University of Nevada and USGS - Nearshore Pilot Monitoring Project - Periphyton Replication Project - Ward Creek study site

An exciting thing about being involved with Project Baseline: Lake Tahoe is that as time has moved forward from that “stake in the ground” beginning (2011), we have broadened our involvement into some pretty cool aspects of environmental data collection in Tahoe; which has led to some very incredible dives. 

The Team formulating a strategy & logistics for our dive.

On Halloween we donned our “SCUBA diving underwater data collector and citizen scientist” costume and headed toward 200 feet.  Our dive site was about one-quarter mile south of Sunnyside resort on Tahoe’s west shore.  This area is a popular area of study for our hosts, UNR’s College of Science and the Nevada division of the USGS.  New Millennium diver Martin M. and GUE’s Project Baseline Director, Todd K. were tasked with establishing a periphyton (algae) study transect from 3 feet out to 200 feet.  Supporting us on the surface was past member of New Millennium Dive Expeditions, Byron P.   Representing UNR was Dr. Sudeep Chandra and from the USGS was David Smith. 

The original plan for these dives was to utilize the New Millennium dive boat but at 5pm on Friday the 30^th, NOAA put out a Lake Wind Advisory – which typically recommends small crafts like ours stay off the lake.  So we heeded the advice, left the boat in the garage and explored another plan which would see us working directly off the beach.  We thought we had close beach access to the study site – not to be – so we had to again readjust our plan once arriving at the lake.  Turns out we needed to move equipment and supplies about 10 minutes down the beach south or about 1250 feet.   Hauling our gear fully equipped and in our drysuits would have been incredibly difficult and fraught with the risk of turning an ankle on the lake rock dominated beach so, we decided that we would enter the water at the beach parking and utilize tour Dive Propulsion Vehicles (DPV’S) to transport us and our in water supplies the 1250 feet down the beach while Byron, David and Sudeep would carry other supplies to the study area as they were not diving. 

The goals for today were to 1) conduct 2 dives of about 45 minutes per dive total including decompression, 2) establish transects (fixed line) from 3’ to 200’ at the Ward Creek Site and on Stateline Point, 3) place 4 bricks at each sampling depth during ascent 200ft, 135ft, 100ft, 65ft & 33ft, 4) place 4 bricks at the 9ft and 3ft sampling depths but utilizing a hold down system for the bricks due to potential rough water as we head into winter and 5) collect two similar sized rock samples from 33ft and 9ft then place them in separate and marked zip-lock bags.  Spoiler Alert!!!  We were only able to successfully complete the dive at the Ward Creek study area and 45 minutes underwater turned into 125! 

Martin placing the 1m (3ft) stake and Todd organizing line.

Here’s our tale… we parked the vehicles at Sunnyside at approximately 9:30 and assessed the area.  First obstacle overcome… distance to the study area …DPV’s.  Second order of business was to strategize our underwater objectives.   Because we had so many individual underwater tasks, we began with an organizational briefing and evaluation of the objectives on land.  What we were basically going to do was to set up algae growth mediums at the various depths.  These mediums were bricks.  Two bricks would be covered with a wire mesh that let light through, necessary for algae growth, but keeping crayfish out.  Crayfish were introduced to Tahoe in 1934… on purpose! They potentially feed upon the algae so the scientists need to account for this potential. The other two bricks would be uncovered.  Team project one was to build 7 cages just large enough to contain the two bricks.  These turned out to be about 10-12 inches square. 

With the on land task of building the mesh cages complete, the next step was to figure out how to properly secure the bricks at the 3 foot and 9 foot stations.  This was of concern because in a big winter storm with heavy winds, these depths could receive quite vigorous water movement and we did not want to return in 3 months to find the bricks gone as they are a critical part of this study.  Once we discussed several ideas, we decided to let Byron, Dave and Sudeep create these while Martin and Todd were underwater.

Mesh cage - 12in x 8in to keep Crayfish out.

