Clean Up The Lake - Lake Tahoe's underwater trash collectors are pushing into winter.
The underwater garbage collectors that have been scouring Lake Tahoe the past six months had initially hoped to comb the entire 72-mile shoreline by now. But a series of setbacks — hazardous wildfire smoke, fire evacuations and early-season snowfall — put them behind schedule, and they have decided to continue into winter, when Tahoe’s water temperature drops to a chilly average of about 44 degrees Fahrenheit.
“It’s been a heck of a summer,” said Colin West, founder and executive director of Clean Up the Lake, the group behind the trash extraction. “I would have loved to have late August-early September water temperatures instead of being pushed into the colder months, but the team is prepping everything we need to keep going into the winter.”
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So far they have completed nearly 44 miles of the lake — from Stateline, Nev., up the east shore to Incline Village, through Kings Beach and, most recently, past Tahoe City. They have collected 18,215 pounds of litter and junk, including a diamond-studded engagement ring, BB gun, charcoal grill, tennis balls, vape pens, cell phones, poker chips and a stapler.
They also spotted what they believe was a petrified log buried beneath hardened lava flow near Kings Beach as well as bubbling geothermal vents spewing warm water into the lake.
“It’s been fun getting around the whole lake and seeing more of Tahoe’s natural history from a geological perspective,” West said.