SACRAMENTO, California — Meet PixieDrone, the latest innovation being deployed by the League to Save Lake Tahoe in cooperation with ECO-CLEAN Solutions.
The PixieDrone is the aquatic cousin of Bebot, a beach cleaning robot prowling the beaches of Lake Tahoe picking up trash and other debris. It's the first of its kind to be used on the West Coast.
The robot, which has been compared to an aquatic Roomba, is one of the many tools utilized by the organization to achieve its missions in keeping water clarity high and the lake clean.
“The League to Save Lake Tahoe is working on testing innovative solutions to keep Tahoe Blue. Alongside ECO-CLEAN Solutions, we introduced the Bebot last year to tackle hard to reach beach litter, especially plastics, but where our beach robot targeted small pieces of litter on beaches, the PixieDrone that we have targets aquatic invasive plants that threaten the fragile ecology of Lake Tahoe,” said Laura Patten, Senior Science Policy Analyst with the League to Save Lake Tahoe.
Invasive aquatic plant species degrade water clarity and the autonomous (or remote controlled) robot can collect up to 20 pounds of aquatic weed fragments and trash at a time.
It also collects microplastics, which are very prevalent in Lake Tahoe. The lake was found to have the third highest concentration of microplastics in a study of 38 lakes in 23 countries, according to the League to Save Lake Tahoe.
Summer is an extremely busy time of year in Lake Tahoe and the status quo of protecting the lake is not enough anymore.
“League To Save Lake Tahoe is more in-demand than ever. The more people who enjoy the lake, the more impacts we’re seeing. The status quo for protecting the lake is no longer enough,” said Patten.
The organization is encouraging people to get involved with cleanups and there is an opportunity to volunteer at Kings Beach on Labor Day.