With the sampling station infrastructure designed, we then had to organize everything that was to go underwater into two cashes that would be manageable underwater by two divers.  A digression here, we were supposed to have a team of 3 but one of our very loyal and committed divers ran into a huge drysuit problem and simply did not have the equipment to fix his suit in time for the dive.  In hindsight,  maybe we could have eliminated the photo tasks.  Unfortunately this is one of the most important underwater aspects of work like this.  A picture is truly worth a 1000 words and even more critical when documenting the underwater world.  We would simply have to rise to the challenge; we did and  laughed a bunch. 

The next addition to our basic objective is that David with the USGS wanted us to place digital temperature sensors with specific markings at specific depths.  Not a huge task in and of itself but the importance of placing the correctly marked sensor at the proper depth meant that we had to do some organization underwater.  We felt that one more task while there was worth the data it would provide.  So added to the task and equipment list, we continued.

Here was the inventory that we had to transport from the surface to depth: 20 bricks - 5 wire mesh boxes - 5 stakes to hold down the mesh boxes - a 5lb hammer to drive those stakes in - an auger to hold the end of the transect line ending at 200 feet - a spool of line with 1500’ of 1/8” line - 5 digital temperature monitors – 20, 9 inch plastic zip ties - 4 zip-lock bags -  all our normal gear and the camera system (a 200’ rated camera that at 200’…did not work but thankfully worked shallower). 

3m (9ft) station. 

2 bricks uncovered, 2 covered & Temp Sensor (up rt cnr)

Todd, who had the most experience placing line due to his cave diving experience over the past 25 years, would run the line on the spool, carry the auger, hammer and 8 bricks (4 for the 200 foot station and 4 for the 135 foot station); his bricks would be in two separate bags.  The rest, Martin would carry with the bulk of it, 12 bricks, 3 mesh boxes and 3 stakes being dropped off at 100 feet on the way down for deployment on the way up at 100ft, 65ft and 33ft depths. 

With all supplies and a solid mission plan in place, the dive began about 1pm; the 3’ starting point is at the coordinates, 39.135724°, -120.151568°. 

You are probably beginning to understand now why what was originally planned to be a 45 minute dive, turned out to be 125 - we just had a lot of supplies and coordination to deal with; doing these types of dives has no "instruction manual".  You simply have to formulate a plan and execute then assess for improvement.  

The time factor though was effected by another issue.  Typically this side of the lake is quite steep and depth increases very rapidly but, yes, you guessed it, that was not to be for us.  The underwater slope here was much more gradual and we estimate that we laid down approximately 1000-1200 feet of line as it took us almost 25 minutes to reach 200 feet; our original plan was for about 10-15 minutes with a distance planned of about 750 feet per the chart based upon the coordinates we were originally provided.  Unfortunately the chart was not as accurate as you would expect; we called this the Ward Creek study area but in fact we were about one-half a mile north of the Ward Creek outflow.   

The only image from 200ft

Upon reaching 200’ we found a discarded steel I-Beam (typically used in dock construction and as we have seen, many construction companies simply discard their waste underwater – who is going to know! – this really pisses me off!).  We tied off our 200’ end of the transect line too this I-Beam (re-purposing) and brought the auger back to use another day.  After organizing all the supplies and locating the proper temperature sensor for this depth, the bricks were placed, the mesh box was placed over the two appropriately marked bricks, the temperature sensor was placed and then out came the camera.  Unfortunately the camera, only rated for 200 feet, took one shot as the water pressure would not let the shutter button return to its live position.  We only captured one image at the 200 foot station.  We then moved up to the next depth, 135’ and repeated the station set-up steps and then moved up again over the next 30 minutes setting up all the appropriate stations at each of the selected depths. 

One of the 7 Periphyton (Algae) growth stations - 100ft. 

