Sierra Watch: What’s Next?
The gavel dropped and the conflict was over.
After 15 years of fighting, on May 12 the Placer County Board of Supervisors approved the downsized development project for Palisades Tahoe. And the movement to keep Tahoe Truckee True had succeeded: we cut more than 70% of the original development proposal and kept a massive indoor waterpark out of Olympic Valley.
“What’s next?” someone turned to me and asked. “What’s next for Sierra Watch?”
The answer is spelled out in our mission. It’s what we do day after day, year after year: “Sierra Watch secures conservation outcomes to protect the natural resources, mountain communities, and timeless values of the Tahoe Sierra.”
We can see the results in our shared landscape; places like Donner Summit, where we can hike the Sierra Watch Trail to the crest of the mountains and gaze upon Royal Gorge, which was once threatened with luxury development, but is now protected and open to the public.
It’s manifested in Martis Valley, on Waddle Ranch Preserve — once slated for golf courses, shopping malls, and subdivisions — now secured as wildlife habitat, scenic trails, and open space.
And now, in Olympic Valley, where there will never be a giant indoor waterpark.
We’ve achieved incredible results since local residents started Sierra Watch in 2001. But what about the next 25 years?
To answer that question, we’ve been debriefing our strategies and successes, interviewing partners and colleagues, and thinking through how we can best apply what we’ve learned to accomplish more in the decades to come. We’ve got three top priorities.
First is finishing the job — fulfilling our commitments to further the success of our long-term campaigns.
In Olympic Valley, we maintain our presence to make sure that development fits into the limits established in our settlement agreement and that no new proposals threaten the values we’ve worked to protect. In Martis Valley, where Sierra Watch got its start, that means working with our conservation allies to secure the capstone to more than 20 years of strategic and disciplined commitment: permanent protection of the 7,500-acre Tahoe Martis headwaters property on the rim of the Tahoe Basin.
And for White Wolf, between Olympic Valley and Alpine Meadows, we remain vigilant, ready to further engage in the public planning process for the proposed resort on the 275-acre property.
Second, Sierra Watch is committed to assessing emerging threats in the Sierra and identifying strategic opportunities. In the months ahead, we’ll take a proactive approach to identifying landscapes at risk and determining where we can apply our proven formula for conservation advocacy.
Third, we will make sure we are telling our story. We get calls from folks all over the American West, from Taos to Tetonia, who want to know how local communities can stand up to developer excess and, in the immortal words of local hero Robb Gaffney, “honor mountain culture.” We — not just Sierra Watch but the entire Tahoe/Truckee community — have a great case study of grassroots success to share with the world. We offer hope and provide proof that we can indeed work together to protect the places we love.
It’s a commitment and a legacy we can all be proud of. And because what we strive to protect is timeless, these past 25 years are just the blink of an eye. It’s our moment in a multi-generational commitment to mountain values.
And we’re just getting started.
~ Tom Mooers has been a leader in defending great places in California for more than 30 years. Before joining Sierra Watch as founding executive director in 2001, he was trained at Green Corps and worked for the Greenbelt Alliance and the League to Save Lake Tahoe. He lives in Nevada City.
