How Your Landscaping Affects Lake Tahoe The Tahoe Keys Property Owners Association (TKPOA) Board has lifted last year’s outdoor irrigation restrictions, which means you are suddenly faced with a decision. How should you revitalize your yard? Conservation landscaping is the best choice for the environment. These practices lessen watering and fertilizer use, filter stormwater, maintain fire defensible space, and provide habitat to pollinators and beneficial insects. Conservation landscaping can help protect Lake Tahoe’s unique environment while offering an attractive and desirable aesthetic that reflects the individual character of one’s property. To make it easy, TKPOA and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA), partnered to develop the Tahoe Keys Landscape Design Book for conservation landscaping ideas. As properties resume watering their landscapes, please adhere to the TKPOA watering schedule and landscaping requirements, including the use of phosphorus-free fertilizer. Irrigation systems that overwater lawns and landscaping can generate excess runoff, that transports sediment, pesticides, and nutrients to gutters, and storm drains. In addition to wasting water, this is a concern Keys Breeze
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because storm drains in the Tahoe Keys convey untreated runoff directly to the lagoons and ultimately out to Lake Tahoe. Studies show that stormwater contributes to approximately 10 percent of the nutrients that drive weed growth. The two primary aquatic invasive plant species of concern, Eurasian watermilfoil and curly-leaf pondweed, grow abundantly with excess nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus found in fertilizer. Overwatering may contribute to favorable conditions for algal blooms and aquatic weed growth, which works against the ongoing investment TKPOA, its members, and partner organizations make to control Aquatic Invasive Species in the Tahoe Keys. The City of South Lake Tahoe (CSLT) Stormwater Ordinance was put in place with the purpose of protecting and enhancing Lake Tahoe and aims to reduce pollution discharged from urban areas. When landscape irrigation and lawn watering runoff contain pollutants, such as sediment, pesticides, or fertilizers, and enter the Storm Drain System, it is a violation of the Stormwater Ordinance. CSLT and TKPOA may issue citations and fines to properties observed to be in violation of the Ordinance and TKPOA Operating Rules.
AUGUST 2022
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