2 bricks uncovered, 2 covered, Temp sensor #5

As in any dive mission of an inaugural nature, the unknowns are many.  Upon completion of this dive we could really see the shortcomings and began a much better mission plan for the establishment of the second transect to be placed at Stateline Point.  The most notable realization is that this dive requires two teams of divers.  One to handle the establishment of the transect line and the 200 foot and 135 foot stations  and that same team moving up and completing decompression while establishing the 9 foot and 3 foot stations.  The second team would drop to 100 feet and establish that station, the 65 foot station and the 33 foot station and complete their dive by gathering algae samples from bottom rocks at the 33 foot and the 9 foot depths.

Photo Credit: NatGeo - Dr. Stan Loeb diver

An important understanding here is that what the scientists are attempting to accomplish here is a replication of a study done back in 1978-1979.  When we get all the transects in place, and collect the growth mediums (bricks) we will be able to compare to a baseline of information created over 30 years ago; no one has done this study since.  It is very exciting to be a part of this and to see the outcome and comparisons.

The other “diving" aspect of this that is real interesting is that in 1978-1979 the divers doing this initial study completed dives to 200’ with equipment of the day that was no where near as quality as the gear is today.  They did not have rebreathers, mixed gas, computers and drysuits with heaters.  They had, well... crap!  One of the divers from back then was the main student/scientist doing his dissertation, Stan Loeb: now Dr. Stan Loeb and is working out of the University of Kansas.  We had the chance to talk with him over the past several months and he told quite a few great stories.  I hope he gets to Reno someday so I can buy him a drink and treat him to lunch so he will divulge just how he pulled off these dives in wetsuits, no altitude depth gauges, AIR, single tanks, rubber masks that always leaked (silicone had not been used at the time in mask construction) and other limitations of the day.     We are very fortunate to be diving in a time where technology has kept pace keeping us safe and warm. 

We exited the water at 4pm and were on our way home by 5.  

New Millennium's, Project Baseline Lake Tahoe has an incredible day at the lake. 26 September 2015

It was a great day on Tahoe both from the production standpoint as well as the weather.  NMDE divers Marc B. and Martin M. launched the boat from Cave Rock (one of 3 remaining launches around Tahoe) and were headed to Hurricane Bay by 7:30 am in anticipation of accomplishing quite a "task" filled agenda.

The day's agenda was made possible by a Grant from the Nature Fund that is managed by the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation.  Before we continue with our report we want to thank both organizations for their dedicated involvement and environmental support of Lake Tahoe and for giving us this opportunity to share what is happening underwater around the lake.

To begin, the culmination of this days 4 dives and some 7 hours on the lake is most aptly shown in this photo collage:

This photo collage shows all three Nature Fund sponsored stations in the Northern Tahoe area.
Set and ready for data collection.  

The plan for the day was to establish a new station in Tahoe City, upgrade both the Hurricane Bay and Sand Harbor stations, clean the visibility markers & realign to the benchmark at each station and finally, to remove the old station at Carnelian Bay (as our main point of interest there was removed and the boat traffic is much too dangerous to have a station there).

In July, NMDE submitted a Grant proposal as mentioned to the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation for the Nature Fund.  In late August we were notified that we were successful and in September we received our Grant Funds.  We immediately went to work; winter is coming and we wanted these stations in place.  This Grant focused upon Sand Harbor, Tahoe City (New) and Hurricane Bay.  In order to accomplish this task, we had three new depth/temperature board constructed, purchased the digital depth/temperature sensors, built the underwater containers for the digital sensors...well, a picture is better:

This is the compliment of "stuff" we had to make for this weekends diving - enough said!

The digital sensors arrived on 21 September- we call them our "minions" of depth and temperature, which allowed us to put everything together and schedule our dive day for the upcoming weekend.

The three Onset digital sensors and the Shuttle that launches them from the PC.

