This spring has been brutal on the clarity of Lake Tahoe. I can easily see the difference between last year and this year. The melting snowpack has dragged everything from nutrients and sediment to garbage and debris into the lake. Nearshore, I estimate visibility is now reduced to less than 20 feet. This is a far cry from the spectacular water Mark Twain described in "Roughing It."
To monitor, these changes an organization named Project Baseline is collecting underwater photography of Lake Tahoe. They date and geotag the images in their archive. Most of the images are of recognizable underwater features. Over time, we'll be able to return to compare these photographs to newer ones to understand Lake Tahoe's condition. For more about what a photographic baseline does, please see the video below.