Tahoe’s natural filters: Preserving, restoring wetlands essential to lake clarity
Every spring, the snow begins to melt and make its way down the mountains, across marshes and meadows, and through the 63 tributaries flowing into Lake Tahoe. … [T]he route that the water takes before eventually ending up in the lake is crucial to maintaining Tahoe’s famed clarity. Why, you might ask? It’s all about those SEZs. Stream environment zones are a Tahoe-specific term, meaning “an area that owes its biological and physical characteristics to the presence of surface or groundwater,” according to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. Meadows, marshes, streams, streambanks, and beaches are all examples of SEZs…