Lake Tahoe’s level dips toward its natural rim
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 25, 2008 at 6:03 am
From the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza:
Heading into fall, Lake Tahoe and other area lakes and reservoirs are dipping, and may leave the Truckee River a comparative trickle before snow recharges the water supply again.
Two slow winters in a row — feeding 31 percent and 32 percent of normal runoff into Tahoe — mean the lake could drop below its natural rim unless precipitation shows up this fall. This means the top of the Truckee River could go dry, and other water stores will have to be leaned on more heavily to supply the Reno/Sparks area.
“At this point it looks like we will get very close to Tahoe’s natural rim,” said Chad Blanchard, chief hydrologist for the U.S. District Court Water Masters Office.
Currently the lake is at 6223.80, within 8 inches of the natural rim and down to just 15 percent of the dam’s total storage capacity, he said.
“As the lake drops, the amount going over the dam drops and the amount going down river drops, so we have to supplement that with others. We’re using Boca right now,” Blanchard said. “By the end of the year Boca could be very low also.” Bill Hauck, the water supply coordinator for the Truckee Meadows Water Authority, said Boca Reservoir could empty to 5 percent of its top capacity.
Read more from the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza by clicking here.
Lake Tahoe boat ramps may be closed when quagga inspectors are not present
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 21, 2008 at 3:43 pmFrom the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza:
A proposal by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency to require Lake Tahoe’s boat ramps to close in the absence of invasive species inspectors is headed to a vote this week. On Wednesday, the TRPA’s Governing Board is scheduled to decide on the new code, which would also require boat owners to get a TRPA-approved boat decontamination if it is deemed necessary by an inspector.
Limiting boat access during early morning and late evening hours, the cost of inspections, the infrastructure necessary to implement the potential closures, and a loss of revenue from ramp closures are concerns surrounding the potential new regulations.
TRPA staff met with boat ramp operators this month in an attempt to resolve such concerns and an implementation plan for potential closures will be presented at Wednesday’s meeting, according to the meeting’s agenda. If the code changes pass, implementation could “occur very quickly,” according to a TRPA letter sent to boat ramp operators last month.
“For this reason we need your input and assistance to make certain we have an implementation strategy that is flexible enough to address the needs of the boating community,” indicates the letter. “Our focus here is to ensure every boat entering the lake is inspected — not to close ramps and limit public access.”
Read more from the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza by clicking here.
Waiting for winter; Lake Tahoe levels dropping fast this fall
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 20, 2008 at 6:52 amFrom the Sierra Sun:
Heading into fall Lake Tahoe and other area lakes and reservoirs are dipping, and may leave the Truckee River a comparative trickle before snow recharges the water supply again.
Two slow winters in a row — feeding 31 percent and 32 percent of normal runoff into Tahoe — mean the lake could drop below its natural rim unless precipitation shows up this fall. This means the top of the Truckee River could go dry, and other water stores will have to be leaned on more heavily to supply the Reno/Sparks area. “At this point it looks like we will get very close to Tahoe’s natural rim,” said Chad Blanchard, chief hydrologist for the U.S. District Court Water Masters Office.
Currently the lake is within 11 inches of the natural rim, down to just 15 percent of the dam’s total storage capacity, he said. “As the lake drops the amount going over the dam drops and the amount going down river drops, so we have to supplement that with others. We’re using Boca right now,” Blanchard said. “By the end of the year Boca could be very low also.”
Bill Hauck, the water supply coordinator for the Truckee Meadows Water Authority, said Boca could empty to 5 percent of its top capacity. Prosser Lake will dip down to about one-third its total capacity, and Stampede will be about half its normal volume, Blanchard said.
Read more from the Sierra Sun by clicking here.
National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act turns 40 as more rivers are considered for protection
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 20, 2008 at 6:30 amFrom the Union-Democrat:
The National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. It was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968.
