DROPS of Hope program protects the Truckee River Watershed through community collaboration and education Several years ago Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships (SWEP) was presented with an opportunity to collaborate with the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District to implement a watershed protection project that would have lasting impacts on North Tahoe and Truckee's schools, students, watershed & community. The project, known…
This past Monday, September 14th was the ribbon cutting ceremony to commemorate a huge milestone in restoring the 102-year-old Pioneer Monument at Donner Memorial State Park. The Sierra State Parks Foundation along with California State Parks and the Native Sons of the Golden West co-hosted a virtual ribbon cutting event to celebrate the awarding of the contract for the…
How regional stewardship campaigns can effectively educate and protect beloved places. Across the Sierra Nevada and beyond, communities struggle with educating locals and tourists about how to take care of the environment. Trash overflows from garbage cans, endangering wildlife and becoming a blight. Dog poop lines trails and seeps into waterways. And unattended campfires or errant cigarettes threaten to engulf…
Thanks to a collaboration of education and conservation efforts, the peregrine falcon is making a comeback at Lake Tahoe. For the second year in a row, young peregrine falcons successfully left their nest at Castle Rock on the East Shore. “The goal of this collaborative is to learn more about how the pair of falcons respond to different types of…
North and South Lake Tahoe are seeking ambassadors to help expand education on destination stewardship and community safety. Local business organizations and public officials have launched Ambassador Programs around Tahoe to assist with trash clean-up, distribution of personal protection equipment (PPE) and peer-to-peer communication in an effort to establish long-term solutions among Lake Tahoe communities. Help make a difference in…
Lake Tahoe West partners have released an interactive “story map” to explain ongoing and proposed actions to restore forests and watersheds across 59,000 acres of Lake Tahoe’s west shore. Community members and visitors can use the story map to learn more about the threats to the west shore landscape, and how science is informing a landscape-scale restoration approach to addressing…
Tahoe Blue Crew is an expansion of a typical adopt-a-beach program. Individuals or groups adopt a litter hot spot including beaches, trails, and neighborhoods around the Tahoe Basin. Since the program launched in September 2019, 51 active crews have conducted 254 cleanups and removed over 2,000 pounds including over 20,000 individual plastic items. The plastics removed include 1,782 plastic bottles,…
The League to Save Lake Tahoe held its second bi-annual Basin Blitz this spring to assess progress in improving Lake Tahoe’s stormwater infrastructure (pipes, drains and sediment-catching basins). These features flow directly into Lake Tahoe and carry fine sediment pollution from our roads and neighborhoods into the lake, further degrading its clarity. "Without periodically assessing our stormwater infrastructure, we have…
[caption id="attachment_4241" align="alignleft" width="321"] Volunteers remove conifers that are crowding the meadow environment.[/caption] Volunteers and team members from the League to Save Lake Tahoe, along with staff from the Tahoe Resource Conservation District, restored native wetland habitat in Johnson Meadow on Saturday, July 25, continuing work started in 2019. Teams stabilized crumbling stream banks, removed invasive plant species and cleared remnants…
Last year, Desert Research Institute (DRI) and the League to Save Lake Tahoe detected microplastics in Lake Tahoe for the first time ever, many of which were microfibers. This discovery revealed that microplastic pollution is not just present in oceans, but also in mountains and lakes, including highly protected areas like Lake Tahoe. [caption id="attachment_4188" align="alignleft" width="356"] In 2019, League…