Tahoe Divers Join Coastal Cleanup Day In Preparation for 2020 Cleanup

Coastal Cleanup Day – the world’s largest volunteer day to protect our environment – took place on Saturday, September 21. In California, the annual cleanup wasn’t limited to the coastline – one group took their efforts to Lake Tahoe, in part to prepare for a much larger cleanup slated for 2020.

Tahoe Dive Center owner Matt Meunier and Clean Up the Lake founder Colin West plan to spend nearly four months scuba diving around Lake Tahoe in 2020 picking up garbage in what they are hoping will be the biggest cleanup in Tahoe’s history. With the help of other volunteer divers, Matt and Colin will dive three to four times a week starting June 1, 2020, covering about a mile and a half each day all while picking up trash left by visitors to the lake. The efforts will also be filmed for the documentary film “Make A Difference” that will chronicle their efforts.

“With tourism increasing, so many jurisdictions working hard to manage the trash problem across two states, no one is able to pay attention to the trash under the surface of the lake that dates back all the way to the ’70s in areas,” West said in a press release. “I decided it was time to make a difference in our own backyard. Tahoe appears to be pristine and beautiful, but under the surface, there are quite a few issues going on with pollution.”

To kick off the 2020 project, a preliminary cleanup was held Saturday, Sept. 21, on the east shore of the lake. A handful of volunteer scuba divers, also supported topside by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency boat, dove the east side of the lake near Whale Rock. The goal of the dives was to remove as much trash and debris as possible while also helping to identify areas that contained the most trash to focus future cleanup efforts.

Also joining the cleanup dives was the Payah Kun, Lake Tahoe’s newest custom dive charter boat. The custom-built dive boat is slated to begin taking divers onto Lake Tahoe next summer through the business JustSoScuba.com. Three divers aboard the Payah Kun made two dives at Whale Beach on Saturday.

Over a period of about 3-4 hours, divers from both the Payah Kun and other vessels recovered a surprising amount of man-made garbage from the shallower areas near Whale Beach. The debris included dozens of aluminum beer and soda cans, plastic bags, several large fiberglass panels from what appeared to be a wrecked boat, fishing gear, boat ladders, and sunglasses. Six decaying crawdad traps were also recovered, still attracting and catching crawdads long after being abandoned.

The recovered trash and debris isn’t headed directly for the landfill, however. All of it will be carefully sorted and logged as a means to identify exactly what types of debris lie on the bottom of Lake Tahoe. All GPS coordinates of the problem areas will also be cataloged by Clean Up The Lake to monitor in the future for any reoccurring trash.

Divers and non-divers can both participate in the efforts to clean Lake Tahoe of trash. Clean the Lake has launched a Kickstarter Campaign to raise funds for equipment, air fills, surface support, gas, permits, and filming of the effort. Clean Up The Lake is a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization

More information on the cleanup will be announced before next summer.  Clean Up The Lake can be reached at cleanupthelake@gmail.com.