Posted on 08/09/2006 4:45:18 PM PDT by SierraWasp
LAKE TAHOE Lake Tahoe not losing clarity, test shows
- Carl T. Hall Wednesday, August 9, 2006
Lake Tahoe's water clarity is nothing like it used to be, but the latest measurements revealed Tuesday that at least the murk doesn't seem to be getting any murkier.
UC Davis scientists said the lake was clear to an average depth of 72.4 feet in 2005, based on how far from the surface they could see a white dinner-plate-size measuring tool known as a "Secchi disk." The disk is lowered every seven to 10 days at two locations. The depth at which the plate disappears, averaged for each year, is recorded as the lake's "Secchi depth."
The 2005 measurement was marginally shallower than the 73.6 feet reported for 2004, but remained well within the recent range, which has varied from 67.3 feet in 2000 to 78 feet in 2002. In 1968, when the measurements began, the Secchi depth was an average of 102.4 feet.
Environmental managers are working on a long-range restoration plan for the Lake Tahoe basin and use water clarity as one measure of the lake's health. Scientists discount year-to-year changes in clarity because of the transitory effects of precipitation. Lake clarity is affected mostly by the amount of algae and fine particles in the lake, which can enter from the atmosphere or seasonal runoff.
In a news release, Julie Regan, communications director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, said the latest clarity number is "encouraging," but also underscores "how crucial it is to stay the course in our efforts to restore Lake Tahoe and to preserve it for future generations."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
My reply to the "Keep Tahoe Blue" stickers is "Keep Tahoe Blue--Don't Live There".
Some of the history on the Lake Tahoe basin. Back in the 19th Century, the entire area was clear-cut, to provide timbers used for shoring up the enormous mining enterprises in Virginia City, to the east and on the other side of the Washoe Valley. These original trees were cut and sent to sawmills in Carson City, from where the timbers were hauled, first by wagons drawn by teams of horses or mules, then later by the Virginia & Truckee railroad. The trees were sent down to Carson City on flumes constructed with slabs from the sawmills, and with water pumped up from the Tahoe Basin. The logs were sent down the flumes with the flow of water behind them, and got up a great deal of speed in the nearly 3,000 feet of drop in the seven miles or so to the base of Eagle valley.
By 1880, about the time the Comstock Lode was about played out, not an original tree was standing in the basin. There was considerable second growth, but mostly, small in size, and not nearly as valuable for mining timbers. About this time, a great wave of remorse came over the "reformers" about the original exploitation of the Tahoe basin, and further development was slowed down. While some tree harvest continued, and some small amount of growth was still going on, by the time the "environmentalist" movement got under way, almost all activity concerning forest management had come to a dead halt. Trees died, and the tree beetles chewed away on them until they fell, making a huge hodgepodge of decaying matter on the forest floor. It was the washing into the lake of this decaying organic matter that was causing the turbidity of the water. Outdoor privies and poorly maintained septic disposal systerms were NOT the problem they were made out to be.
With controlled burns (removing the dead understory in the forest), the amount of decaying organic matter washing into the lake (with the spring melt of the snow cover) was greatly reduced, with the resultant effect of the water becoming more clear.
Given time, and with intelligent application of known techniques of forest management, wilderness areas can continue to produce and still be a valuable preserve.
You have no idea how wonderful I think that grapic IS!!!
"Clear water may be pretty but it is also lifeless."
I case you aren't aware of it... That's the whole "Prime Directive" of ALL EnvironMentalism!!!
It's not about cleaner air and water... It's about STERILE air and water!!! (oh and don't forget sterile dirt via the "Super Fund!)
The Born Again Pagans don't care that it will break all the governments and their involuntary supporters (tax payers) and their fragile economies to take these "issues" the last 1% to STERILITY!!!
All my browser shows me is the dreaded "Red X!"
IMO that's the problem! You, and far too many others, don't understand it!!!
