Opinion: Why TMDL is good policy for Lake Tahoe
By Harold Singer
Recent news articles and guest opinions have raised questions about the science behind the Lake Tahoe Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) and the decision to implement it in a recently adopted stormwater discharge permit. While some may take exception to how science is used in policy and regulatory decisions, it is important for those of us who enjoy this wonderful place to evaluate the TMDL based on the facts.
In the late 1960s, the average depth of clarity at Lake Tahoe was measured at over 100 feet. For many years, the lake’s clarity has declined at a troubling rate of one foot per year. In 2010, it was 65 feet.
Harold Singer
As disturbing as those numbers are, there is little doubt that without the efforts of all levels of government, as well as the private sector, the rate of clarity loss would have continued at that alarming rate. Fortunately, the rate of loss is slowing, although it has not yet stabilized or started to recover. In addition, over the last decade, algae growth has increased along the lake’s shoreline, causing unsightly conditions.
To stop the decline and begin the restoration of clarity, the California Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board (Water Board) and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection have developed a plan – The Lake Tahoe Total Maximum Daily Load. The research supporting the development of the plan found that very fine sediment particles have a more significant role in the loss of clarity than algae.
Stormwater, which drains into the lake from the developed areas around the lake, contributes more than 70 percent of these fine sediment particles, which are also a source of harmful phosphorus. Since many storm water pipes discharge near shore, reductions in the amount of sediment flowing into the lake will have the added benefit of reducing the amount of phosphorus in the near-shore areas, which, along with other factors, contribute to algae growth.
This scientific peer reviewed TMDL was adopted by both states and was ultimately approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in August 2011. The TMDL is the adopted regulatory framework for controlling pollutants from various sources, including both the urban and forested areas in the Lake Tahoe basin.
The loss of clarity did not happen overnight and will not be reversed overnight. The TMDL sets a goal to reverse the decline in clarity and achieve an average clarity in the mid-to-high 70-foot range between 2026 and 2031. This goal is technically feasible, but it will take an amount of money similar to that put forth in the last decade to achieve it.
Nationwide, cities, counties, other local jurisdictions, along with state highway departments have responsibility for ensuring that storm water runoff does not pollute our lakes, rivers and oceans. The TMDL, based on its supporting science, concluded that efforts must focus on reducing fine sediment and nutrients from urban storm water if there is any chance of stabilizing or improving the lake’s clarity.
The TMDL includes many tools that will aid in focusing and refining the next steps in addressing lake clarity. Governmental and private entities can use these tools to quantify the benefit of their actions, allowing them to focus limited funds on those management practices, including stormwater infiltration or treatment, or road maintenance activities, such as street sweeping, that remove the most pollutants from stormwater. Local government understands its roads and watersheds and is best suited to decide how to use available funding to implement the most beneficial management practices. The recently adopted stormwater discharge permit provided local government with broad flexibility in this area, and the Water Board is committed to working with our partners to make effective and efficient use of those limited funds.
The Water Board and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection are also working with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency to ensure consistency between the approved bi-state TMDL and the upcoming Regional Plan update. Ongoing monitoring and further scientific efforts will be considered when the TMDL is reviewed at five year intervals or more frequently, if warranted. The Water Board is committed to adjustments in the TMDL, based on science and fiscal considerations.
The Lake Tahoe TMDL is not a “new” program. Rather, the science behind the TMDL provides significant insights about how to adjust current programs to control pollutants affecting the clarity of the lake. Because of its national and international significance, decisions concerning Lake Tahoe’s environment have always had the benefit of cutting edge science.
It is in the best interest of the long-term health of the lake that we embrace the opportunity to apply the most current science to make optimal use of available funding. Ongoing monitoring at both the federal, state and local levels will allow us to adaptively and continually fine-tune our efforts to improve lake clarity. The TMDL provides the science-based tools to hold government accountable at all levels.
For more information about the Lake Tahoe TMDL, or the science supporting the TMDL, please visit the Lahontan Water Board website, which contains a recently released film on the plan along with supporting science.
Harold Singer is executive director of the Lahontan Water Board.
Cutting edge science so says the taxpayer paid government functionary;
About as cutting edge science as the bloodletting procedure that killed George Washington.
Great article Harold. Thanks.
It is my understanding CALTRANS will be capturing the storm water on highway 50 and filtering it before it goes into the lake. I’ve heard the oils are the most difficult to filter out.
Thank you for the work you and Lahontan have done to protect our National Treasure, it is a gift from God.
There were no detectable hydrocarbons at or above 10 to the the minus 9 in water purveyors who take their water from the lake when our when the local god (TRP
A) banned all 2 cycle gas engines. Now that is real cutting edge science.
TMDL is primarily concerned with fine sediments.
Hydrocarbons do not readily mix with water, they stay on the surface. Drawing water 200ft below the surface in a lake 1000 feet deep…. isn’t the place to detect hydrocarbons.
You are criticizing apples as if they were oranges.
The point is the science is mostly junk. There was basically no detectable sheen on the surface of the lake either. The regulation did run off all the old noisy and disruptive 2 cycle PWC’s (and other 2 cycle outboard motors without advanced technology) which was a wonderful side effect, but unfortunately, the noise decibel limit is not enforced for 4 cycle engines. And guess what, no, I repeat, no change in non detectable hydrocarbons.
When science turns into politics you have this semi-totalitarian agency who can destroy anything in its path, unless, of course, you are well connected and have bundles of money.
One more thought. When TMDL fails to achieve its goals another bogeyman will be found to keep these failed pseudoscientists employed and a yoke around your neck.
