health of lake tahoe

School is out and summer is in full swing at Lake Tahoe. Visitors and residents are heading to beaches and launching boats, kayaks, and standup paddleboards to get out and enjoy the jewel of the Sierra. Millions of people visit Tahoe each year and the shoreline is where they go to experience its famously cold, clear, blue water.

As we celebrate Earth Day this April, let’s remember how important environmental stewardship is to the health of Lake Tahoe, and how important our individual actions are.

Over the last two decades, public, private, and nonprofit partners have made significant progress conserving and restoring Lake Tahoe’s environment through the Environmental Improvement Program.

Smartphones and invasive species don't normally go together, but this summer in Lake Tahoe, one was used to help keep the other out.

In a new partnership with other agencies around the West, the Lake Tahoe Aquatic Invasive Species Program receives real-time updates from other land managers about vessels traveling to Lake Tahoe from waters with a high risk of containing invasive species.

By sharing the data, Tahoe's watercraft inspectors are alerted before the suspect boats show up.

South Lake Tahoe-based Tahoe Blue Vodka has donated $5,000 to the League to Save Lake Tahoe, with encouragement to community members to match their contribution to support the League’s beach cleanups. League supporters surpassed the match, raising over $10,000.

Roadside stations for inspections and decontaminations of motorized boats and watercraft are officially opening for the 2015 boating season. Locations, hours of operation and opening dates are as follows:

Opening Thursday, May 1st:

8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m., 7 days a week

• Meyers: at the junction of US 50 and Highway 89

• Spooner Summit: at the junction of US 50 and Highway 28 in Nevada

• Alpine Meadows: Highway 89, off Alpine Meadows Road north of Tahoe City *

*Road construction on Alpine Meadows Road: Go to placerroads.com or call 530-581-0471

New ordinances regarding land coverage at Lake Tahoe came into effect June 19 following final approval of a key water quality plan by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and EPA announced recently.

The action updates the Clean Water Act Section 208 Lake Tahoe Water Quality Management Plan — last fully updated in 1988. The 208 Plan provides a comprehensive framework for water quality management in the Lake Tahoe basin and includes provisions for land coverage limits.

Two Tahoe conservation groups, the Sierra Club and Friends of the West Shore, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday challenging new rules for Lake Tahoe that seriously reduce protections for the treasured mountain lake. The new Tahoe Regional Plan Update, approved in December by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA), shifts authority over future development decisions to local jurisdictions. The plan also allows those towns and counties to adopt weakened pollution controls that do not meet the minimum environmental requirements established by TRPA.

The Lake Tahoe Science Consortium collaborated with University of Nevada, Reno’s Department of Art to create “Visualizing Change,” a photographic art expedition intended to convey concepts in environmental restoration at Lake Tahoe to the scientific community and general public. The exhibit is located in the Prim Desert Research Library at Sierra Nevada College at Lake Tahoe’s Incline Village. It features photography and oil painting contributions from eight noted artists and is free and open to the public through July 27.