Lake Tahoe’s fluctuating clarity got worse last year during an especially cold and wet winter as sedimentation, algae growth and a tiny invasive shrimp continued to pose restoration challenges for the famed clear water of the mountain lake straddling the California-Nevada line.
The clarity decline came a year after lake had showed clarity improvement from its worst level in a half-century as climate change continues to drive long-term trends, with rising air temperatures and less precipitation falling as snow, according to the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center.