Our first stop was at Hurricane Bay, about a 40 minute boat ride on "glass" flat water from Cave Rock across the width of Tahoe as Cave Rock is on the east shore and Hurricane Bay on the West.  A cool morning with partly cloudy skies.  After launching our digital sensors (done with a PC and specialized software) at the lakes atmospheric level (11.8 psi - a high pressure ridge was present as the standard pressure at Tahoe is 11.66psi) we sealed them up and placed them in the underwater containers we built for them:

Not very high-tech but workable and "affordable" for a Non-Profit organization

Once all our equipment was ready, we geared up and entered the water.  Here at Hurricane Bay, we already had a station established so this site was simply to receive the new station gauges with the digital sensor, the instruction placard and a cleaning of the visibility markers.  This dive would be less than 30 minutes to a depth of 55 feet.  Here are two photos of the old and new stations (you can see that the new stations are easier to read from top down and have a larger and easier to read temperature gauge):

OLD

NEW

Today's benchmark readings for Hurricane Bay were 54 feet of depth with about 30-35 feet of visibility at a temperature of 62F.

Stop two was just up the road and into Tahoe City where Tahoe used to flow into the Truckee River - it presently does not as the lake is easily 2 feet below its natural rim of 6223 feet above sea level and down almost 8 feet from its high water mark of 6229 feet above sea level last seen on 28 June 2006. Here we will establish a completely new Project Baseline: Lake Tahoe monitoring station.  As we approached the area we thought we would place the new station, we were astounded as the depth was only 4 feet.  We then traveled due east (090) for about 3/4 of a mile where we got to a depth of about 20 feet and decided this is where we would place the station.  We really wanted the station to be closer to Commons Beach so that divers from the shore could visit and monitor but it simply was too shallow.  We again assembled all our station materials and lowered them over the side, geared up and entered.

Once on the bottom, boy were we in for a workout!  The bottom here was rock, all rock!  Just driving the auger into the bottom took 30 minutes, half our remaining gas, and at that, we were only able to drive the 48" auger about 16" into this bottom:

The "milky" cloud came after about 8 inches in depth to a new layer of probably clay.

Placing the visibility stakes was no easier and swinging a 5 pound sledge hammer underwater is a lot harder than it sounds!  But we persevered and after one hour we had the Tahoe City station established.  Its coordinates are N 39' 09.924 W120'07.860 so if ever you are out there in your boat and your dive gear and your GPS, please visit, record and send us your readings to nmde@att.net!

Today's benchmark readings for Tahoe City were 17 feet of depth with about 30 feet of visibility at a temperature of 64F.

Next stop was up to Carnelian Bay where we were going to remove all our existing station equipment.  The reason we established Carnelian Bay in 2012 was because there was a 25 foot long concrete fish placed there in the early 2000's.  This made a great dive feature and we put a line along the bottom leading out to it so divers could easily visit this site and help us record and monitor the changes in the lakes depth, temperature and visibility.  Well...I guess those that placed it there, decided that they no longer wanted the potential attention our station was bringing to it and I guess the potential negative impacts they might incur should there be an illegal dumping investigation so they replaced it.  They did not remove it from the lake however, as we saw the drag marks along the bottom they left when they moved it to deeper water.  We have not found its new location yet but we will - unless they put it in water deeper than 300 feet.  But for fun, here is a now "historical" photo of the Carnelian Bay Fish:

Fish located by divers in 2003 and removed in 2014 - too bad, it was a fun dive.

This was a 10 minute dive as we simply dropped down to 30 feet and removed everything; easier to take this stuff out than put it in.  Put it on the boat and headed over to Sand Harbor.

Once at Sand Harbor, its depth/temperature board already removed (we wanted to maintain consistency of analog gauges at this site - Hurricane Bay's was broken and Tahoe City...new) we simply dropped down, put in the new board and gauges along with the instruction placard (which we hope will increase participation by the sport diving community),cleaned the visibility markers and our dive day was complete.  Surfaced, exited, geared down and relaxed while having some lunch and beverages.  A truly great day.  We had to navigate some rough water from the Whittell Mansion south to Cave Rock but managed to get off the lake by 3 without incident.

