Clean Up The Lake sets out on its second lap around Tahoe, this time deeper

TAHOE CITY, Calif. – Clean Up The Lake (CUTL), the Tahoe nonprofit known for its environmental dive team, SCUBA cleanups, and completing the 72-mile cleanup
of Lake Tahoe at depths of 0–25 feet in 2021 and 2022, is now going deeper into Lake Tahoe.

The 72 Mile Deep Clean will extend CUTL’s work up to an additional 30 feet beyond the original cleanup, with divers operating between 35 and 55 feet throughout the entire 72-mile circumference of Lake Tahoe. The team’s priorities will be to remove as much litter in those zones as they can, GPS-mark any heavy-lift litter items they are unable to remove, and report any historical artifacts, aquatic invasive species, or algal blooms to the appropriate agencies. The team will rely on advanced technology, including diver propulsion vehicles and enriched air nitrox, to safely increase efficiency and bottom time at these new and challenging depths.

This project has been in development for over three years, with research that includes two years of monitoring projects to evaluate the efficacy of the cleanup strategy, 60 deep-dive surveys, and a pilot research program for this project approach, completed in partnership with the North Tahoe Community Alliance (NTCA) in 2024–2025. Beginning the full-scale 72 Mile Deep Clean project represents a major step forward in addressing the long-term impacts of submerged litter and plastic degradation in Lake Tahoe.

The launch event held on Thursday, December 11, included announcements and speeches by the organization’s Founder Colin West, who was joined by the Board Chair, Simon Hayes, organizational staff, community volunteer divers and surface support crew, and partners who also shared remarks. Following the announcement, the dive team set off to conduct some of the first official dives of the project.

Alexis Ollar, board president of The Martis Fund, said, “Clean Up The Lake has shown what’s possible when dedication meets vision. The Martis Fund was proud to support the first 72-mile cleanup, and we’re just as proud to stand behind this next chapter. Their work delivers real, measurable improvement for Lake Tahoe’s ecosystem, and we’re excited to see the impact this new effort will bring.”

Additional partners joined CUTL for the morning’s launch. Lindsey McCandless of North Tahoe Community Alliance, the project’s largest funding partner, said, “Everyone at NTCA is so excited to be funding this project and seeing TOT-TBID dollars at work. When it comes to cleaning up the lake and educating an entire new generation of stewards, this is exactly the type of work NTCA wants to be supporting.”

Founder and CEO Colin West, who led the dive teams underwater on most of the 72 miles of Lake Tahoe during the first cleanup, said, “Embarking on this so-called ‘second lap’ of Lake Tahoe used to be something we would joke about ever being needed—yet after almost four years and hundreds of research dives later at these deeper depths, we’ve realized this is exactly what Lake Tahoe is calling for us to do.” The organization’s Programs Manager Jenny Uvira added, “Our data from these depths show that we are finding hundreds of pounds of submerged litter on nearly every dive. If our projections are correct, this project could result in an additional 17,000 to 29,000 pounds of litter being removed from these deeper zones of Lake Tahoe.”

The organization has been fortunate to receive tremendous support from a group of partners, including North Tahoe Community Alliance and its TOT-TBID Dollars At Work Program, The Martis Fund, Martis Camp Foundation, Tahoe Mountain Resorts Foundation, Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation, The Rose Foundation, Tahoe Fund, and Tahoe City Marina. This group’s generous support will make the first half of this cleanup possible across the North Shore.

As the organization makes its way into South Shore, however, it will need to call on the public for additional funding to help complete this deep clean of Lake Tahoe, and is encouraging any donors, corporations, or foundations interested in providing support to reach out and help them give Lake Tahoe the deep clean it is asking for.

This 72 Mile Deep Clean project reinforces CUTL’s continued commitment to Lake Tahoe, scientific diving, aquatic invasive species surveillance, and large-scale environmental restoration throughout the Tahoe Basin and the greater Sierra Nevada region. The project will run continuously throughout the next two years until it is complete.

For more information, visit https://cleanupthelake.org/.