A community celebration of the partnership between the University of California, Davis, and Sierra Nevada College to build the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences will be held today from 1 to 3 p.m. at the building site on the Lake Campus of Sierra Nevada College, in Incline Village, Nev.

Key speakers will be UC Davis Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef, Sierra Nevada College President Benjamin Solomon, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, California Assembly Member Tim Leslie, California Secretary of Resources Michael Chrisman, and Steve Robinson, adviser to Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn on wildlife, conservation and rural Nevada issues. Many supporters of UC Davis and Sierra Nevada College, as well as donors to the new project, will attend.

The $24 million Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences will be an international leader for science and teaching on the preservation of alpine lakes and their watersheds.

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

This event is the first public celebration of the partnership, which was announced in January. Construction of the building could begin as soon as summer of 2005.

In 1994, UC Davis began fund raising 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.

Of the $13 million raised by UC Davis, $9.5 million will go to the Tahoe Center building at SNC. The rest will fund renovations of the former Tahoe City fish hatchery, to be used as a field station to support the research and education activities of the main center at SNC.

A $725,000 appropriation for the project, proposed by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and supported by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, was approved early this year by Congress and the president. Sierra Pacific Power has committed $200,000 to the project for improved energy efficiency aspects of the design. Sierra Nevada College will raise $9.5 million, plus an endowment of $3 million. The combined $12.5 million from a single donor would qualify as a naming opportunity for the facility.

To ceremonially launch the building project today, officials will break a beaker of lake water across the bow of a UC Davis research boat, the R/V Ted Frantz (temporarily beached for this event at the building site).

Following the ceremony, there will be presentations and exhibits by principals and program partners including researchers Charles Goldman, John Reuter and Geoff Schladow of UC Davis; Steve Ellsworth of Sierra Nevada College; Stephen Wells and John Tracy of the Desert Research Institute; and Mark Bernstein of the RAND Corp. Additional exhibitors include Scripps Institute of Oceanography and Tahoe Basin environmental groups.

Also on hand to discuss the project will be UC Davis' project manager, Bill Starr, of campus Architects and Engineers; Sierra Nevada College's project manager, Jim Steinmann, an SNC trustee and chairman of the facilities and grounds committee; and other key members of the building and design team, including architect Jeff Lundahl of Lundahl Associates in Reno; Volker Hartkopf of Carnegie Mellon University; mechanical engineer Peter Rumsey of Rumsey Engineers in Oakland; and Dan O'Shea of Turner Construction in Sacramento.

The 45,000-square foot building is intended to be a model of environmentally sound design. It is expected to qualify for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver Rating as administered by the U.S. Green Building Council.