I spent nine years living on Lake Tahoe’s north shore. While I enjoy getting onto the mountains during a snowy Tahoe winter, it’s the summer time and that big blue lake that kept me there. But “keeping Tahoe blue” is not an easy feat. I witnessed first hand the rapid growth of algae along the shorelines that were completely free of it only a few years earlier.
I mapped impervious surfaces in alarming colors to call attention to one of the environmental challenges that land planners face in trying to prevent the degradation of lake clarity and quality. Impervious surface is related to urbanization, and it increases the rate and quantity of runoff into Lake Tahoe.
