On a clear and calm Thursday morning, a group of six meets on a pontoon boat at the Tahoe City Marina for a dive. Though everyone there is a return volunteer, Clean Up the Lake Operations Manager Klemen Robnik reviews the plans, everyone’s tasks, and boat and high-altitude-dive safety. After the safety debrief, volunteer Roman Versch, who serves as the group’s boat captain, navigates the boat to the last marked GPS location in Hurricane Bay where the previous divers left off.
Most of the lake’s litter and debris is never seen by people who recreate here, but it is quietly collected by Clean Up the Lake, a volunteer-based (1,300 strong) nonprofit organization. CUTL is on its second circumnavigation of Lake Tahoe’s 72-mile shoreline — this time at a greater depth.
The lake is still and glassy as volunteer Cole Wagner and Operations Assistant Nick Krozek suit up and plop into the water, followed by Rose Demoret, who serves as the kayaker and primary data collector, trailing after the divers’ bubbles.
“So, each time we go out on a dive, I’m actually running a Strava route, so I’m following as close as I can in the path that the divers take, so that they have that data to analyze and see exactly where they have been,” Demoret said. “The other component to that is sometimes they come across items that can’t be picked up.” In that case, divers mark the heavy or bulky items to return to.
In the sweet spot of about 45 feet below the surface, the divers float slowly through the cold water, scanning the lakebed. At such a depth, nitrox — a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen — allows them to stay under water for longer. Cradled in the silt is a trove of trash the divers gather and aquatic invasive species they document.
This particular day the divers cover 0.37 miles, collecting over 150 pounds of litter including a soggy orange shag rug that looks like it fell off an Austin Powers set. Bulky items like the rug are sent to the surface via an inflated, bright orange heavy lift bag, which Robnik then retrieves and inspects to see what’s attached.
“We usually pull out roughly 500 to 1,000 pounds a month,” Robnik said.
He recalled a full, five-step staircase the crew found in Carnelian Bay, several boat ladders, tarps, chains, and lost anchors.
“It never goes away unless it’s salvaged,” Versch said.
Going the Extra Mile
“Initially I was like, there’s not much at all to do here. Lake Tahoe is so clean and so beautiful,” said CUTL Founder and CEO Colin West. “Under the surface … the problem’s just been perpetuating out of sight and out of mind.”
There are piles upon piles of trash in the lake, according to him. Clean Up the Lake’s 72 Mile Cleanup2 began with a deep-clean pilot-project in 2025 at depths up to 25 feet. The first cleanup successfully collected 25,281 pounds of trash. This year’s haul is anticipated to surpass that amount.
The current project kicked off on the West Shore border of Placer County in December. Because Lake Tahoe is calm and free from recreation traffic in winter, cleanup days are booked through the chilly months, leading to divers in wetsuits coming up shivering.
Clean Up the Lake is now traveling clockwise around the lake, following the contours of the shore and scoping out the 35- to 55-foot-deep swath of lakebed. The dives will continue through summer. As of the Ink’s publication, this second cleanup has completed 23 dive days and three sorting days, removing more than 3,557 pounds of debris.
“Based on those numbers over our mileage,” Programs Manager Jenny Uvira said, “it projected for us to actually collect more trash in 35 to 55 depth range than we did in the original circumnavigation.”
Uvira guessed that the tipping point might happen near the project’s 62-mile mark. West emphasized it’s a projection; the reality has yet to be seen.
“The only way we know is once we swim across and clean it up ourselves,” West said.
So, what’s down there? Alpine lakes are barren in regards to plant life, but there is an abundance of litter.
“You can’t see it until it comes up,” Versch explained. “The divers see it underwater. You don’t realize how much trash is really in the lake. And so much more than I ever imagined.”
Clean Up the Lake’s mission is to conserve lakes across the Eastern Sierra.
