Editor’s Note: This is the first part in a series covering the tourism impacts that locals and visitors alike have experienced this summer. Read more in the series:
Part II, “Grappling with garbage & grievances,”
Part III, “Trash kills bears,”
Part IV, “Microplastics: Tahoe’s tiniest trash,”
and Part V “Fire, fear & red flags.”
Read the February 2021 followup to the original series:
“Tahoe’s trash trouble continues.”
Tourism is the lifeblood of Tahoe’s economy. The pristine beauty of the mountains, lakes and forests offer thousands of acres in which to recreate. The influx of tourists ebbs and flows seasonally and swells during the summer and winter. Visitors book hotels and short-term rentals, eat at the restaurants, shop in the retail stores and take to the outdoors. However, the impact of the sheer numbers of visitors has been overwhelming this summer due to the pandemic, according to local officials and locals.
After many months of sheltering at home and with no end to the pandemic in sight, visitors have taken to their cars to escape to Tahoe. Second homeowners have relocated to their second homes since they can work remotely, and many schools have moved to distance learning.
“I don’t think it’s too much tourism, I think that our infrastructure is not as supportive as we need.”
–Carol Chaplin
On any given day, beaches around Lake Tahoe and the surrounding areas are overrun by visitors. Finding space in a campground is hard, permits for backpacking are difficult to procure, hiking and biking trails and beaches are packed.
The number of day visitors and short-term rentals have brought challenges to the Tahoe Sierra. Garbage, lack of garbage receptacles, graffiti, lack of public bathrooms, illegal parking, traffic issues and noise have created a divisive situation between local residents and government officials and, in some cases, with visitors.
At the heart of these issues is the larger question of how many visitors can the Tahoe Sierra handle. Many locals say there are too many visitors and the area has reached the tipping point. Local officials, however, report they don’t have the data to tell where the people are coming from – are they second homeowners using their vacation homes more, more day visitors, more short-term rentals or more visitors spending the entire summer here. No one has the answer. What is clear is that locals are fed up and are demanding action.
Tracking visitors
Officials and tourism agencies say they have no way to quickly track the number of visitors in the Tahoe Sierra. Data from the transient occupancy tax (TOT) collected by short-term rentals is not available for months after a stay. Sales tax tracks spending but does not provide any data on who is making the purchases.
The region is governed by five counties — Placer, Nevada, Eldorado, Douglas and Washoe — along with the City of South Lake Tahoe, the City of Carson City and the Town of Truckee. Within the Tahoe Sierra, there is also the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association, Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority and Truckee Tourism Business Improvement District that market the region to visitors.
In Truckee, one of the only incorporated cities in the Tahoe Sierra, Mayor Dave Polivy says the town estimates there’s been a 10 to 15 percent increase in home use in the town based on increased sewer flows this summer. However, they don’t know if that’s from vacation rentals or second homeowners using their homes more.
“There are higher occupancy rates. We are seeing a good amount of healthy tourism and we expected this due to less people flying,” says Polivy.
The City of South Lake Tahoe, the only city in the Tahoe Basin and with one of the largest full-time populations, is also being heavily impacted by the number of people visiting the area and is wrestling with issues of trash, graffiti and traffic.
“We are seeing the same issues as other places around the lake. We’ve seen more people here this summer due to COVID,” says South Lake Tahoe Mayor Jason Collin. “I don’t think it’s sustainable for the long haul. We’re used to having a much higher flow of people in the summertime and then typically about this time of the year, it starts to trail off. We’ll see what happens when other communities start going back to school. I don’t know if it’s going to trail off.”
The South Shore city also doesn’t have a way to track visitor data in real time.
“I think the best way to do it would probably be based on cell phone data, which we don’t have access to. But it would be something that would be valuable to understand what that impact is in real time,” says Collin. “We have a lot of second homeowners on the South Shore; over 60 percent of our homes are second homes. And a lot of those people decided to shelter in place here, so that’s increased the number of people staying in our area, as well staying in short-term rentals and hotels.”
According to Collin, weather is also a factor in increased visitor numbers: “It’s been hot. And so, whenever it’s hot, we get more people here. I think during this time, we have more people looking for a place to escape and Tahoe is a beautiful place to escape to. However, with COVID, we still need to be vigilant.”
