Imagine Lake Tahoe today, but with a resident population of a quarter of a million people. Imagine high-rises and subdivisions all around the Lake, linked by a four-lane freeway and a bridge across Emerald Bay.
That vision sums up plans that were being laid for Tahoe in the 1950s. Those plans would have forever changed this national treasure.
It was in reaction to those plans that on April 19, 1957, a small group founded the organization that has become the League to Save Lake Tahoe. In addition to blocking the plans to urbanize the Tahoe Basin and ring the lake with freeways, our formation coincided with Dr. Charles Goldman’s arrival at Lake Tahoe and the beginning of his long-term measurements of the lake’s clarity. As his science began to demonstrate that water clarity was worsening, and pointed to urbanization and its associated pollution as the cause, our organization was able to advocate for solutions based on his science.