In the past, divers in Lake Tahoe experienced the thrill of swimming among beautiful granite boulders the size of houses while enveloped in bright reflections from the mica-studded, sandy lake bottom. Some have called it ‘Zen diving.’
But today, the underwater world of Lake Tahoe is disturbingly full of strange new life.
Ask local diving expert and environmental guru Phil Caterino what’s going on under the surface of Lake Tahoe and he’ll tell you this: ‘In just a few years, the vast sandy areas that have covered the bottom of Lake Tahoe have disappeared under a carpet of invasive plants.’ These include plants like Eurasian watermilfoil and curly leaf pondweed, just to name a few. The invasion doesn’t end with plants — Asian clams can also be found in Lake Tahoe, and in the summer of 2009, scores of brown bullhead catfish were discovered in Emerald Bay. ‘Non-native fish are propagating all over Lake Tahoe,’ Caterino says.
Caterino believes that the proliferation of invasive species will eventually ‘up-end’ the ecology of the Lake, shifting the distribution of species and starving fish of their usual food supply.
Phil Caterino has spent the last 40 years working to protect Lake Tahoe, and is the founder of Alpengroup, the Sierra Avalanche Center, the Nevada Conservation League, the Tahoe Divers Conservancy, and the Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society. He is a strong advocate for grassroots activism and deeply committed to the preservation of Lake Tahoe. Don’t miss Caterino’s presentation at the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences, sponsored by the Squaw Valley Institute and UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center.
Info: $10. No-host bar begins at 6:30 p.m., program starts at 7 p.m. Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences, Assembly Rooms 139 & 141, 291 Country Club Drive, Incline Village, squawvalleyinstitute.org or terc.ucdavis.edu.