More than a dozen area river forks have been studied and determined to have values worthy of the act’s protection, but only the free-flowing Clavey River is being pursued. Voices pushing to protect the rushing waters of eligible rivers, like the Clark Fork of the Stanislaus River and the North Fork of the Mokelumne River, are silent.
The act does protect 11,000 miles of 165 rivers in 38 states from being dammed. A bill introduced by Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, and Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, proposes to protect an additional 74 miles of rivers and streams in the eastern Sierra, White Mountains, Mojave Desert and San Gabriel Mountains. Besides restricting dams, the act protects water and public land a quarter-mile on both sides of the river.
The Tuolumne River is protected from its headwaters on Mount Dana and Mount Lyell in Yosemite National Park for 83 miles until its waters run into Don Pedro Reservoir. In 1987, the Merced River was protected for 79 miles, stretching from Mount Lyell to the river’s confluence with Bear Creek. The South Fork of the Merced River was protected from its source at Triple Divide Peak in Yosemite to its confluence with the main stem, 43-miles downstream. In 1990, the river was further protected from Bear Creek eight miles downstream to Lake McClure.
“To have the Tuolumne and Merced protected gives the river systems in the area tremendous credibility,” Wendt said, adding that people come from across the United States to run the rivers.
The act benefits local residents most, though, said Patrick Koepele, deputy executive director of the Tuolumne River Trust. “The county and the foothills would be losing out on a serious recreational resource,” Koepele said of previous proposals to dam the Tuolumne River.
Read more from the Union-Democrat by clicking here.
Low water warning for Lake Tahoe
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 10, 2008 at 6:43 amFrom the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza:
As Lake Tahoe sinks toward its natural rim, area boat ramps are closing due to the low water level. The boat ramps in Kings Beach and Tahoe Vista closed after Labor Day, and the Sand Harbor boat ramp plans to close Monday, Sept. 15.
“I wanted to get past this peak season before we close the ramp, but we are seeing people get stuck out there,” said Jay Howard, superintendent of Lake Tahoe-Nevada State Park, which includes the Sand Harbor facility.
The lake level dropped rapidly over the Labor Day weekend:
High winds during the Labor Day weekend rapidly lowered the lake, according to Chad Blanchard, chief deputy water master in the federal Water Master’s office. Lake Tahoe dropped 18/100s of a foot over four days that weekend, he said.
Tuesday’s lake level of 6224.04 elevation feet is only a foot above the natural rim, which was last recorded in January 2005. Depending on weather conditions, Blanchard expects Tahoe to be at its natural rim again in late November or December this year.
Lake Tahoe has a 6.1-foot reservoir on top of its natural rim, which supplies downstream water. Already, the gates at the Lake Tahoe Dam in Tahoe City are wide open, and as the lake level lowers, water flowing into the river will have to be augmented by releases from Prosser and Boca reservoirs. Boca Reservoir is at 31,000 acre feet right now, but once it drops to 29,000 acre feet, that boat ramp will be dry as well, Blanchard said.
Read more from the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza by clicking here.
Nevada and California officials sign landmark river deal
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 7, 2008 at 7:09 am
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
With the scenic stream flowing behind them, officials from Nevada, California and the federal government signed a landmark agreement that settles a century-plus-old dispute over the Truckee River’s water.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne joined local and state officials at the signing ceremony Saturday for the Truckee River Operating Agreement. The complex document allocates the river’s waters between the two states, and balances the interests of urban users, downstream farmers and the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe.
“I’m so happy that President Bush signed off on it,” Reid told a crowd of about 400 at a downtown Reno park. “It’s an example of what teamwork and bipartisanship can accomplish.”
The Truckee flows more than 100 miles from the California side of Lake Tahoe to its terminus at Pyramid Lake on Nevada’s high desert, about 30 miles northeast of Reno. Under the agreement, California will get two-thirds of Lake Tahoe’s water to Nevada’s one-third, while Nevada will receive 90 percent of the Truckee’s water to California’s 10 percent. It also calls for Nevada to get 80 percent of the Carson River’s water to California’s 20 percent.
Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.
End of Truckee River water wars (hopefully)
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 5, 2008 at 7:18 amFrom the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza:
Tomorrow is a historic day in the annuals of Western states water rights.The Truckee River Operating Agreement — in progress for more than 20 years and the result of 100 years of water rights controversy — will be officially signed in a ceremony Saturday morning at Reno’s Wingfield Park.
The Truckee River flows out of Lake Tahoe in California, crosses the Nevada border near Farad, and ends in Pyramid Lake. The river, claimed by California and Nevada, has been used for recreation, water supply, hydroelectric power, irrigation, fish habitat and wetlands,among other uses.
Its water was literally fought over in the 1920s when a drought caused Lake Tahoe to fall below its natural rim. Downstream water users cut a canal into the rim to drain more water, causing angry threats and beginning the legal battles over its water. Through the years, the fight has resulted in several legal decrees establishing usage of the river’s water. The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe became involved when the cui-ui fish, its historical food source, became an endangered species.
The 1990 Truckee-Carson-Pyramid Lake Water Rights Settlement Act began the process to come up with a new agreement. Years and years of negotiations, research and meetings resulted in the TROA. Lake Tahoe stakeholders spent endless hours making sure the lake’s particular interests are covered, even to such items as how much water is recovered from snowmaking.
Once enacted, the TROA will replace the 1935 Truckee River Agreement, which has managed the bistate river and established rates of flow, water storage and the conditions under which Lake Tahoe could be pumped.
Read more from the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza by clicking here.
Asian clams another possible threat to Lake Tahoe
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 3, 2008 at 6:05 am
From the Reno Gazette Journal:
With concern mounting that Lake Tahoe could be overrun by invasive mussels, some scientists are considering the possibility that another foreign visitor now living in the lake already be causing problems.
The number of Asian clams, first discovered on Tahoe’s bottom in 2001, is “far more extensive” than previously thought, scientists said. Clam beds have been found along a swath of Tahoe’s southeast shore from South Lake Tahoe northward to the Zephyr Cove area.
Researchers are exploring whether the clams might be associated with a bloom of algae in the area this summer. Others are concerned that the clams could boost calcium levels in isolated areas of the lake, potentially allowing destructive quagga or zebra mussels to become established.
“It might be this existing invader is modifying the bottom environment,” said Sudeep Chandra, an environmental science researcher at the University of Nevada, Reno. “One invader can facilitate another.”
More from the Reno Gazette-Journal by clicking here.
Mussel found on boat hull at South Lake Tahoe
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 28, 2008 at 5:54 amFrom the Reno Gazette-Journal:
A boat encrusted with invasive mussels and about to be launched into Lake Tahoe was stopped in what officials describe as a first-of-its-kind close call.
The harbor master at South Lake Tahoe’s Tahoe Keys Marina first saw mussels on the stern of a 32-foot cabin cruiser as it was about to be hoisted into the water Friday. Experts later confirmed the mollusks were quagga mussels, which apparently attached to the vessel while in Lake Mead in late July, said Ted Thayer, natural resource and science team leader for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. The boat remains under quarantine as ordered by wardens with the California Department of Fish and Game.
“This is the first one we’ve actually found that actually had mussels on it,” said Jenny Francis of the Tahoe Resource Conservation District, which is leading inspection efforts at the lake.
The incident, Thayer said, makes clear the danger posed by mussel-infested boats and the importance of mounting a program to detect any before they are put into the lake.
“This tells us boats do come from Mead and there may be live mussels on board,” Thayer said. “It is both scary and encouraging at the same time.”
Read more from the Reno Gazette-Journal by clicking here.
More funds OK’d for Tahoe restoration; Feinstein to seek project extension
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 17, 2008 at 6:56 am
From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Saturday she will seek an extension of a decade-old program to preserve Lake Tahoe’s cobalt blue waters, while Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne authorized another $54 million in funding for conservation projects.
