INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. - Since 1975, the UC Davis Tahoe Research Group has been crowded into a leaky, unheated former fish hatchery near Tahoe City.

But the leading research institution in the Tahoe Basin should soon have a new home - the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences.

UC Davis and Sierra Nevada College plan to build the research and education facility on the latter's campus here. Collaborating in the project are the Desert Research Institute and the RAND Corp.

A letter of agreement was signed in January, subject to approval by the university and college regents and trustees, who will consider it in May and June, respectively.

"They have to sign off, but I'd be really surprised if there are any problems," said Charles Goldman, a UC Davis scientist who is in his 45th year of leading Tahoe research studies. "It's a win-win situation for everyone."

It's hard to imagine how anyone could be happier than Goldman to see construction of the $24 million, three-story, 45,000-square-foot building, which could begin in summer 2005.

In an interview while on his way to Hawaii to present a paper, Goldman described his current office as "a Third-World facility that even the Russians are embarrassed about." Russian scientists and exchange students have come to Lake Tahoe for 10 years to participate in the Tahoe Baikal Institute. Russia's Baikal is the world's oldest, deepest lake.

Goldman and other supporters of the new center predict it will become an international leader in science and teaching on the preservation of alpine lakes and their watersheds.

"This world-class facility will enable us to attract the very best scientific talents around the world to help solve the multitude of interdisciplinary problems we face in the Tahoe Basin," he said.

"Further, on a college campus, we will be able to extend the educational objective and coordinate the research effort of the two states in preserving this unique natural resource."

The project has its Tahoe Regional Planning Agency permits and funding from federal, state, private and foundation sources.

It will house offices and laboratories for the Desert Research Institute, as well as for the UC Davis Tahoe Research group; exhibits and educational programs in the Thomas J. Long Foundation Education Center; classrooms for Sierra Nevada College students; and conference space for 300 people.

Sierra Nevada College, the only private, four-year college in Nevada, has about 300 students and an 18-acre campus near Lake Tahoe's east shore.

The center also will serve as a gathering place for all the institutions and agencies that have academic and outreach programs in the Tahoe Basin - a long list that includes the University of Nevada, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Forest Service.

It will help fulfill the objectives of an agreement signed by those programs in 1999 to foster research and share facilities to promote sound environmental management of the basin, said Dennis Rolston, director of UC Davis' John Muir Institute of the Environment.

UC Davis data provide the official annual assessment of the lake's clarity. Many of the basin's research agencies are collaborating on a new water-pollution standard for 2007, known as the Lake Tahoe Total Maximum Daily Load, a $6 million project being coordinated by John Reuter, a Tahoe Research Group watershed scientist.