Dr. Charles Goldman honored with Dianne Feinstein Lake Tahoe Award

LAKE TAHOE, Nev. - The "Godfather of Limnology" Dr. Charles Goldman was honored with the Diane Feinstein Lake Tahoe Award on Tuesday during the 26th annual Lake Tahoe Summit.

The award honors “exemplary leaders with a proven track record of several decades of work to improve Lake Tahoe’s clarity, natural beauty, and overall environmental health.” Feinstein was the first to be awarded it during the 2021 Summit due to her dedication to the preservation of Lake Tahoe for decades.

Goldman first arrived at Lake Tahoe in 1958 and fell immediately in love with the lake. Being a limnologist, a scientist who studies the characteristics of fresh-water systems such as lakes, he was right at home. He was the first person to notice the change of clarity of Lake Tahoe in the 1950s and has continued to monitor that clarity ever since - the longest and most continuous record of change.

"His work changed the way people looked at clarity and lead to the creation of TERC (the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center)," said Darcie Goodman Collins, PhD and League to Save Lake Tahoe's executive director as she presented the award with Tahoe Fund Executive Director Amy Berry. "He's been the best champion of Lake Tahoe for 70 years."

Goldman founded TERC and taught at U.C. Davis for 52 years, guiding many of today's scientists. He had previously won the Albert Einstein World Award of Science.

He shared a poem he wrote:

I dream of Tahoe wherever I may go
I dream this dream of Tahoe in sunshine or in snow
I see the cobalt waters in the alpine afterglow
Where pine and aspen forests take many years to grow
And I’ll return to Tahoe from wherever I may go
Yes I’ll return to Tahoe despite where winds might blow
And although my travels wander across the land and sea
My memories of Tahoe will always stay with me
The air is clear and brilliant where Sierra meets sky
It fills me with a sadness when I must say goodbye
But if we keep its blueness this lake will never die
And the children of our children will never have to cry.

"Without Dr. Goldman, Lake Tahoe would not have the beautiful crystal blue water it has now," added Collins.

"I've stood on many shoulders and I'm certain without the political leadership of Senator Feinstein and the late Harry Reid this never could have happened," said Goldman of the work to 'Keep Tahoe Blue.' "When you consider there are five counties and two states and a large number of federal and state agencies involved, it's amazing that we could all come together to achieve what we've achieved at this point."

Goldman also highlighted the slogan of the League to Save Lake Tahoe, Keep Tahoe Blue, which is known around the world.

He said if the 1969 California Porter-Cologne Act and following federal legislation never happened, Tahoe wouldn't be what it is today. Before then, sewage was pumped into the lake, and ever since 1969 effluent is required to be exported outside of the Lake Tahoe basin. He also credited the formation of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency that halted development with the blue of Tahoe.

But, he warned, climate change is now a "clear and present danger."