“I’ve had the pleasure of visiting other areas around the world and I’ve seen what can become of our environment and our underwater environments if we disregard them, if we don’t take action now while we can, to protect them and protect the beautiful, wild, and natural look that it’s been for so long,” West said.
West came up with the idea to start a nonprofit when he traveled to Belize and saw trash-ridden beaches on stretches of unmaintained shoreline.
“And I think Tahoe is one of those few areas that still shows signs of how it’s always been. But unfortunately, you know, the litter, the New Zealand mud snail, the Asian clams, the Eurasian modern milfoil, curly leaf pond weed, goldfish, bass, the invasive [species], the garbage, the algae growth from runoff, and nutrient loading — all these problems are really starting to have a detrimental effect on Lake Tahoe.”
The Aftermath of Trash
“I think a lot of people just think we pull trash out of the lake and then throw it out and take it to the dump,” Uvira said, “but it’s so much more than that. We sort our trash into 83 different categories.”
The main categories are plastics, metal, glass, and wood, which contain subcategories such as plastic utensils, plastic fishing gear, and others — within plastics, there are 27 different subcategories. Uvira said sorting the trash helps identify problems in different parts of the lake. Near buoy fields, for instance, divers find items like boat covers and metal bird-deterrents. At the current depth they are focused on, heavier items and lots of beer cans and beverage bottles have settled.
Even though they find so much litter, volunteers and employees of Clean Up the Lake think the lake is becoming cleaner.
“In the past, there was a lot more littering. We do find lots more trash that’s a little bit older. And if we revisit an area after a while, chances are that there’s going to be less trash,” Robnik said about his personal observations in the field. “The environmental consciousness of people has gotten better, and we are noticing a lot more of modern litter is accidental littering.”
But that doesn’t mean the accumulated litter is without its detriments.
“If the litter’s not removed, the thousand-plus tires we’ve removed break down and turn into microplastics, make their way into drinking water,” West said. “I’ve seen tons of wildlife entanglement in our lakes of huge, beautiful trout being caught in fishing lines.”
Uvira commented that though the overall weight of plastic that they collect tends to be lower than that of other materials, the number of fragments and microplastics is high. The more plastic degrades, the smaller the particles become, and the harder they are to remove from the drinking water Tahoe provides.
Elizabeth Everest, the consulting environmental scientist and GIS expert for CUTL, noted that when debris like rubber begins to break down, it introduces toxins into the water.
“Once items have been removed from the lake, there’s less of an impact moving forward,” she explained. “But obviously, as things break down, those small pieces that can’t be physically removed are going to remain in the lake for a really long time.”
The effect of toxins in the water, changes in the ecosystem caused by aquatic invasive species, and rising temperatures accumulate and worsen without actions from organizations like Clean Up the Lake.
“These cleanups are fixing the mistakes of our past. We’ve got decades and decades of litter that’s stacked up underneath lakes here,” West said. “Fresh water is one of our most crucial resources and is only going to become more important as we have 73-degree stretches [all] month long in March [at] 7,000 feet. Climate change is happening. It’s here. It’s been in Tahoe all month long. So, we need to protect these freshwater resources that we have.”
Clean Up the Lake remains optimistic, dive by dive, pound of trash after pound of trash removed.
“I feel like we are making strides, and we’re going in the right direction,” West said. “And hopefully we can continue to spread this work.”
The team emphasized that the sooner debris is removed, the less it will degrade and impact water quality. You don’t need a scuba tank to pitch in.
“If you see a piece of trash, pick it up,” Demoret said. “It’s really pretty easy to keep a little plastic bag or an extra bag with you to collect a little bit of trash any time that you go out. If everybody does a small impact picking up a couple trash items on the shoreline, then one, they’re not going to end up in the water, and then two, it won’t be on the shoreline for people to see. You don’t have to make a huge effort.”
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Join Clean Up the Lake on Earth Day, April 22, for a cleanup at the Tahoe City Marina. Find more opportunities for volunteering at cleanupthelake.org/volunteer