“I think that we are definitely more impacted. Trash and traffic have been more of an issue,” says Carol Chaplin, president and CEO of Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority, which markets tourism for the South Shore. “We are finding that everybody wants to get close to the water. We see the same on the hiking and biking trails. We are all a little bit overwhelmed by the day traffic. We don’t know how to measure it. We know the parking lots are full, the trails are packed, and we are seeing a lot of visitors who want to be outdoors.”
Dan Canfield of California State Parks says that local state parks are also seeing increased visitation.
“Public lands are pretty much the only recreation outlet currently available. Amusement parks, zoos, movie theaters, air travel to Hawaii/Mexico, dining out, are all closed or severely restricted to slow the spread. Visitation increases in our day-use areas are substantial, perhaps approaching a 50 percent increase over last year,” says Canfield.
While Placer County is also seeing an increase in the use of its recreation facilities, 5th District Supervisor Cindy Gustafson says they don’t know where the increase is coming from. Her district represents a broad geographic area that stretches from Auburn to Donner Summit and includes large portions of the North and West shores of Lake Tahoe, as well as Northstar and Olympic Valley.
“It certainly appears that in recreation locations, beaches and trails, we’re seeing increased use and I am hearing from a lot of constituents that they absolutely feel inundated,” says Gustafson. “Swimming pools that are closed, some beaches are limiting people and taking reservations for guests to use the beaches. Is that pushing more people onto some of the public spaces?
“I don’t know if there are more visitors versus second homeowners versus locals. It’s hard to judge,” Gustafson says. “I know everybody says they’re all visitors. But occupancy numbers and TOT tracking isn’t showing more. It’s showing less. Now, are those people illegally renting, are they using a friend’s home, are they coming for more than 30 days? Are they second homeowners that have stayed all summer or invited friends up and others?
“One of the things I’ve been saying to everybody is we need more data. People are making a lot of assumptions,” says Gustafson. “I will tell you that our traffic counts are down based on numbers [Tahoe Regional Planning Agency] collected on Highways 89 and 267. It’s down 8 percent on 267 and 6 percent on Highway 89 and that was for a two-week window the last two weeks in July, which was kind of our peak.”
Gustafson says Placer County is working with a firm called StreetLight Data to monitor traffic using cell phone data in and out of the Tahoe Basin. She says she has been researching TOT data, occupancy data and talking to vacation property managers and hotels and all of those are trending down.
Locals are fed up
People are on edge and being in the midst of a global pandemic hasn’t helped matters. Garbage, graffiti, parking, traffic, wildfire danger, evacuation concerns, the impact of litter and tourism on wildlife, microplastics in Lake Tahoe and human waste are all underlying symptoms of one problem: too many visitors in a region that community members say doesn’t have enough regulation or enforcement.
Community members are rising up and begging officials, agencies and municipalities to take responsibility for garbage, graffiti, traffic and noise. Many residents are upset by the impact of tourists and the region’s inability to maintain and deal with overburdened services. Local advocates are calling for more funding from local governments to mitigate the issues arising from so many visitors coming to the area.
Truckee resident Court Leve started Truckee Tahoe Litter Group a few years ago when he became frustrated by the amount of garbage in the area. He’s been an activist and lightning rod for both the town and Tahoe at large to take action on the issues of trash and short-term rental regulations. Leve notes that the community feels there is a lack of leadership on the part of local officials to manage garbage, visitors and short-term rentals.
“Government officials say it’s not so bad. Not so bad is not a standard I want to live with,” says Leve, who is not interested in shutting down tourism but with solutions.
Along with the garbage flooding local beaches and neighborhoods, Leve notes the need for more regulations on short-term rentals in the region since many locals are citing noise issues, frequent parties late into the night and parking as major problems.
“We need better use of TOT dollars for garbage, and I’d like to see more stringent regulations on short-term rentals,” says Leve. “Just talk to someone living next door to someone who rents out their home. They are fed up.”
Each county and city sets its own regulations on short-term rentals, which can vary widely. The Town of Truckee does not currently have any regulations on short-term rentals, but the town is working to develop them and looking to adopt them as early as Sept. 8, according to Polivy.