Feinstein said she will seek a second phase of the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act, a $1 billion program launched in 1997 that she credited with making the lake clearer, reducing sediment, restoring streams and cutting pollution. “Yet these gains are threatened by catastrophic wildfires,” Feinstein, D-Calif., told more than 100 people gathered at the 12th annual Lake Tahoe Forum.
California is already straining from the effects of a series of wildfires that have scorched more than 1 million acres in California alone this year and cost the state nearly $300 million to fight.
The Lake Tahoe Restoration Act was funded from sales of public lands in the Las Vegas area. Feinstein said she hopes the new proposal will also be around $1 billion.
More from the Las Vegas Review Journal by clicking here.
Lake Tahoe’s moment of clarity: Ecosystem woes can be eased
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 15, 2008 at 7:29 amFrom the Wall Street Journal:
Lake Tahoe’s fabled clarity may not disappear after all, thanks to massive state, federal and private efforts that show again that even some of the most intractable environmental problems can be alleviated.
Since real-estate developers discovered Lake Tahoe in the 1960s and ringed it with second homes and ski resorts, it has been mostly downhill for the cobalt-blue mountain lake. So much sediment and other urban runoff was dumped into the country’s second-deepest lake that its legendary clarity — measured at more than 100 feet in 1960s tests of submerged disks — was just 67 feet by 2000. Besides likely ruining Lake Tahoe’s $1.2 billion-a-year tourism market, the murky waters threatened a delicate ecosystem that took millennia to build.
But then something surprising happened: Since 2000, Lake Tahoe’s clarity has improved marginally. Researchers from the University of California at Davis reported in May that their average disk measurements between 2001 and 2007 have fluctuated between 68 feet and 78 feet. Last year, it was 70 feet.
Much of the credit for the turnaround — which is still too short-lived for scientists to declare victory — is being given to a vast campaign to save Lake Tahoe.
Read the rest of this story from the Wall Street Journal, which includes a 2 minute video, by clicking here.
Lake Tahoe clearer, but report mostly bleak; however, Tahoe waters stay blue despite threat from 2007 blaze
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 13, 2008 at 7:30 am
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
The news from Lake Tahoe and its overstressed health is mixed this year: Its legendary blue depths are a tiny bit clearer, but the polluting effects of the Angora Fire that burned 3,100 acres and destroyed 254 homes a year ago are still unknown.
As for global warming, its effects on the entire Tahoe Basin are measurable: Nights are warmer, the lake’s temperature has been slowly rising for many years even though it dipped a bit last year, and last winter saw less snow and more rain than usual.
All this comes from a 60-page report on Tahoe’s condition released Tuesday by UC Davis scientists who have monitored the lake’s weather, water and life for more than 40 years.
In the second annual report from the Tahoe Environmental Research Center, Director Geoffrey Schladow says in his introduction that the patterns of the lake’s condition are “the results of natural forces and human actions that operate over time scales ranging from days to decades. Lake Tahoe is a complex ecosystem, and it behaves in ways we don’t always expect.”
Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, the Angora fire last year has not marred the lake’s famous clarity:
The wildfire that blackened the south shore of Lake Tahoe last summer sparked fears that ash and mud would cloud up the lake’s famous clarity. But a new study released Tuesday finds that so far, the cobalt-blue waters have survived unsullied. In fact, Lake Tahoe’s visibility - widely considered an indicator of the Lake Tahoe basin’s environmental health - actually increased by two feet from the previous year, despite the blaze.
“We found that within a couple weeks after the fire there was no significant impact,” said John Reuter, a water-quality scientist with the University of California-Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center. “While some smoke and ash did come into the lake, it didn’t seem to affect the lake all that much.”
One primary reason, Reuter said, is that this past winter was dry, and there weren’t major rainstorms to erode the bare hillsides in the 3,100 acres where the Angora fire burned in June 2007.
