution in the basin. UC Davis data provide the official annual assessment of the lake's clarity.

"This is a terrific outcome for the Tahoe Basin and all of us who love it," Goldman said. "In this one place, we will be able to conduct the research needed to keep the lake healthy and blue, educate the next generation of Tahoe scientists, teach our children about the basin's natural resources, and inform the public officials who decide the basin's future."

Ben Solomon, president, Sierra Nevada College, said the new facility is particularly well-suited to the college's environmental sciences program and its emphasis on "green" building methods. Sierra Nevada College, with about 300 undergraduate students, is the only four-year, private college in Nevada. Environmental sciences is a signature program and offers academic majors in science and policy. The Tahoe Center will help to enhance and expand these programs in the years to come.

In 1994, UC Davis began fundraising to build the modern research facilities that Tahoe scientists needed. Donors from around the world gave $13 million, including $2.6 million from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The Thomas J. Long Foundation gave $2 million for a public education center. Sierra Nevada College proposed the shared facility last summer, and a letter of agreement was signed in January 2004. A $750,000 appropriation for the project, proposed by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and supported by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, was approved by Congress and the president.

Dennis Rolston, director, UC Davis' John Muir Institute of the Environment, said the new Tahoe Center will serve as a gathering place for all the institutions and agencies that have academic and outreach programs in the Tahoe Basin. It's a long list that includes UC Davis, University of Nevada, Desert Research Institute, U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Forest Service.

The Tahoe Center will be located in the heart of Sierra Nevada College's 18-acre Lake Campus, in Incline Village on the southwest corner of Highway 28 and Country Club Drive. UC Davis plans to renovate the hatchery building in Tahoe City and use it as a staging area for field work. UC Davis' research boat, the John LeConte, will continue to be docked at the Tahoe City Marina.

A ceremonial launch of the Tahoe Center building project will take place from 1 - 3 p.m., Aug. 5 at the Sierra Nevada College Lake Campus. It will be held in conjunction with this year’s Tahoe Summit, to be held the same day at the Ponderosa Ranch, starting at 8:30 a.m. Groundbreaking for the Tahoe Center is scheduled for May 2005. Plans are to complete it in August 2006.