All it’s taken is a specialized boat and a little bit of UV-C light and the water in the Lakeside Marina in Lake Tahoe has gone from plant-riddled, to nearly clear as day.
John Paoluccio is the man leading the way to remove several species of aquatic invasive weeds. In his efforts, he aims to improve not only the water's quality but also the fish habitat within the lake.
"A few weeks ago they were all about 8 feet tall within this marina and you can see now, they're all laying down,” says Paoluccio.
Paoluccio has spent the last two years in a lab testing and treating invasive weeds with UV-C light. He's now taking his findings and applying them directly into Lake Tahoe using a UV-C light array underwater.
"Basically what we're doing is affecting the DNA of the plant and giving them a severe sunburn.”
Paoluccio says in the lab, the plants he tested with the light would fall apart and never grow back. Now he waits day by day to see if the results will be just as effective beneath the water's surface.
"We have time lapse cameras under water, every morning we take photographs, and now it's monitoring to see what grows back,” says Paoluccio. "Our ultimate goal would be a continuous movement system where you wouldn't have to park the boat, you could actually move a very slow pace and treat as you go.”
This September the project's results will be evaluated to see how successful the UV-C light has been in removing the invasive weeds for good.
