Aquatic invasive species, particularly golden mussels, remain one of Lake Tahoe's largest environmental threats. Just two weeks ago, a boat on its way to Tahoe was found carrying golden mussels and stopped from launching. In the eNewsletter, you'll learn how Keep Tahoe Blue uses advocacy and collaboration to prevent these harmful aquatic invaders from finding their way into Tahoe’s blue water. There are also ways that you can help.
Traffic, and the pollution it creates, is another focus for our team. Keep Tahoe Blue is working with public agencies, businesses, and community partners to advance a vision for a Car-Free, Care-Free Tahoe, where people can park once and use a network of transit, shuttles, bikes, scooters, and trails to get where they want to go. Explore ways you can protect the Lake by going Car-Free and Care-Free.
Your support makes this work possible. Thank you for helping Keep Tahoe Blue protect Lake Tahoe through advocacy, science, and partnership. |
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Our Campaign
WATER QUALITY & CLARITY |
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California & Federal Policy for Golden Mussel Prevention |
What is it?
Golden mussels have not yet reached Tahoe, but they are an immediate threat to the Lake's ecology. On May 31, a boat unknowingly carrying golden mussels attached to its underside was intercepted at a Tahoe boat inspection station and prevented from launching. This recent near miss emphasizes the need for solutions that work beyond the Tahoe Basin to limit the spread of these invaders.
Keep Tahoe Blue's government affairs team are advocating for strong, consistent policies to fight the spread of golden mussels. To encourage policy adoption, our team has spent months educating state and federal lawmakers about the effectiveness of Tahoe's nation-leading aquatic invasive species prevention program — including mandatory boat inspection and decontamination protocols, as well as outreach to paddlers, anglers, and beachgoers — as a model for golden mussel prevention legislation.
Where is it in the process?
In California, lawmakers in the Assembly drafted AB-1772 that is still broad in scope but with the intention to mitigate the spread of golden mussels across the state. Federally, both the House and Senate have introduced legislation. We support H.R. 3717/S. 4603 in Congress, jointly known as the Golden Mussel Eradication and Control Act.
What’s next? We will continue to advocate for state and federal legislation, while offering feedback and resources to shape any additional statewide proposals.
At the same time, Keep Tahoe Blue and Tahoe Keepers are conducting a broad-based campaign to stop golden mussels from reaching Tahoe, including a holistic approach to address non-motorized watercraft as a pathway for aquatic invasive species. Together, we are raising awareness and recruiting paddlers, anglers, beachgoers, and businesses to be part of the solution. The effort includes signage at popular beaches, outreach to marinas and water-based recreation businesses, paid advertising, CD3 machines, and face-to-face public education by beach staff, roving inspectors, beach ambassadors, and volunteers as part of Keep Tahoe Blue’s Eyes on the Lake Outreach Team.
Anyone who plans to use non-motorized watercraft in Lake Tahoe — from paddleboards, kayaks, and canoes to fishing tackle, waders, water shoes, and floaties — should consider having their gear decontaminated at one of Tahoe’s boat inspection stations for free and without a reservation required. What’s Keep Tahoe Blue's position? SUPPORT
Keep Tahoe Blue strongly supports swift, proactive, science-based steps at the state and federal level to prevent the spread of golden mussels, especially those that empower boaters and Lake-goers to be part of the solution. We support more education, resources, and enforcement to ensure all non-motorized watercraft and gear are Clean, Drained, and Dry before they enter the Tahoe Basin's many waterbodies. Climate connection:
Increased air and water temperatures driven by climate change create more favorable conditions for aquatic invasive species to establish and spread in Lake Tahoe. Prevention is key to protecting Tahoe's unique water quality and clarity.
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Aquatic Weed Containment in the Tahoe Keys
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What is it?
