Sure, it’s 2018, but 1983 is on our minds this week. On Tuesday, Tahoe photographer and former Keep Tahoe Blue board member Jim Hildinger stopped by the League to Save Lake Tahoe’s office with a folder of historic newspaper clippings. A 1983 San Francisco Chronicle article caught our eye with its mention of proposals to “expand bus service and begin a ridesharing program” for Tahoe. One of the article’s key points was Tahoe’s environmental standards mandating reductions in auto traffic and air pollution and improvements in lake clarity.
It’s been 35 years, but if you pick up a paper in Tahoe today you are still just as likely to read about all the cars on the road. And while the decline in Lake Tahoe’s famous clarity has been arrested, we still have work to do to get back to Lake Tahoe’s historic clarity, which reached over 100 feet.
With the new year upon us, it’s time to once again look at our progress toward improving Tahoe’s clarity and environment.
For starters, our region still struggles to handle how people get to and around Lake Tahoe. Last winter’s record snow filled our streets and led to backups on the highways approaching our region. Everyone agrees that Tahoe needs transportation solutions, but implementation of any major fixes still appear to be in the distant future.