Lake Tahoe’s biggest champion, Dianne Feinstein, secured its beauty for future generations

Lake Tahoe’s internationally revered blue waters — once described “the fairest picture the whole earth affords” by humorist Mark Twain — could instead be muddy brown if not for the late senior senator from California, who died Friday at the age of 90, environmental advocates said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who spent her childhood and adult life in the mountainous region, was the “biggest champion Tahoe ever had and will ever have,” said Amy Berry, the CEO of the nonprofit Tahoe Fund. The state’s longest-serving U.S. senator secured more than half a billion dollars to keep Lake Tahoe from environmental harm.

“She used to say ‘Tahoe is in her blood,’” Berry said.

It was Feinstein’s sharp political acumen that brought Tahoe’s environmental threats to the national spotlight. Protecting Tahoe’s famed clarity was a symbol of protecting the environment, said Darcie Collins, the CEO for the League to Save Lake Tahoe, the oldest environmental organization tasked with protecting its waters commonly known for its slogan “Keep Tahoe Blue.”

“If we cannot protect Tahoe, what can we protect?” Collins said of the message at the time.

Feinstein spearheaded the 1997 Lake Tahoe Presidential Summit, now an annual event, and persuaded then-President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore to attend. Their appearances helped to spark the efforts behind the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act passed in 2000, said Geoffrey Schladow, the director of Tahoe Environmental Research Center and a professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at UC Davis.

Schladow added that Feinstein was an acute politician who leveraged federal funding to secure state and private monies for conservation efforts.

The restoration act is up for renewal again in Congress, this time through 2034.

Schladow said Feinstein took the environment personally — she allowed weather instruments to be attached to her private boat dock to collect real-time data.

Feinstein and her late husband, Richard Blum, who died last year, wrote the first checks for Tahoe Fund and came to fundraiser dinners, Berry said. She emphasized the bipartisanship needed behind supporting the efforts of Lake Tahoe.

Tahoe stretches across California and Nevada, which led Feinstein to work with Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who was the Senate majority leader and other stakeholders from both states, said Julie Regan, the executive director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. The respect Feinstein commanded from her colleagues, Regan said, helped to keep protecting the lake a nonpartisan issue.

Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, noted in a statement Friday that Feinstein helped support legislation that saved the city of South Lake Tahoe from the destructive 2021 Caldor Fire.

“We couldn’t have done it without her,” he said.

Collins noted more than 100,000 boats have been inspected over 25 years for the destructive quagga mussels, preventing the invasive species from running afoul. Keeping the lake clear is directly related to Feinstein’s dedication to Tahoe, Regan said, who remembered the times Feinstein would carry a pipe teeming with mussels on Capitol Hill to remind them of what could happen without their help.

“Tahoe is blue thanks to her,” Collins said.