What is Tahoe to you?

Consider the Grand Canyon and Hetch Hetchy, national treasures that were dammed and flooded for the common good.

(Picture of Cave Rock on the East shore of Lake Tahoe, where the Washo believe that Water Babies (me'tsunge) congregate and which is believed to contain the entrance to a tunnel that allowed them to travel to the adjoining Carson Valley waterways)

Tens of millions of people are moving to California and Nevada over the next decades, with no new sources of water in sight, and all current sources stretched razor thin.

Could Lake Tahoe be drained and diverted?

The great Lahontan Trout are a distant memory. The dying pines are rusting on the hills for all to see, a fire hazard of epic proportions that once ignited some still late September day, would likely cloud the Lake forever.

For most, the Lake is a grand view, a picture-perfect postcard, a scene to admire between dinner courses or a hand of blackjack.

For some, it is a spiritual presence, a living organism, an extension of soul.

What is Tahoe to you?