Tahoe in the News

Scientists Search for Source of Microplastics in the Lake Tahoe Basin and Nearby Sierra

, Sierra Nevada Ally
July 21, 2020

Monica Arienzo is an assistant professor of hydrology at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno. Last year, Dr Arienzo discovered microplastics in the water of Lake Tahoe and snow of the nearby Sierra. The problem with microplastics she learned, they’re everywhere.

“Everywhere we’ve looked, we’ve identified microplastics. Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic that are about the size of a pencil eraser and smaller. So we look down to a size of about a bacteria cell size,” Arienzo said in a phone interview. “And we’ve been finding these pretty much everywhere we look.”

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