Also, immediately after the fire, the U.S. Forest Service and state agencies raced to put in place a blitzkrieg of erosion-control measures. They included laying downed logs horizontally along slopes, spraying a mix of sticky straw from helicopters and channeling drainage areas into meadows so silt could settle into the ground rather than rushing into the lake.
Read more from the San Jose Mercury News by clicking here.
You can read the “State of the Lake” Report for 2008 by clicking here. Find out more about U. C. Davis’ research on Lake Tahoe by visiting the Tahoe Environmental Research Center by clicking here.
Measuring Tahoe’s blues: Sediment and pollution obscure lake and light
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 29, 2008 at 10:32 pmFrom High Country News:
There is something ineffable about trying to measure a thing by the point at which it is no longer measurable. But that was exactly what we were doing, leaning over the side of a boat, watching a white plate sink into Lake Tahoe. We counted off the feet on the line attached to the Secchi dish, named for Angelo Secchi, a 19th-century scientist at the Vatican, who invented this method to measure water clarity in the Mediterranean.
“10, 20, 30.”
Sunlight reflected off the white surface and refracted through the blue water, casting a crystalline halo around the dish. Then the plate began to lose definition around the edge. Soon it was just a pale diffuse
light, getting smaller and smaller in the darkening depths.“40, 50, 60.”
“I don’t see it anymore,” I called out. The plate had descended to a depth where, technically speaking, the difference between the wavelength of the light bouncing off of it and the wavelength of the light being reflected by microscopic particles of sediment in the water had become smaller than my eyes could detect. The Secchi dish was still down there, reflecting light back up to the surface. I just couldn’t swear to it.
But Brant Allen could. “I still see it,” said the crew-cut captain of the RV John LeConte, the research vessel that had brought us out on the lake this bright morning. I counted as he continued to slowly play out the line.
“64, 65, 66, 67.”
“Now I don’t see it either,” said Allen, a fisheries biologist who has recently taken over this tradition, carried out regularly for 39 years by scientists from the University of California at Davis. Allen began reeling the dish back in and soon it came back into focus, a tiny source of light now differentiated again from the scattering luminescence of the deep blue lake.
Technically, we were measuring the declining clarity of Lake Tahoe by the point at which clarity ceases. We saw things slightly differently, as everybody does. We could measure again in the same spot, and it would be different. The lake and the light are always changing. But we had a measurement we could agree on, within a few feet, for this particular time and place.
Read more from the High Country News by clicking here.
Lake Tahoe warming faster than oceans
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 28, 2008 at 6:39 amFrom the Reno Gazette-Journal:
Impacts of a warming climate must become a key concern in long-term strategies to protect Lake Tahoe, environmental regulators and scientists agreed.
A 2004 study by the University of California, Davis found the lake water warmed about 1 degree over a 33-year period ending in 2002, a rate roughly twice the levels of warming recorded for the world’s oceans.
Officials with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency are incorporating climate change into some of the agency’s most fundamental efforts, including a plan guiding land use across the region and a $2 billion-plus list of environmental improvement projects over the next decade. “It’s a new direction for us,” said John Singlaub, TRPA executive director.
The agency, established by Congress in 1969 to protect Lake Tahoe, has spent nearly 40 years trying to address environmental woes at the landmark alpine lake. Threats to the lake include the sediment and pollution that wash into it, clouding its famed clarity, the air pollution that settles in the water and encourages algae growth and ailing forests ready to fuel catastrophic fires.
It’s time to add a warming climate to the mix, experts said. It has a direct relationship with many of Tahoe’s existing problems and could worsen them in the future. “You can’t think of the long term without recognizing climate change,” said Geoffrey Schladow, director of the Tahoe Environmental Research Center.
Read more from Reno Gazette-Journal by clicking here.
Lake Tahoe’s future development up for a vote: plan to add up to 128 new piers generates controversy
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 12, 2008 at 7:28 amFrom KGO Channel 7, San Francisco:
After more than 20 years of debate, a plan for future development on the shore of Lake Tahoe may soon become a reality. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is scheduled to vote on a final draft next month, but some environmentalists say the plan doesn’t do enough to protect the lake.