The Tahoe Keys Aquatic Weed Containment project is a multi-tool effort designed to prevent fragments of aquatic invasive plants from escaping the Tahoe Keys, which are ground zero for the infestation of aquatic weeds at Tahoe, and spreading further into the Lake. Each plant fragment could sprout and start a new population of aquatic weeds. The program includes the use of boat backup stations, diver-assisted suction harvesting (DASH), robotic plant collection technology, bubble curtains, scientific monitoring and data collection, and other containment measures. The work is taking place in both boating channels that connect the Tahoe Keys lagoons and the marina to the Lake itself. These are the primary pathways for aquatic weeds to enter the Lake.
Together with project partners, Keep Tahoe Blue is piloting innovative technologies in the east channel of the Tahoe Keys in 2026, including bubble curtains, a fragment collection device called Collec'Thor, and UV-C light treatment. Keep Tahoe Blue has also funded an efficacy study to measure the system's impact on keeping invasive weeds from spreading.
The containment effort complements long-term aquatic invasive weed control projects within the Tahoe Keys. The partners working in collaboration on this critical Environmental Improvement Program Project are the Tahoe Keys Property Owners Association, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, Tahoe Resource Conservation District, Tahoe Keys Marina, ECO-CLEAN Solutions, Marine Taxonomic Services, Inventive Resources, Inc., and Keep Tahoe Blue.
Where is it in the process?
Containment infrastructure is currently operating in both the east and west channels of the Keys. In the east channel, the double bubble curtain is being repositioned to work in tandem with the Collec'Thor. The double bubble curtain emits twin walls of tiny bubbles that dislodge aquatic weed fragments from the hulls of passing boats and directs them toward the Collec'Thor to be skimmed from the water. In addition, a special boat fitted with an underwater UV-C light array has been deployed in the east channel and will continue to be utilized throughout 2026. The light it emits damages aquatic weeds to the point they cannot reproduce. Together, these innovative technologies will minimize the amount of weed fragments that can pass through the boating channel and spread into the Lake.
What's next?
The containment systems in both the east and west channels of the Tahoe Keys will continue operating throughout the summer, as will scientific monitoring of their performance and efficacy. That data will be used to refine the containment technologies and improve their integration with broader aquatic weed control efforts in the Tahoe Keys with other partner agencies and scientists.
What's Keep Tahoe Blue's position? SUPPORT
Keep Tahoe Blue supports aquatic weed containment in the Tahoe Keys as a critical near-term action to protect Lake Tahoe while long-term invasive weed control efforts continue. Containment helps reduce the risk of aquatic invasive plants spreading beyond the Keys and into new areas of the Lake.
Climate connection:
Climate change is creating warmer water conditions and longer growing seasons that can favor the spread of aquatic invasive species. As Lake Tahoe warms, preventing the expansion of invasive weeds becomes increasingly important to protect Lake clarity, ecosystem health, native species, and recreational opportunities. Effective containment improves the Lake's resilience to climate-driven changes. More information: |
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Our Campaign
CLIMATE RESILIENCE |
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Updating Tahoe’s Environmental Threshold Standards |
What is it?
Environmental Threshold Standards are the environmental goals that guide how Lake Tahoe is managed, protected, and restored. Adopted in 1982, the threshold standards measure the health of the Basin's key resources, including water quality, air quality, forests, wildlife, fisheries, recreation, scenic quality, and soils, as well as traffic and car-related pollution.
Keep Tahoe Blue is working to ensure that the threshold standards are modernized using the best available science and knowledge, so they reflect current conditions and lead to environmental improvement. With needed updates, the threshold standards can remain effective in helping Tahoe's environmental managers address today's challenges — many of which did not exist or were not well understood in the 1980s — including climate change, biodiversity loss, aquatic invasive species, and emerging pollutants. Crucially, we are also advocating that threshold standards be used to not simply prevent environmental harm but lead to improvement.
Where is it in the process?
The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) is conducting a phased review and update of all environmental threshold categories. Recent work has focused on water quality, vegetation and forest health, fisheries, wildlife, and recreation. Keep Tahoe Blue, stakeholders, scientists, and agencies are developing recommendations that will ultimately be considered by the Tahoe Science Advisory Council, TRPA's Advisory Planning Commission, as well as the organization's Governing Board.
What's next?
