Lake Tahoe’s best clarity in 40 years is the work of this ‘natural cleanup crew’

Scientists attribute the unprecedented' visibility of the water body to a boom in the population of zooplankton

Lake Tahoe has attained a clarity that scientists haven't seen in 40 years - and it's all because of a microscopic animal acting as a natural cleanup crew" to restore the clear blue waters.

On Monday, researchers from the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) released their annual report showing that the lake's average visibility in 2022 was at 71.7ft - compared with 61ft in 2021 - which was largely due to a spike in clarity in the last five months of the year.