“. . . the water was not merely transparent, but dazzlingly,
brilliantly so.” - a description of Lake Tahoe by Mark Twain,
Roughing It (1871) The focus of the League to Save Lake Tahoe is
water quality and clarity in Lake Tahoe. The clarity of Lake
Tahoe was first made famous by Mark Twain in the 1880s.
Tragically, the pristine clarity of Lake Tahoe as experienced by
early visitors is no more. Scientific measurements of water
clarity started in 1968. At that point, one could see a white
disk submerged to a depth of 100 feet. Today, clarity has
dropped to around 70 feet. That means Tahoe is losing about one
foot of clarity per year. Why is Tahoe losing clarity? Recent
water quality research has shed more light on the causes of the
decline in lake clarity. Lake Tahoe is experiencing a phenomenon
known as cultural eutrophication—excessive algal growth due to
excessive nutrient levels. Nitrogen and phosphorus from
automobile emissions and urban and forested areas act like
fertilizer to accelerate algal growth. As