SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The public is invited to a town hall style meeting concerning the use of synthetic herbicides like glyphosate in the Lake Tahoe Basin on Thursday, June 11 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Lake Tahoe AleWorx at the Y in South Lake Tahoe.
Protect Tahoe is hosting the meeting that will include strategies, information, questions and answers on glyphosate, next steps, and more.
Reaction was swift throughout the Sierra, especially in South Lake Tahoe, after a Mother Jones article was written about the use of the herbicide on the Caldor Fire burn scar. The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit said they will be not using glyphosate in the Lake Tahoe Basin during the next two years, but the USFS Eldorado Forest has been using it outside the basin.
In the Caldor Fire area, there are 11,700 acres to be treated by the USFS with various methods in its toolbox, including:
- Ground-based mechanical thinning (2,620 acres)
- Hand thinning (2,420 acres)
- Reforestation, including site preparation, planning, and competition release (2,400-3,600 acres) – Herbicide treatment to aid site preparation before tree planting and to manage competing vegetation after planting when manual treatments are ineffective or expected to be insufficient.
Those who are opposed to any use of herbicides in the forest, especially near Lake Tahoe, reacted quickly to the news and started reaching out to the Forest Service and Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
