Beautiful Day


Lake Tahoe

My wife and I spent a nice three day weekend. Now we’re back in the real world of natural disasters in the southeast, fires in Texas, global financial meltdown and all the rest. At least we still have our bikes!

We saw many many bikes all around Lake Tahoe, along with buses equipped with bike racks, though automobiles are the favored transportation mode.

I also saw several “Keep Tahoe Blue” stickers on SUVs. Tahoe’s amazing water clarity has decreased substantially since scientists began measuring it in the 1960s. Historically, plant growth was limited by low nitrogen levels. This is no longer the case today: over half of the lake’s nitrogen input comes through atmospheric diffusion of nitrogen oxides, which is generated by car, truck and boats engines. In other words, one of the larger contributors to cloudy water in Tahoe is all of those SUVs with “Keep Tahoe Blue” bumper stickers. Ah well. OTOH, if it wasn’t for those stickers, I likely would not have thought to look up this issue of lake eutrophication and nitrogen.

(FWIW, we drove to Tahoe over the weekend, though we did park the car after we arrived and walked around South Lake Tahoe. There is a noticable brown haze in the air over the lake. Again, ah well.)

Tahoe Daily Tribune: Summit opportunity to talk Tahoe transportation.

3 Comments

  1. …i remember being able to ride around tahoe on road bikes back in the early ’70’s & the traffic volume was such that it wasn’t really ever ‘uncomfortable’

    …about a dozen years ago, i drove around the lake with a girlfriend & i thought about how much that WOULDN’T be fun in this day & age…campers, suv’s, texters, yeow…way scary too my way of thinking…

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