“We have a pretty strict vacation rental ordinance,” says South Lake Tahoe’s Collin. “We enforce against noise, occupancy, parking and haven’t seen the numbers increase in the number of complaints or the number of violations. We’re seeing a lot of people coming up and hunkering down for the most part. They are spending more time in their second homes. We are definitely concerned. We need to be as vigilant as possible. We need to adapt. People do have rights to travel about. And we have no way of closing down.”
Kings Beach resident and community advocate Cheri Sugal says the underlying problem is that the local economy relies too much on tourism. She wants to see officials work to move away from tourism, especially due to the pandemic as more workers move to permanent remote working.
“The dependence on tourism is changing. It’s a false narrative. More people are living up here that have no connection with the tourism industry at all. They work from home or have jobs that are not connected with tourism,” says Sugal. “Let’s remember we are in the middle of a global pandemic. And it’s not just a question of is it too much tourism in general, is it too much tourism right now? Given the added health concerns that we’re all dealing with, the answer is so clearly yes, a resounding yes. I’m at the point where I see the need for very strong action to be taken to get the county to do things that will reduce the number of people coming here. We could clean up their garbage until we’re blue in the face.”
Sugal also feels that the influx of visitors to the area this summer was predictable and somewhat preventable. She and other local advocates want officials to shut down short-term rentals.
“The rest of the state is closed. We have to fight to have more garbage Dumpsters and get more trash cleanup. It is time put more regulations in place, although I would argue none of that has worked in Placer County,” she says. “So as far as enforcement goes, it just hasn’t worked. You’re still up all night when there’s a house party two doors down from you. And so, for me, it comes down to the question of what tools do we have in the toolbox to reduce the number of people coming here and there’s really only one tool and it’s through accommodations. I think it’s about getting rid of the short-term rentals.”
Tahoe City resident and journalist Laura Read is also fed up. She felt putting her anger into action was the only way for her to make a difference and started the Tahoe in Balance Facebook page.
“I thought, ‘Can I take my energy my efforts, raise awareness and pull together facts in such a way to perhaps help people make decisions more quickly and take action more quickly?’ ” says Read, who also wants to see more code enforcement on short-term rentals and to reallocate TOT taxes to address tourism impacts.
Josh Lease of Meyers says he didn’t realize that his anger and frustration would spur a protest but once people responded, he went with it. His posts on social media led to a lot of press, along with a weekend event he coined, Roundabout Rallies. There were five protests in mid-August with the intention to bring awareness to the issues facing Tahoe.
“This is not about locals versus tourists. It’s about the onslaught of people we are getting up here. The infrastructure can’t deal with it,” says Lease, who was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic at the time. “If we cannot save Lake Tahoe, we are in trouble.
“Many residents feel like they are no longer able to enjoy the beaches and trails on the weekends. Social distancing on beaches is not happening. There is nowhere to go. Everywhere you go is packed,” says Lease. “I am not saying don’t come here. But if you want to come here, be respectful. Treat servers with respect. And pack it in and pack it out. Don’t come here and trash Tahoe.”
Finding a balance
The towns, cities and counties in the Tahoe Sierra collect tax dollars from a myriad of sources including sales tax, lodging tax — or TOT — and property tax from homeowners. Tax dollars are used by local governments and agencies to fund infrastructure and provide services.
“Transient Occupancy Tax are taxes brought in from hotels and short-term rentals. In South Lake, they go into the general fund,” says Collin, noting that revenue was down significantly in the first couple of months of the pandemic. “Once we reopened, the preliminary numbers from July look back up as we have been busy. But it’s not just about the money. It’s really important that we are trying to find the balance between protecting the health of everybody whether they’re full-time residents, second homeowners or visitors to protect this community, keep the economy rolling and support our businesses.”
“I’ll be most interested in seeing our sales tax revenues of this region and our lodging tax,” says Jeffrey Hentz, the executive director of North Lake Resort Association. “Those numbers lag behind several months, so unfortunately, we won’t be able to see those numbers in real time. Typically, it takes three to six months. Those are two key metrics that can tell us about overnight and day visitors. We are one of the few destinations in the state that’s open. Many of the communities, leisure activities, public areas and places people typically go are closed. It’s pushing people to areas that are open. It’s a huge contributing factor.”
“Our mission is to drive overnight stays in South Lake Tahoe. All of our lodging partners are saying that they’re doing good and pleased with the results,” says Chaplin of the South Shore. “We have approximately 10,000 rooms on the South Shore. Overall, we’re reaching 90 percent occupancy on the weekends. Our larger and more developed properties are at 100 percent over the weekends. We estimated that 100,000 people were on the beaches for July 4.”