It’s been about 50 years since an explosion of development began around Lake Tahoe. Restaurants, hotels and casinos lined the shore; boats filled the lake; and environmentalists sounded the alarm — just as they’re doing now. “We are in a battle for the life of Lake Tahoe,” says Michael Donahoe of the Sierra Club.
In 1969, President Nixon signed the Tahoe Compact, creating the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency to oversee all development at the lake. The agency spent years drawing up a regional plan but one area was so controversial it was left out: the shorezone, where Lake Tahoe’s water meets land.
Lake Tahoe is designated as an “outstanding national resource.” That gives it the highest level of federal protection and makes placement of every pier and every buoy a big deal — such a big deal that it’s taken two decades to decide how many to allow, and how to regulate them.
“I’ve always thought every issue had some kind of middle ground that people could agree on. Not this issue,” says John Singlaub of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
Read more from KGO San Francisco by clicking here.
Mother Nature gives Lake Tahoe a break
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 8, 2008 at 8:10 pmFrom the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Scientists said Mother Nature helped limit environmental damage to Lake Tahoe after last year’s Angora fire, which burned 3,100 acres and destroyed 254 homes.
While experts worried that excessive runoff would deposit large quantities of sediment into the lake, the area was spared heavy downpours last summer, and this spring was cool, allowing the snow to melt gradually.
Monitoring continues to determine whether any pollutants are migrating off of the Angora fire area and into streams and rivers flowing toward Lake Tahoe.
“We’ve been very fortunate,” said Nancy Alvarez, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “The weather was really good to us this year.”
Read the full text of this story from the Las Vegas Review-Journal by clicking here.
Scientists track Tahoe fish to protect lake’s ecology
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 9, 2008 at 10:07 pmFrom the San Diego Union Tribune:
Scientists are tracking 14 fish at Lake Tahoe to study their movements and try to prevent their species from spreading out across the lake and upsetting its delicate ecology.
Large mouth bass and bluegill typically are found in much warmer waters. Researchers believe they were introduced into Lake Tahoe by people about 15 years ago. If left unchecked, scientists said they could significantly threaten Tahoe’s cold water fishery. “If you don’t tackle them early, they just proliferate,” said Sudeep Chandra, an expert in fresh water sciences for University of Nevada, Reno.
Joined by scientists from University of California, Davis in a program supported by the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Fish and Game, Chandra and colleagues are tracing movements of the fish through next winter.
Likely introduced by anglers in the Tahoe Keys area of South Lake Tahoe roughly 15 years ago, bass and bluegill appear to be spreading around the lake slowly but steadily. The fish have overrun the Keys and have been found in more than half of the marinas and lagoons sampled around the lake.
“We know they are basically all the way around the lake,” said Brant Allen, staff researcher for UC Davis. “They are widely distributed but their populations are still very low outside of the Keys.”
Read the full text of this article from the San Diego Union-Tribune by clicking here.
WANING WATER: Tahoe, other reservoirs forecast to drops as summer progresses
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 3, 2008 at 6:28 am
From the Nevada Appeal:
A second slow winter in a row could mean water stops spilling over the dam at Lake Tahoe, cutting off flow at the top of the Truckee River.
Despite abundant snow early in the winter season, a uncharacteristically dry spring has meant runoff hasn’t kept up with evaporation, dropping Lake Tahoe in months that traditionally refill the lake. “The lake may come up a few hundredths of an inch, but this looks like it’s about as high as it’s going to get,” said Chief Hydrologist Chad Blanchard with the U.S. District Court Water Masters Office.
The current lake level for Tahoe, as of Monday, is 6225.48 feet, Blanchard said. “We’ve had terrible inflow — almost as bad as last year, and last year the snowpack was much less,” Blanchard said. Because almost all precipitation fell as snow, the soil never saturated, and snowmelt went into the ground rather than running into Lake Tahoe and other reservoirs, Blanchard said.
