Sen. Dianne Feinstein once spoke of a time 70 years ago when North America’s largest alpine lake was crystal clear and its air unspoiled.
As a 16-year-old, the San Francisco native fell for the region while at summer camp on the lake’s north shore and decades later built a vacation home near one of its many bays.
Part of her life’s work as a politician has been directing federal funding to preserving the gem on the California-Nevada border in the Sierra, where visitors flock by the millions to ski its mountain peaks, frolic in the lake and enjoy the natural splendor.
Central to the Democrat’s effort is the annual Lake Tahoe Summit, which she helped inaugurate in 1997 with former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and where Feinstein was honored Wednesday. The bipartisan gathering attracts the top leaders from California and Nevada and, on occasion, U.S. presidents to take stock of what was needed to keep the lake’s waters clear and fend off toxic algae.
“Tell them this: ‘I was a child in Lake Tahoe,’” Feinstein said in a text message read by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) on Wednesday. “‘I was an adult at Lake Tahoe. I am a senator for Lake Tahoe. And I’m determined that Lake Tahoe will survive.’”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi speaks at the Lake Tahoe Summit.
(Max Whittaker / For The Times)
Feinstein, 90, missed this year’s conference, which was hosted by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), the state’s junior senator, another milestone in the slow transition of California’s top leadership to a new generation of rising politicians. Feinstein already announced plans to retire after her current term, following the venerable Sen. Barbara Boxer and Gov. Jerry Brown out of public office. Pelosi, who stepped down as speaker, has not announced her plans.
The inaugural Lake Tahoe Summit led to federal legislation and a near-yearly tradition in which politicians from…