The multi-millions being spent by the counties in the "Bi-State Compact" (read Federal GovernMental EnvironMental Colony governed by the Tahoe Regional Planning Association of crazed activists) for rock-lined "catch basins," etc., ad nauseum cannot be proved to be doing a thing except adding membership the the local GovernMental Employees Unions!!!
The infernal eternal demonization of development and capitalistic profits for individuals and corporations as a "knee-jerk" assumption of evil has now gone far beyond the point of "diminishing returns" for all the "group thinkers" into the land of abject absurdity!!!
The stupid sanctification of "Non-Profit" Non-GovernMental Organizations as well as GovernMental EnvironMental CONservancies like the California Tahoe Conservancy (now totally enveloped by Schwartzenegger's Sierra-Nevada CONservancy with additiona state payroll) is acheiving compound abject absurdity!!!
None of the procloptions of these sactified as the only "honest and trustworthy" GovernMental and Non-GovernMental EnvironMental organizations holds water under rational and intense scruitiny!!! Get over it! Get used to it!! Learn it on your own if you're interested in truth over pure emotionalism being hyped and parroted by the lazy MSM!!!
Yes. And it's been developed and populated by thousands of Volvoid Leftist Liberals who cannot allow individual thought and action lest the equality of outcomes be shattered by elitists building conspicuous consumption style mansions as signs of capitalist potential for all to see...
WAIT!!! That's already been done by hypocrits in existance!!! What's up with that??? Could it be that some Volvoid Lestist Liberals are more "equal" than others? What a horrific thought!!! (kinda sourchasitc, too)
They feel that as California's aristocracy from the western metrosexual areas, they are entitled to rule over Californa's ruralsexual environment in ways that the illegitimate squatters in the Sierra, including and especially the Tahoe Basin, should simply always acquiess to under any circumstances.
Afterall, since the infamous "Cows Don't Vote" decision by the Earl Warren Supreme Court, these riff-raff rural squatters are easily out-voted and need to be ruthlessly "rooted out!" All they ever do is ruin the esthetics of such sacred EnvironMental Sanctuaries to the detriment of the esthetically in tune western Californians, don'tcha know?
Because of fire suppression, that forest is now overstocked and decadent, now releasing far more nitrate into the lake than do anthropogenic sources. Unless that forest is thinned, the cycle will repeat. In many places it's too late: beetle kill and water competition has produced rotting vegetation that releases into watersheds as detritus loaded with nitrates.
Why is it that everything that they set out to preserve for future generations ends up being put off-limits to present generations?
Well, let me ask you. What about all the rivers of pine pollen that is loaded with proteins washing into all the storm drains and stream beds and then into the lake?
I got a "404 FORBIDDEN" message from you link! Was that some kind of cryptic/symbolic/EnvironMental/GovernMental message intended to keep me in line??? Wha???
I ask you a rhetorical question in return... Which is kept cleaner as a general rule, a public restroom such as on a freeway rest-stop, or a private restroom such as in a classy hotel? GovernMental EnvironMental "management" brings on what Carry Okie refers to as "the tragedy of the commons!" (Natural Process 2001)
We don't need EnvironMental "management" as much as we need Environmental "leadership" through responsible private ownership and control of the land and it's uses by individuals with a strong sense of stewardship!!!
All this other bunk is getting us nowhere... Today's self-appointed, self-annointed EnvironMentalist is a real "nowhere man, working on his nowhere plan, for nobody!" (Like Ted Kasinsky and Algore)
Hey! There's no Lake Tahoe in Washington State!!! I assumed incorrectly that you were a San Francisco "Baynative!!!"
For me, too. I lived there from 1989 to 1992. I was 21 years old and as foolish as can be. Man, that was a fun time! I'd like to go back to visit sometime with my wife and kids.
Hmmm...it's just a link to the picture you got the red-x on.
I see a very nice picture of Lake Tahoe.
Must be a block in your firewall..oh well.
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