SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — The state water board in charge of Lake Tahoe broke California laws and its own regulations by allowing a homeowners association to put poison into the lake water, per a ruling by an El Dorado County Superior Court Judge.
It's the latest development in an ongoing environmental crisis in South Lake Tahoe.
As the ABC10 Originals team explained in an investigation last year, crews tested two chemical herbicides in the man-made boat canals at the Tahoe Keys housing development.
Over the past decades, these lagoons have become nurseries for invasive underwater weeds. The weeds are now spreading around the entire lake.
The plants spread by fragments, a process helped by the practice of cutting the tops of the plants using harvester boats run by the homeowner’s association.
Hoping for a different solution, the Tahoe Keys Property Owner’s Association applied for a permit to test chemical herbicides on the weeds in the boat canals. It led to a first-ever application of chemical herbicides to Lake Tahoe waters in 2022. The tested canals were enclosed with double barriers to prevent escape of the chemicals.
The permit was retroactively struck down this week by an El Dorado County judge, who ruled the Lahontan Water board “abused” its authority by issuing the permit.
Judge Gary Slossberg found the water board broke California environmental laws and ignored its own written rules for the Lake Tahoe Basin, which require non-chemical methods to be ruled out as effective first.
“There are non-chemical methods out there that they need to use first,” said Sierra Club volunteer Tobi Tyler, a former employee of the water board. “Herbicides need to be used only as the last resort.”
The Lahontan Water Board had no comment on the judgment against it, saying it is still reviewing the judge’s ruling.
The Tahoe Keys Property Owners Association told ABC10 it is “disappointed in the ruling” and is reviewing its next steps.
The judge did not impose a fine in the case, but did award attorneys fees to the environmentalists who sued.
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