Nevada
| Program Category | # of Grants per state | Sum of EDA $ |
|---|---|---|
| Economic Adjustment Assistance | 1 | $80,000 |
| Planning | 1 | $80,000 |
| Technical Assistance | 1 | $125,000 |
| Grand Total | 3 | $285,000 |
Straddling the California-Nevada state line in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Lake Tahoe is the largest Alpine Lake in North America. The region has a primarily tourism-based economy, focusing on skiing in the winter and water sports in the summer. The region has struggled to diversify the economy, create jobs outside of tourism, and increase resiliency due to the lack of broadband.
In FY 2018, EDA awarded $80,000 in Economic Adjustment Assistance funds to the Tahoe Prosperity Center, a regional non-profit economic development organization, to better understand the challenges facing broadband deployment by conducting a feasibility study to determine alternatives and a path forward to provide business speed broadband to the entire basin. The Tahoe Basin covers communities in six counties in two states, creating many bureaucratic as well as geographic obstacles to potential service providers and fragmented and uneven service.
With the project well underway, the Prosperity Center is making progress to better facilitate broadband deployment around the lake, diversifying their economy by growing their emerging environmental innovation and health and wellness industry sectors, and entice many of their second homeowners to spend more time and conduct more business in the Tahoe Basin.