Recreationists catching on to ban

Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2000 | 5:02 a.m.

This summer marked the second season the TRPA used a patrol boat on the lake, a step taken by the bistate agency to enforce its June 1999 crackdown on personal watercraft and outboard motorboats that tend to spew unburned fuel.

About half of the citations issued so far are for violation of the agency's two-stroke engine regulation and the rest for violation of a 600-foot no-wake zone.

That's a dramatic drop from the 658 citations issued during the 1999 boating season, indicating people are increasingly aware of the new regulations and that cleaner water craft are now being used.

Continued testing by researchers also shows levels of gasoline contaminants found in the lake continue to be far less than before the ban went into effect on carbureted two-stroke engines used by older models of Jet Skis and similar watercraft. The machines were targeted because they discharge 25 percent or more of their fuel unburned into Tahoe's air and water.

"It's about the same as last year - pretty low levels, about a level of magnitude lower than the year before," said Mike Lico, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "It seems that the ban is really working."

While TRPA boat patrollers are shifting their focus as fall nears, agency lawyers are negotiating with one flagrant violator of boating regulations, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported on Tuesday.

Despite repeated warnings, one South Lake Tahoe man kept using an illegal 50-horsepower outboard over the course of the summer.

Similar violations cost Kevin Kramer of North Shore Parasail a $10,000 fine last year.