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Opinion: Lake Tahoe’s clarity and climate change

University of California, Davis, recently stated that Tahoe’s clarity may be influenced by reduced precipitation with low flow of contaminants to the lake.

Well there is one contaminant that no one seems to talk about or measure. That would be ice melt (salt). Take for instance the Great Salt Lake of Utah. The clarity of that lake is zero because of the amount of salt in it.

Here at Lake Tahoe, every time it snows, businesses throw out tons of ice melt because of fear of being sued. I’m sure people from Minnesota or Canada do not use that much ice melt because these people were born with ice skates on their feet. Not all of us grew up in Minnesota and understand walking on ice with the proper footwear comes with the territory.



For the past few years, as snow has declined, has anyone factored in that tons of less salt could also be a reason for the increase in clarity of the lake?

As far as the opinion last week of Allen Kozinski in his letter, “Don’t cloud the climate change debate,” everyone knows it’s not about the facts or numbers. It’s about how people feel.



You don’t need to be a scientist (paid or not) to know that climate change is real. Just ask people who are in the local ski industry, river rafting business, or agriculture of the Central Valley of California.

Aaron Lade

Incline Village


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