Coupled with high winds that evaporated both the lake and snow, this springs goes into the record books as the worst for lake rise in 108 years, along with 1977, Blanchard said. “The rise into Tahoe in March and April was actually negative — evaporation was higher than in-flow,” he said.
This could mean by the end of the year Lake Tahoe could drop another 2.5 feet to the natural rim at 6223 feet in elevation, stopping flow over the dam, Blanchard said. “The river would go dry until it gets further downstream, but by that time hopefully we’ll get new moisture,” Blanchard said.
Read the full text of this story from the Nevada Appeal by clicking here.
Check out that shot of the dam across the Truckee River at Lake Tahoe by flickr photographer Fort Photo! You can click on the picture to go to the flickr website and check out more great pictures of Lake Tahoe by this and other great flickr photographers.
Looking for invasive stowaways; inspections begin at Lake Tahoe
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 28, 2008 at 6:01 amFrom the Nevada Appeal, the third in a four-part series on the efforts to keep invasive mussels out of Lake Tahoe. This segment discusses the inspections and the important role boaters have to play:
The first line of defense is getting boaters to comply with boat inspections happening at all private and some public piers around the lake. While the inspections are not mandatory (but may be after today’s Tahoe Regional Planning Agency meeting), they are vital to keeping Lake Tahoe’s waters clear. “As boaters become aware of this problem they become more sympathetic,” said TRPA Executive Director John Singlaub. “People should know that if they have a contaminated boat they will be stopped and required to get it cleaned. The smart thing to do is if they have the potential of a contaminated boat is to turn it around and clean it out.”
The onus to keep mussels out of the lake falls mainly on boaters, said Dennis Zabaglo, TRPA senior environmental specialist and watercraft program manager. “Boating is the main push,” Zabaglo said.
While a stronger emphasis is placed on boaters coming from out of the Tahoe region, Zabaglo said even people who have boats that stay in Tahoe year-round can be part of the process. “You can tell all of your boater friends about the danger,” he said. “Outreach is crucial.”
Part of that outreach is a more than $18,000 campaign to educate the public about the dangers of the mussels. The TRPA and the Tahoe Resource Conservation District have spent $12,000 on a 30-second commercial airing in the basin area and $6,000 on a billboard on Highway 50 to alert boaters. They have also spent a significant amount of money on pamphlets and brochures as part of the $1.3 million campaign, Zabaglo said.
One of the main messages both organizations, and a working group of other state, local and federal agencies, is trying to push is to “clean, dry and drain” your boat. “Clean after you leave, drain all the live wells and make sure everything is dry because the microscopic larvae can live in standing water,” Zabaglo said.
Read more on this story from the Nevada Appeal by clicking here.
Lake Tahoe buoy, pier plan protested; “we shouldn’t litter it with piers and turn it into Any Lake, USA”
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 25, 2008 at 7:31 am
From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Environmentalists are criticizing the latest proposals to regulate boats, piers and buoys at Lake Tahoe, saying the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s plan doesn’t go far enough to protect the lake. A half-dozen critics unfurled protest signs outside a workshop last week at the agency’s office on the south shore.
“Lake Tahoe is a national treasure, and we should treat it as such,” Cory Ritchie of Stateline said Thursday. “We shouldn’t litter it with piers and turn it into Any Lake, USA.”
Laurel Ames said the demonstration was called because the Tahoe agency board’s decision on shore zone ordinances is expected as early as June.
At the workshop, representatives from various interest groups engaged in sometimes tense discussion with agency Executive Director John Singlaub regarding the eighth alternative proposed to update the shore zone ordinances. The latest alternative would allow construction of up to 138 new piers and the placement of 1,862 new buoys on the lake. The previous alternative would have allowed the same number of new buoys but the development of 340 new piers, according to Tahoe Regional Planning Agency documents.
Read more on this story from the Las Vegas Review Journal by clicking here.
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