Harold Singer: Water Guardian

Interview by Leo Poppoff

Harold Singer, executive officer of the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, has devoted some 16 years to protecting the waters of the Eastern Sierra, from the Mojave Desert to the Oregon border. He estimates that 20 to 30 percent of that time has been spent on Tahoe Basin issues. A registered civil and geotechnical engineer, Singer directs a staff of over 60 engineers, scientists, geologists and support personnel who implement the policies and enforce the standards set by the 9-member Lahontan board.

Age 56, Singer is originally from San Francisco and a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. He lives in South Lake Tahoe with his wife, Pam, and children, Garrett and Regan.

What is the biggest threat to Lake Tahoe's water clarity?

We're finding through research that fi ne sediment is probably a bigger threat to The Lake than nutrients. From some of the early results we're seeing, stream channel erosion is probably one of the biggest sources of fi ne sediment load. A lot of what's causing that instability is coverage and the fact that coverage creates more runoff . Obviously there's also the fact that we have destroyed wetlands where streams can overflow and mute their velocity.

Together with Nevada's Department of Environmental Protection, you're developing a Total Maximum Daily Load program (TMDL) that will identify the relative effects of various pollutants and thresholds. How will this change things in the Basin?

One, we'll set a more scientifically rigorous standard for load reduction. I think the regulatory controls we've had in the past probably would achieve our standard, but we hadn't really acknowledged the eff ect of fi ne sediment–this TMDL eff ort is bringing that to the forefront. Two, it will give land managers more opportunities to establish policies that provide them the chance to meet other important thresholds, whether recreation, housing or socio-economic.

Historically, we have used a strategy where we wanted to control every drop of runoff and tried to put in best management practices [BMPs] everywhere. What the TMDL looks at is controlling the overall load. Do we really have to control every drop of runoff , or should we focus on areas where we can get large load reductions?

In terms of water quality, what are the pluses and minuses of piers in Lake Tahoe?

In the past, there was a theory that piers had a negative eff ect on fi sh habitat. We've done a lot of studies, and years ago we concluded that that was not a valid theory. So, we've been prepared to [work with] the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency [TRPA] on eliminating the prohibition of building piers in fi sh habitat areas. But through this research, we're also learning more about other pollutants. We've seen that boats discharge pollutants in the form of hydrocarbons that can have an adverse effect on beneficial uses of The Lake.

We've seen high levels of pollutants in isolated areas around The Lake where there's heavy boat usage or confi ned water body areas, especially on weekends. More piers do bring new boating into The Lake. What's the threshold? We are working with TRPA on this, looking at a much broader view of their shore zone policies that will analyze the eff ects of new piers, in terms of more boats and what we can do to mitigate the eff ects of those increased numbers of boats.

What will it take to really save Lake Tahoe?

It's going to take the cooperation of all the residents in the Basin, all the developers in the Basin. What we're trying to achieve in Lake Tahoe cannot rely totally on our regulatory structure. It has to rely on cooperation. We're going to have to make a very convincing presentation to get people to understand what it is they're doing that's having an adverse eff ect, and why what we're asking them to do is going to have a positive eff ect. We need to look back at what we've done over the past 20 years, 10 years. How have the regulations been accepted? If they're not being accepted, why not? Maybe we have to describe what it is we're doing, and why we're doing it, in a better way than we've done in the past.

If you were King of Tahoe, what would you do to restore The Lake's clarity?

There are some simplistic but probably very expensive things that could be done. Treating storm water runoff–not with a BMP but with a treatment facility–would have a signifi cant eff ect. It would be very costly, both to build and to operate, but the technology may exist to do that today. Same thing with stream bank erosion; I would put a considerable amount of eff ort and dollars into that activity.

What are your predictions for the future of Tahoe's water clarity?

I believe we have the energies and the desire to halt the decline of clarity. We will reduce pollutant loading. It will have a positive effect on lake clarity and hopefully also reduce the algae growing on near-shore rocks. That is something I hope to see in my lifetime. Will we see improvement of lake clarity back to the levels of the 1970s in a short period of time? I don't think so. Will we see it eventually? I hope so.

We've seen improvements in lake clarity for short periods of time, but the overall trend is still loss of clarity. Can we see four or five years, over both wet years and dry years, where we see a leveling off of the loss? That, to me, will be signifi cant.

"Saving Lake Tahoe" from a water quality perspective is a real challenge. I'm glad to be a part of it, but it is not something that the Lahontan board can do by itself. It's going to take the collaboration of a lot of other agencies and the cooperation of both the people who live in the Basin and the people who visit the Basin.