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By Miriam Raftery
July 11, 2024 (Alpine) – The nonprofit Friends of Loveland Reservoir has been advocating for a return of sunrise-to-sunset hours at Sweetwater Reservoir. Such access was agreed to along with an easement as part of a land-swap deal between the U.S. Forest Service and Sweetwater Water Authority (SWA) years ago, but in recent years amid tightened budgets, that agreement has not been honored.
Friends of Loveland states in an email to its supporters that it proposed for members of its large volunteer base to open and close Loveland daily from sunrise to sunset, with a new lockbox and gate key. “ SWA agreed to open the gate every morning and would work with a volunteer group as long as USFS provided oversight. Unfortunately, the USDA Office of General Counsel did not agree,” the Friends group states in its email.
Friends of Loveland Reservoir (FLR)has sent a letter in response to the Forest Service sharply criticizing the federal agency for refusing to enforce the public’s access rights and asking for a meeting with the Forest Service, FLR, and SWA representatives.(See copy of their letter below).
FLR also urging the public to contact the following Forest Service representatives:
Kyle Smith, Descanso Ranger
3348 Alpine Boulevard
Alpine, CA 91901
kyle.smith4@usda.gov
Scott Tangenberg, Cleveland National Forest Supervisor
10845 Rancho Bernardo Road, Suite 200
San Diego, CA 92127
Jennifer Eberlien, Regional Forester
1323 Club Drive
Vallejo, CA 94592
jennifer.eberlien@usda.gov
Randy Moore, Chief USDA Forest Service
1400 Independence Avenue SW
Washington, DC 20250-0003
randy.moore@usda.gov
Friends of Loveland Reservoir’s letter to the U.S. Forest Service
We appreciate the USFS’ efforts to restore access to hiking trails, but this does little for lake users. FOLR’s focus and primary purpose is to induce the SWA to honor the negotiated easement terms including sunrise to sunset hours, opening 365 days a year, and maintaining lake water levels to support the fishing access SWA promised.
It was very disappointing to read that the USFS Office of General Counsel’s advice that the USFS have neither the legal authority nor the capacity to compel SWA to honor the easement at Loveland. We would like to see a legal opinion from the Office of General Counsel that the USFS does not hold legal authority to enforce the easement. It is our understanding that only an easement holder can take action to enforce it. It seems the USFS has the legal capacity, just not the will to enforce the easement. As for capacity constraints, this will only take a strongly worded letter from the USFS advising SWA that they are in violation of the easement terms and they need to honor the easement terms. FOLR will even draft the letter! SWA has told us that the USFS holds the easement and they have heard nothing from the USFS recently.
The land swap negotiations in the 1990’s involved more than 1550 acres of USFS land that the public enjoyed in exchange for around 880 acres in Descanso. When these lands were owned by the USFS, lake users were allowed to camp, fish, hunt, swim, bring their dogs, and otherwise enjoy the lake 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. Loveland is a secondary reservoir and all of these activities are permitted by the Water Quality Board. Throughout these negotiations, SWA restricted most of these activities in exchange for the promise of expanded fishing, increasing access from Government Cove to between 3.5 and 5 miles of shoreline. SWA also insisted on reducing access to sunrise-to-sunset where the USFS was pushing for day and night access. Now SWA won’t honor the opening hours they pushed for. Lake users are missing out on up to three hours of access each summer day. The USFS only holds land for the public benefit. The public lost many rights during the land swap negotiations and now the USFS does not want to help enforce the few promises in the easement agreement. This is a violation of the Public Trust doctrine.
If the USFS won’t call the SWA out for not honoring the easement, then can we explore assigning the easement to an entity that has the will to do so? The lake users and FOLR have been pushing SWA but are largely ignored. The public looked to the USFS to negotiate on their behalf. The public was shortchanged in the negotiations during this land exchange and now they are being shortchanged again by the USFS’ failure to try and preserve the public’s recreational rights at Loveland. The public deserves better.
We want to preserve a cooperative and collaborative relationship with the USFS and SWA but we share the frustration of all lake users over the apparent lack of progress in restoring the easement terms. The USFS and SWA used to work cooperatively together. We’ve told you about emails between the two where SWA asked permission to close two days a year and the USFS agreed only for a trial period. That was in 2009. We need to restore that level of dialogue between the two parties to the easement agreement or assign the easement as suggested above.
Would you be willing to meet with SWA along with FOLR? If we don’t do something soon, the SWA may assert that the USFS has “abandoned” the easement. We would love to be part of the process of reestablishing dialogue between the SWA and the USFS (or any assignee of the easement).
Respectfully,
FOLR
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