Lake Tahoe agency fines boater $5,000 for evading inspectors

RENO -- A Lake Tahoe boater is facing a $5,000 penalty for failing to comply with regulations designed to stop nonnative shellfish from infiltrating the lake.

Officials say the boater tried to launch his vessel on June 28 on Tahoe's east shore. He was turned away by inspectors, who determined the boat had been in southern Utah's quagga mussel-infested Sand Hollow Reservoir.

The boat's registration number went on a watch list after the owner skipped a mandatory July 1 decontamination.

Inspectors later learned the boater had illegally launched the vessel by taking it to a west shore inspection station and giving different information about the boat's origin. Inspectors found the boat to be clean and sealed, which allowed it to be launched at Meeks Bay on the lake's west shore.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency watercraft team found the vessel, and California Department of Fish and Game wardens assisted in removing the boat from the lake. The boater is the first to be sanctioned by TRPA, officials said.

"We have a zero-tolerance policy for the threat of aquatic invasive species at Lake Tahoe," said Ted Thayer, TRPA's invasive species program manager. "This case shows that the inspection program is working and has given us an opportunity to improve it to ensure boaters cannot evade inspectors."

Thayer said it was later verified that the boat had last launched in Lake Powell, Ariz., and was likely not a high risk, but the evasion of inspectors is a serious violation. The discrepancy arose because the operator who brought the boat to Lake Tahoe was not the only operator of the boat and did not know the last location of the vessel.