We are working with agency partners to ensure: - The updated threshold standards are measurable and enforceable;
- That TRPA's regulatory actions and decision-making are geared toward achieving and maintaining the threshold standards' goals; and
- That the rationale for those decisions is shared with the public transparently.
What's Keep Tahoe Blue's position? SUPPORT
Keep Tahoe Blue supports updating Tahoe's Environmental Threshold Standards and believes all threshold categories should be modernized using current science before the next threshold evaluation at the end of 2027. We have consistently advocated for stronger, more measurable standards that improve environmental outcomes (rather than simply measure conditions), address climate resilience and ecosystem health, and incorporate emerging threats such as microplastics and invasive species.
Climate connection:
Many of Tahoe's original threshold standards were developed before climate change impacts were fully understood. Today, the Basin faces increasing wildfire risk, warmer water temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, drought, invasive species pressures, and ecosystem shifts. Modernized threshold standards will be more useful in protecting the Lake and surrounding forests under future climate conditions.
More information: |
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Our Campaign
SUSTAINABLE RECREATION, TRANSPORTATION & DEVELOPMENT |
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Car-Free, Care-Free Tahoe |
What is it?
A Car‑Free, Care‑Free Tahoe is a shared vision for the future where residents and visitors can park their cars once and move seamlessly around the Basin using a clean, connected system of buses, shuttles, boats, bikes, and scooters. In this vision, it's easy and convenient for anyone to help reduce congestion, protect the Lake, and create a more calm, prosperous, and connected mountain community. Transportation becomes part of the Tahoe experience, not a barrier to it.
The Car-Free, Care-Free model is being tested on the South Shore this summer through Labor Day.
This is a Basin‑wide effort in which success depends on alignment between local governments, businesses, resorts, and community organizations. Keep Tahoe Blue’s work over the past decade in developing, funding, and pilot-testing sustainable transportation solutions helped us define the vision for a Car-Free, Care-Free Tahoe. Now, our work is to help convene partners, advance policy, and support implementation, so the system works for everyone.
The Emerald Bay Shuttle is an example of the Car-Free, Care-Free vision taking shape. The service provides access from the South Shore and West Shore to Tahoe's most iconic destination while removing the stress of parking and traffic. Keep Tahoe Blue's support and funding has propelled the service into its second year of operation, set to begin this summer.
Where is it in the process?
Advancing our vision for a Car-Free, Care-Free Tahoe is part of Keep Tahoe Blue's current five-year strategic plan. On the South Shore, people can experience the vision this summer with the return of the Emerald Bay Shuttle, the expansion of Lake Link microtransit service in mid-July, and late-night bus service provided by the Tahoe Transportation District, in addition to bike paths and shared e-scooters.
What's next?
While we test the vision on Tahoe’s South Shore this summer in collaboration with transportation providers, we hope to gather feedback from riders on what’s working and what can be improved. Feedback will help us refine the South Shore system and develop and implement a North Shore model in the coming years.
What's Keep Tahoe Blue's position? SUPPORT
Breaking Tahoe's car dependence has been a long-held environmental goal. By replacing personal car trips with people-powered options and group transportation alternatives, we can reduce tailpipe emissions and erosion that sends fine sediment particles into the Lake, which damage water quality and clarity. The effort can also reduce the stress from traffic and parking and improve the Tahoe experience for residents and visitors.
Climate connection:
Transportation systems that are largely reliant on fossil fuels are one of the largest contributors to climate change globally. In Tahoe, the transportation sector is the second largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing emissions makes climate resilience and adaptation efforts more achievable and effective.
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Tahoe Keys Marina Redevelopment |
What is it?
The Tahoe Keys Marina Redevelopment Project proposes upgrades and reconfiguration of the existing marina facilities in South Lake Tahoe, including modernizing amenities and operations while addressing environmental impacts.
Keep Tahoe Blue is working with partner agencies to develop draft permit conditions — obligations that the project owner must satisfy to comply with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's (TRPA) regulations — focused on reducing environmental impacts, particularly around aquatic invasive species (AIS), water quality, marina operations, and traffic. We’re pushing for those protections to be incorporated into TRPA's decision-making process and put into action if TRPA approves the project. We are also advocating for improved transit, bike, and non-motorized watercraft access, and extensive environmental education on-site.