She acknowledges that since COVID, more people are driving to the South Shore.
“More customers are willing to drive over 800 miles to get to their destination right now,” says Chapin, who sees people from Stockton, Fresno, the Bay Area, Sacramento and Reno, Nev., and driving farther distances even for a short stay in Tahoe.
“I don’t think it’s too much tourism. I think that our infrastructure is not as supportive as we need,” says Chapin. “I think that there are definitely impacts to some of our iconic locations like Emerald Bay — just too many people there in one day. And Sand Harbor. You can’t get in after 9:30 in the morning and parking is crazy from Zephyr Cove to Skyland. I think disbursement is something that we need to talk about. How do we properly disperse tourism, for sustainability reasons? I don’t think any of us have figured it out. It’s something that is starting to take priority in a lot of our conversations.
“The good news is that all of us are talking with all of the municipalities, agencies and organizations like North Lake Tahoe Resort Association, TRPA, the Forest Service, the City of South Lake Tahoe and Placer County Board of Supervisors,” says Chapin. “We are all on a collaborative track, talking across agencies on a weekly basis. Never before have we all sat down at the same table and looked at the same problems.”
Looking for solutions
Local officials say that they are looking toward some level of sustainable tourism, saying that there needs to be responsibility and stewardship, along with visitor education.
“We are doing everything we can to mitigate the trash and traffic and doing the best we can,” says Hentz. “People want to get out for their mental health and physical health and we’re this logical place because many other places are closed. I do think it has created an additional level of sense of urgency for all of us to understand and recognize the challenges. I think people are still going to come up here and our numbers are going to go up naturally. I think it forces us to get a more comprehensive plan in place that addresses the issues facing us. We need to communicate what it means to travel to North Lake Tahoe and how to be responsible.”
Mayor Collin says the City of South Lake Tahoe is working diligently to deal with the issues of tourism and the impact of overcrowding.
“The city manager is working with the South Tahoe Refuse and our public works department to manage garbage. We are trying to educate people,” he says. “We have a new volunteer ambassador task force that is primarily for COVID compliance. They talk to people that aren’t wearing masks and give them information about why it’s important. We are looking to educate and ask that they are respectful and good stewards of the environment and not just from the possibility of transmitting COVID but with trash, as well. We are trying to be as adaptable as possible because we don’t know what’s going to happen. We are going to continue to be as vigilant as possible from the city side as to how we manage things and ask all of the residents and visitors to do the same.”
The City of South Lake Tahoe has put more garbage receptables at local beaches and parks and increased trash services to those areas. Placer County also recently added more garbage cans and increased trash services in the downtown areas of Tahoe City and Kings Beach.
“I agree that it was a delayed response,” Gustafson says. “It’s definitely took time for us to understand it is an ongoing issue.”
Many locals, however, say the actions taken recently by the counties and cities that are supposed to protect their community is too little too late.
“Are you kidding me? You guys are basically patting yourself on your back publicly and you haven’t dealt with the garbage issue in years,” Leve says. “It literary took a pandemic for them to respond.”
CONNECT
Clean Up the Lake | cleanupthelake.org
Keep Tahoe Blue | keeptahoeblue.org
Keep Truckee Green | keeptruckeegreen.org
Tahoe In Balance on Facebook
Tahoe Truckee Litter Group on Facebook
VOLUNTEER
Kings Beach clean up | Mondays 8-10 a.m. | Tahoe Truckee Litter Group
Kings Beach clean up | Sunday 8:15 p.m. | Lady Luck Skate Shop on Facebook
MOOP the Lake | Sept. 8-10 | moopthelake.org
Truckee Litter Corps | 1st Saturday of month, 8 a.m. | keeptruckeegreen.org
Truckee River Cleanup Day | Sept. 8, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. | Truckee River Cleanup on Facebook
Short-term rental
COMPLAINTS
City of South Lake Tahoe | (530) 542-7474
Douglas County | (775) 782-5126
Eldorado County | (530) 573-3300
Placer County | (530) 581-6234 or str@placer.ca.gov
Truckee | (530) 448-8003
Washoe County | (775) 328-6106
