(Note: Naw, the Forest Service can't be broke; it still has the bottomless pits of the taxpayers' wallets, purses and checking accounts to decimate! And just see! They're going to spend at least $700,000 MORE for another study! Broke? They can't be! Until we are... The language deception is that this is part of the incrementation of The Wildlands Project, going on right under people's noses. Even 'non-native' weeds -- also known as the 'dreaded' 'invasive species' -- are given a passing mention.)

September 2, 2003

Reno, Nevada - Scientists are studying pockets of forested lots in urban areas around Lake Tahoe to determine if they hurt or hinder native plants and wildlife.

For decades, the federal government, Nevada and California have been buying up sensitive lots that might otherwise have been developed.

Under the 1980 Burton-Santini Act, the U.S. Forest Service alone has spent about $102 million, purchasing roughly 3,500 parcels around the Tahoe Basin.

The idea behind the buyout is to remove the lots from development and help prevent sediment and urban runoff from entering Lake Tahoe and fueling the algae growth stealing the lake's renowned clarity.

While most agree [that] it has helped protect the Sierra lake, little is known about how the lots help or hinder Tahoe's wildlife.

Answering that question is a key component of a $700,000 study being conducted by the Forest Service, the University of Nevada, Reno and the University of California, Davis.

About 100 urban lots around the Tahoe Basin will be studied over the next several years.

"What could be happening is these urban lots are providing small vignettes of wild Lake Tahoe right over the fence from you and your neighbor," UNR's Dennis Murphy, a lead researcher in the project, told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

"The converse possibility is these urban lots are acting as entry points into wild Lake Tahoe from our landscape."

That means the urban lots could serve as a "staging area" in the spread of non-native weeds into the forest, Murphy said. Or the lots might actually represent a threat to wildlife.

"Your roadkill is a prime example," Murphy said. "If in fact these small patches are luring species into locations where mortality rates are high, we might be draining the Tahoe Basin of its wildlife without even realizing it."

The study has zeroed in on a place interesting not only because of its large number of forested urban lots but because Lake Tahoe lies at a point of ecological convergence between the Sierra and the Great Basin, said Pat Manley of the Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station.

Manley said the study findings should provide valuable information for an ongoing congressional inquiry into the effectiveness of the urban lots buyout program.

The study, which is also taking a look into human recreational value of the urban lots, should ultimately provide the government with new ideas regarding best management of those lots, Manley said.

http://espn.go.com/outdoors/conservation/news/2003/0902/1607688.html