It is ironic that Harold brings up opinion verses science when there is not a single measurement for urban hydrology in the tmdl. The urban tmdl is completely opinion based and lacks science but it has been presented to the public as science and that us simply dishonest
Harold, we’ll miss you. There have been times in the Keys when only you and your staff at Lahontan have been responsible for doing the right thing. In the last 15 years we have seen many changes better for the lake because of your diligence.
In this Christmas week, it is hard to say whether the 8th comment will be read at all, but due to the wildly divergent “mixed messages”, I will try at some clarity, not only for Lake Tahoe, but also to depoliticize the various issues. . .
First, I refer you to my LTN Opinion piece of Christmas Eve, titled “Tahoe’s Mantra Should Be “Haste Makes Waste”, as a further indication that the level of thought here is not up-to-par.
Harold’s statement 7 paragraphs in is
“the goal is technically feasible, but it will take an amount of money similar to that put forth in the last decade to achieve it”.
More on that at the end.
Given the fact that the 1.5 billion dollars (attributed @ 100 million/annum since the Presidential Summit in 1997) has resulted in about a net 6 inches of overall increased clarity (4 feet credited earlier, then subtracting the 3.5 foot loss in the most recent UC Davis ‘State of the Lake’ Report), that a further look at TMDL may be in our best interests, especially since Lake Tahoe is thought to be “spearheading” TMDL for everywhere else.
I have always thought of TMDL as “after-the-fact” anyway, as adaptive policy measures cannot even be exercised until the ‘numbers are in’, prolonging adequate results, not encouraging them.
Please note that the whole ‘stormwater runoff’ issue was not much on the radar just a few years ago, but really came about as the result of a Supreme Court decision, brought about by a case in the midwest when a city challenged the EPA’s jurisdictional right to make them clean up their municipal water supply.
The city lost, after the typical decade or more of legal wrangling, as cleaning up municipal water supplies (i.e., the water we drink) is well within the purview of the structure of the EPA – its’ reason for existence.
Simply put, all cities are now concerned.
True to bureaucratic tendencies, agencies saw this direction as a shift in their charge, some would say self-serving, as cities everywhere panicked as to their capacity for cleaning up their own water supplies, being “overworked and underfunded” as they always consider themselves to be. . .and now are.
Harold also talks about how to “quantify” information, in true management diction, as in “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”, but at this point, someone needs to say quantitative is decidedly not the same as qualitative, as the most recent number calculations of UC Davis now show. Another look is now needed, as the science is only as good as its’ results.
As to the jet ski and “surface sheen” issues, I can plead to being a part of the ban described in the gentleman’s response, as it was not TRPA that initiated it. They voted in that direction after a presentation by Dr. Russell Long of the Earth Island Institute, after Dr. Long rented a jet ski “off the shelf” and measured the actual fuel that entered the Lake and not the carburetion – a full 25% went into the water.
Dr. Long, myself, and Steve Goodall assisted with that on a beach in Skyland, to get the actual (true) numbers, that were then presented to the TRPA Board at their Horizon meeting.
Serious sustainable measures are what’s needed, as a comprehensive shift in how we do things are in order, as we can no longer perpetuate even how agencies think they want to do things, given Mr. Singer’s other comment about “making effective and efficient use of (those) limited funds”.
He’s right about that – the money from the Federal sales of Las Vegas properties (i.e.,”ours) to developers is no longer, and both our state Governor’s and the Region 9 administrator signed a proclamation this past August that effectively “kicks the can down the road” of Tahoe’s clarity 65 years – 2076 !
This is calculated as hoping for just a 6 inch improvement for each of the next 65 years – or 32 and a half feet (presumably the same as the clarity in the late 60’s) .
Noting Lahontan’s recent attempts to justify using herbicides (pesticides -?) as a solution to the “invasive species” problem, that would also contradict TMDL’s goal, or just give them another number to look for – the accumulation of toxicity associated with their use.
The TMDL is essentially an ‘unfunded mandate’ that can be improved upon, but only with another look at its’ parameters for success. . .and possibly looking closer at both phyto-(plant) & bio-(organisms) remediation, as assimilating back into nature, not just building up yet another problem to “solve”. . .
As Reagan said about “status quo”: “That’s Latin for the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into”. . . The science that Tahoe relies upon is not “rocket science”, so it would be prudent to pursue other than what they always do.
There will be no “money similar to that put forth in the last decade” – so now what ?
Hi Gary,
Yes someone read the eighth comment. One point you make is regarding Russell
Long’s 2 cycle demonstration. Nothing new about his conclusion that because of the intake and exhaust cycle of older 2 cycles unburned fuel leaves the exhaust. That has been known for over 100 years, so Long is a very johnny come lately. You forgot to mention his outboard in a bathtub demo where the water becomes obscured due to agitation and turbulance. Totally ultra junk science but effective with the non-science educated public. Personal observation of Miller’s students collecting water from Lake Tahoe within 3 to 5 feet of jet ski exhausts confirmed to me the intellectual and scientific bankruptcy of the so-called researchers.
If these people were physicians and your life depended on their diagnosis would you just accept your fate?
We had a 2 stroke waverunner, and were more than happy to give it up for a 4-stroke. 2 strokes pollute, no doubt in our mind. The ones we knew who so adamantly against making the change were the jet ski rentals – and they were the problem in so many ways. With them it was the bottom dollar rather than doing what was best for the lake. Lahontan made the right decision on that one too!
Interesting opinion H.S…. This whole program is a joke…