Summary for this day: 4 dives, 3.5 hours of runtime on the NMDE research boat, 3 stations completely established and upgraded ready for monitoring and recording and 18 man hours of volunteer time added to our log.  What a great day!

We are presently in the process of applying for two more Grants as we still have 5 more stations to upgrade and or install  - upgrades at Bliss (yes we just installed but did not have the funding for the digital sensor) and Glenbrook and then new stations at Camp Richardson, Tahoe Keys (that should be informative) and Nevada Beach.  Presently we are trying to raise another $650 to purchase two more sensors so we can do Glenbrook and Bliss before winter.  We welcome donations, they are completely IRS tax deductible [NMDE tax ID - 88-0481587] so if the opportunity presents itself, please let us know - nmde@att.net.

In closing, as one of the 5 remaining Founding members of NMDE, I want to thank my most relied upon member, Marc B. for having always been there in support of our expeditions and research.  Without him, this weekend would not have been possible.  Thank You Marc!

Remember to "Like" - New Millennium Dive Expeditions on Facebook - This is where our original posts and notifications begin.  Love to see you there.  Thanks

Some additional photos, Enjoy...

The instructional placard on all stations

Heading back to Cave Rock

Marc supervising my work at Hurricane Bay - The Alley Cat below him

A beautiful Fall Tahoe Day

NMDE site evaluation dive for Hurricane Bay - November 28, 2013 - Happy Thanksgiving!

Over the past several weeks, the NMDE team divers have endeavored to reach all of our PBTahoe sites.  Today we planned to visit the Hurricane Bay Site.  NMDE divers Martin M. and Marc B.  conducted a dive to the PBTahoe depth benchmark located up-slope from the wreck of the Alley Cat.  This benchmark was set in October of 2012 (see blog post below).  The benchmark should have read well below 60' as the lake is some 3 feet lower based upon the Lake Tahoe Watermaster data but it read 72' so we will need to re-establish a better and more accurate depth gauge.  We are not sure if the gauge simply has broken but will do a follow-up dive to assess in the coming months.  The temperature was a brisk 52F based upon the benchmark gauge and the visibility was simply crappy - at best 30 feet but 25' was the distance we could see on the visibility markers.  We could see the 3 marker but could not make out the #3 upon it.  As we delved deeper into the dive (pardon the pun) we began to notice a possible reason for the low visibility; Zooplankton - Diaptomus specifically!  These little guys are red in color.   Normally, this time of year as the lake temperatures are dropping the Diaptomus populations diminish.  This condition usually happens towards end of August early September but here we are in November and the populations in the 30-40-50 and 60 foot water columns were thicker than we have ever seen them.  We also encountered some dense populations of Mysis Shrimp but the populations were scattered and inconsistent along our 3000' path.  We did notice lots of juveniles.

Dive time was 65 minutes at a maximum depth of 63 feet with an average depth of 45 feet.

Project Baseline Stats
Depth: 72' (per benchmark gauge - under evaluation) 57' per digital FFW depth gauge
Temperature: 52f
Visibility: 20-30 feet (maybe 25-28feet) Could see the 2 and the third marker but not the #3
Photo:

Recreational Divers visit the Hurricane Bay Project Baseline: Tahoe site

Divers Brian P. and Mike S. (the latter a member of NMDE) took the opportunity to visit Tahoe for a day of diving in the face of inferior weather on the Monterey Bay (their original planned dive site).   

This is a perfect example of how divers enjoying a dive can contribute to the Project Baseline: Tahoe effort.  In a 60 minute dive, gathering the stats below took less than 5 minutes but the magnitude of this contribution is huge in terms of value to the study and understanding of Tahoe's nearshore water clarity. 

Thanks Divers Brian and Mike! 

PBTahoe Stats:
Depth: N/A feet
Temp: 49f
Visibility: 30-40 feet
Photo:

 The above image of Project Baseline: Tahoe's visibility markers.