In parallel, we have been directly engaged with the marina owner to negotiate environmental protections that go above and beyond what can be required through permit conditions. Those added protections are part of a legally binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that places requirements on the marina owner while Keep Tahoe Blue maintains its independent voice and full capacity as an environmental watchdog. This is a new tool that our team is using to hold development projects to a higher standard, one that leaves Tahoe better than before.
Where is it in the process?
The project went through the City of South Lake Tahoe's public environmental review — in line with the California Environmental Quality Act — and permitting process. It was approved by the City Planning Commission on June 11.
What's next?
This month, the project's permit will be developed further through TRPA and other agencies. The final proposal may come before TRPA's Governing Board on June 24 for a decision to approve or deny.
What's Keep Tahoe Blue's Position? PENDING
Keep Tahoe Blue is working to ensure that strong environmental safeguards are in place before determining our final position on the project, consistent with our approach of waiting until environmental review is complete and protections are secured. At this point, we support the commitments made by the marina owner to go above and beyond what’s required, and we appreciate their meaningful engagement.
Climate connection:
The project has implications for climate-related Lake impacts, including: increased boating activity and associated emissions, water quality stressors that can exacerbate algae growth, and the spread of AIS. By advancing AIS prevention measures and water quality protections through permit conditions and the MOU, Keep Tahoe Blue is working to reduce these long-term climate-related risks. More information: |
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We're Keeping An Eye On It |
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Caldor Fire Restoration Plan:
The US Forest Service (USFS) has proposed using an herbicide called glyphosate to assist in reforesting areas burned during the 2021 Caldor Fire. In response to requests from Keep Tahoe Blue and the community, USFS released an FAQ with additional information on its plans for scientific monitoring, mitigations to protect the environment and community — including a 100-foot buffer zone from all waterways — and how the public will be notified when herbicide use is planned. The information released by the USFS reveals a cautious and restrained approach to herbicide use, which includes no planned use in the Tahoe Basin as part of the project before 2028. Yet, it is still just a plan until it’s implemented. Our team will stay closely engaged to ensure the environment and community remains protected. As part of our ongoing work on forest health, wildfire prevention, and scientific research on emerging pollutants, Keep Tahoe Blue is sampling surface waters for traces of glyphosate as part of the multi-agency augmented monitoring effort in the aftermath of the Caldor Fire. We are tracking the issue closely.
- USFS FAQ: Project Webpage > Project Summary > Project Documents > “FAQs - USFS LTBMU - Caldor Fire Restoration Project & Herbicide Use.pdf”
Code Change for Monopine Cell Towers:
Keep Tahoe Blue volunteers repeatedly found plastic "pine needles" from camouflaged cell towers during community cleanups and reported them to our staff. Working with researchers at the Desert Research Institute, we helped connect these observations to the growing science around microplastic pollution and advocated for practical solutions. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) is now considering code changes that would reduce the use of plastic camouflage materials in cell phone towers, which would help prevent litter and microplastics from entering Tahoe's environment. We will provide public comment on this item at TRPA's June 24 Governing Board Meeting.
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Tahoe Yellow Cress Restoration at Baldwin Beach June 17, 2026 | 9 am - Noon & 1 - 4pm Baldwin Beach Help restore native Tahoe yellow cress, a rare plant found only at Lake Tahoe, during hands-on restoration at Baldwin Beach. |
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Heavenly Gondola Wrap Unveiling Party June 17, 2026 | 2 pm - 5 pm Heavenly Village
Join Keep Tahoe Blue and community partners for an afternoon celebrating easier ways to get around Tahoe. Discover bikes, buses, shuttles, scooters, and other transportation options that help reduce traffic and protect the Lake. |
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13th Annual Keep Tahoe Red, White & Blue Beach Cleanup July 5, 2026 | 8 - 11:30 am Multiple beach locations around Lake Tahoe Join us for one of the largest beach cleanups after the 4th of July festivities at the most popular beaches in Lake Tahoe. |
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