$125,000 study of Lake Tahoe erosion approved

Monday, Nov. 29, 1999 | 8:03 a.m.

While there has been speculation that Tahoe's current high level causes serious erosion that harms the clarity, no major study of the issue has been conducted.

At a meeting last week, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's governing board authorized spending for the study.

"I, for one, would like to know how much shoreline erosion has to do with our problem," said Terry Giles, the California governor's appointee to the board.

"Right now there are all sorts of opinions out there: 'It must be huge; it must be adding to the erosion.' Right now we don't really have a way to counter those arguments."

John Reuter, a researcher for the University of California, Davis Tahoe Research Group, said very little research has been conducted on the role shoreline erosion plays in Tahoe's declining clarity.

Visibility in the lake once reached down as far as 160 feet, the world's clearest waters prior to mining and logging that accompanied last century's Comstock mining boom near Virginia City, Nev.

Scientists say visibility now stands at about 60 feet, and it's still getting worse.

Federal water master Garry Stone controls the top 6 feet of Tahoe's level from a dam in Tahoe City, the headwaters of the Truckee River. The Tahoe reservoir provides water for the Reno, Nev. area.

Stone said lowering the lake level even slightly - as some Tahoe property rights groups and environmentalists have asked - can result in later problems for Reno water users during drought years.

"There's just as much pressure from the other side of the hill, the other parties involved, to keep Tahoe as full as possible so when there is a drought year it's that much higher," he said.