At the Hurricane Bay site they eminate southward from the main benchmark at ~60 feet. 

The benchmark is next to the wreck of the Alley Cat (Top image below). 

Lahontan Redside Shiners -

To see a diagram of Tahoe's fish species - Click Here 

Photos Courtesy of Michael Soldwisch - Member NMDE

Project Baseline, Hurricane Bay, Tahoe October 13, 2012

Observation Date:	13 October, 2012
Dive Team Members:	Mike Soldswich, Marc Briseno,  Martin McClellan
Begin Time: 10:45am	End Time:11:55am        Bottom Time: 50min
Weather Conditions:	Clear Calm 58f
Wind	Direction : n/a Speed: n/a Duration: n/a
Water Conditions
Surface	Flat Calm with some small surface ripples - Boat Wake present
Last 24 hrs:	Calm with no wind
Temperature:	Surface- 66f At Depth- 62 Site Gauge- 62    Diver Gauge- 62
Visibility:	Vertical- 30 minus      Horizontal- 20 - 30ft
Current:	Direction-N?A Speed-N/A
Site Depth Benchmark reading (Per the site gauge): 62 ffw     Dive Team Gauge:  #1- 59 ffw     #2- 60ffw
Animal & Plant Life
Fin Fish	Description : Lahotan Shiners Quantity: large schools 100+
Copepod	Est. Density: Low
Invasive Species	None Present
Mysis Shrimp	Est. Density: Low
Team Observations/Comments: Today, NMDE divers established the PBTahoe site in Hurricane Bay at the site of the Alley Cat, a 30+ foot sail boat that sank some 10 years ago.  We also cleaned off a 1 meter square area of the Alley Cat's hull from algae and debris and took some photos of the Hurricane Bay site under water.  Following the set-up of the site depth/temperature/visibility metering devices, we scootered south along the 40 - 60 foot contour and noticed a very active crayfish community, many shiners but did not see any trout, suckers, or other fin fish.  We failed to notice copepod or mysis shrimp but that said, there was probably a very small population however I personally saw the biggest Paiute Sculpin I have ever seen.  Crusing the contours at between 40 and 60 feet provided no improvement in the 20 - 30 foot visibility. PB Tahoe stats: Depth: 62 feet Temp: 62f Visibility: 20-30 feet Photo:

Establish Depth Benchmark Area -

Observation Date:	12 March, 2012
Dive Team Members:	Mike Soldwisch - Martin McClellan
Begin Time:10:00am	End Time:11:45am
Weather Conditions:	Clear with a slight breeze
Wind	Direction : Swirling in Hurricane Bay but blowing N-NE Speed: 5-10 MPH Duration: Continued throughout the dive and increased in intensity throughout
Water Conditions
Surface	Ripple waves but no whitecaps
Last 24 hrs:	Calm in mornings and breezy in afternoons
Temperature:	Surface- 46f At Depth- 42f
Visibility:	Vertical- 35+ft could see boat anchors from surface Horizontal- 40-45ft
Current:	Direction- None Speed- N/A
Site Depth Benchmark reading: No benchmark yet set
Animal & Plant Life
Fin Fish	Description : 0 Quantity: 0
Copepod	Est. Density: Low
Invasive Species	None
Mysis Shrimp	Est. Density: None
Team Observations/Comments:  Today's dive by NMDE was to scout out a good location to place the Project Baseline depth benchmark and visibility station.  Traveling about 4500 feet along the shoreline in a north by north east direction, we scootered the 40 -70 foot depth column observing as we moved along.  There were several areas of heavy branch and leaves slowly deteriorating in the water just below areas of heavy aspen groves, creating an interesting shade/tint to the water of yellowish brown.  What was most dominantly noticed is directly in the shallows off the parking on HWY 89 was thick algae growth attached to the rocks in the 5-10 foot range and when viewed from approximately 30 feet this algae had an incredible fluorescent green tinge to it.  Something the team had never observed in 20 years of diving this site.