By Kathryn Reed

A court decision this month most likely will delay for a year the ground breaking of Homewood Mountain Resort’s slopeside hotel. Owners were slated to begin construction in summer 2016 on the hotel that is almost a replica of the old Tahoe Tavern.

San Francisco-based JMA Ventures owns the West Shore ski area. For years it has wanted to turn the area into a destination that would welcome guests year round.

When the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency approved the project in 2011, JMA expected to spend about $500 million to build a boutique hotel, condos, townhomes, grocery store, restaurant, retail spa and pool. The latter being on-mountain and open to the public.

Ongoing litigation keeps stalling the project.

Homewood owners remain committed to developing the West Shore resort.

“What surprised us, quite candidly, is the court focused on this particular issue. It’s not a straightforward issue. The question is what impact does Homewood have on an evacuation by adding a couple hundred units,” Art Chapman, principal of JMA, told Lake Tahoe News. “You would think on the surface it would be easy to analyze, but there are so many variables.”

Among other things the factors to consider include the size of the wildfire, if it occurs on a weekday in shoulder season or a holiday, and which way the wind is blowing.

In the next few weeks Chapman expects his team to decide whether to comply with the court order or to appeal it.

It was California Clean Energy Committee that appealed the decision allowing Homewood to move forward. The Third District Court of Appeals on Dec. 22 ruled in favor of Homewood in five of the six issues. Most had something to do with energy consumption. The evacuation challenge was a couple sentences in the appeal.

This energy committee is based in Davis. Attorney Eugene Wilson appears to be the sole member of the committee.

The three judges sent the case back to Placer County Superior Court. If JMA wants to comply with the appellate court, it would mean getting Placer County to create an addendum to the environment impact report regarding evacuation plans, there would be a 30-day comment period and then the court would need to sign off on it. This would likely be a faster course of action than appealing the decision.

The evacuation issue involves CEQA, which would not affect any of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency permits. However, until the current matter is resolved it is impossible for Placer County to issue building permits.

Chapman called the decision ironic because he said the project has components in it to make the area safer in regards to fire. Those don’t happen until the project is built. They include facilities at the base that would allow people to shelter in place, snowmaking guns turned into fire hoses, and water shuttles at the West Shore Café (which JMA owns) to get people to safety.

A different lawsuit was settled a while ago that reduced the number of units by 13 to a total of just less than 300. The overall square footage, though, on the 1,200-acre parcel will remain the same. That settlement also calls for monitoring traffic for 20 years – twice as long as originally proposed, and notifying neighbors when snowmaking will occur because of the sound involved.

By John L. Smith, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Casino titan Sheldon Adelson likes to tell the story of his early days as a newsboy in Boston, elbowing the bigger kids for a chance to hawk nickel dailies on the street corner. It’s an inspiring tale torn straight from the pages of Horatio Alger.

John L. Smith

The scrapper from Dorchester has come a long way since then, and today ranks among the world’s richest men, but this past week we learned Adelson has entered the local newspaper business in a big way. Not on a street corner, but as the proxy owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

After being pulled from the shadows of a Delaware LLC by intrepid Review-Journal reporters, the Adelson family made its jaw-dropping $140 million acquisition official and insisted in a statement that it has only the best interests of the community and journalism in mind. We’ll see.

Read the whole story

By Christina Farr, NPR

Is your doctor your go-to for nutrition advice? Neither is mine. And why would I expect that?

Fewer than a quarter of doctors say they’ve had sufficient training to provide nutritional advice to their patients, according to recent polls. We all know about the Hippocratic oath, but there’s that other thing Hippocrates said: “Let food be thy medicine.”

For the American medical profession to live up to that, there’d have to be more thanone doctor in the country widely known for prescribing broccoli. Most medical schools aren’t particularly dedicated to teaching their students about food.

That’s beginning to change, though, as schools like Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans start thinking differently.

Read the whole story

To the community,

By providing meals and giveaway food bags, Bread & Broth strives to give hope and comfort to those who struggle with hunger in our community. Thanks to B&B’s Adopt A Day of Nourishment sponsors, filling and well-balanced meals are served every Monday at St. Theresa Grace Hall.

Knowing that nutritious meals will be served and additional food to take home will be provided, B&B’s Monday evening dinner guests gratefully know that they will not be hungry for at least for that day.

Sponsoring the Dec. 21 dinner event was Gallanty Physical Therapy. The AAD volunteer crew consisted of new owner Christina Frohlich and fellow team members Jim Gallanty, Lauren Andrew and Roxanne Chiarpotti.

“Everyone was so nice and thankful and grateful,” was Frohlich’s response while taking a break from the serving line. “I’m so glad we were able to be a part of something so special. I feel more committed to our community here in South Lake Tahoe.”

As an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization, B&B is able to continue its mission of easing hunger due to our partnerships with our sponsors. Not only are we grateful for Gallantry Physical Therapy’s financial donation, but also for stepping up and helping out at the dinner. This enthusiastic group bagged giveaways, served dinner, dried dishes and stayed after the dinner to help with cleanup.

Thank you to Gallanty Physical Therapy your incredible service and concern for our community.

Carol Gerard, Bread & Broth

By Leath Tonino, Outside

Soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause has recorded jaguars in the Amazon, ice in Antarctica, insects in Zimbabwe, rainstorms in Borneo, and orcas in the Pacific. The 77-year-old began studying nature’s sounds at age 30, later earning a Ph.D. in creative arts. (This was after two successful decades as a musician and producer.)

He has since traveled to the world’s most remote areas to create an audio library that began as an inventory of the intricate symphonies unique to each ecosystem but has become a way to document biodiversity and, most recently, loss.

Krause’s archive now consists of 5,000-plus hours of what he calls “whole habitat” field recordings. To get them, he sets up a wind-protected microphone on a tripod, plugs it into a handheld recorder, and captures everything that occurs. More than half of the 3,700 habitats represented in the archive—from Yellowstone to Australia to his own backyard in Glen Ellen—are now either totally silent or severely diminished because of human activities like mining, logging, poaching, real estate development, airplane traffic, warfare, and climate change.

Read the whole story

Erik Detweiler, 25, of South Lake Tahoe formerly of Quakertown, Pa., died Dec. 27 of injuries he received in an auto accident.

Erik Detweiler

Born in Abington, Pa., he was the son of Royden Detweiler of Quakertown and Mary Ellen (Kasmer) of Red Hill, Pa.. He was a 2008 graduate of Quakertown High School and received his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Pittsburgh.

Detweiler was currently working in food service as a waiter/bartender. He was quite the adventurer and lived to ski. He also enjoyed rock climbing, mountain biking, hiking, hang gliding, and travel.

Surviving with his parents are a sister, Keri Detweiler-Mayers, husband Daniel; step-mother Kelly Detweiler; aunt Sue Killeen, husband Uncle Dennis; maternal grandmother Helen Kasmer; and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins; and his beloved dog, Luna.

A sharing of memories in celebration of Detweiler’s life will be 2pm Dec. 30 in the Jeffrey A. Naugle Funeral & Cremation Service in Quakertown. Memorials in Detweiler’s name may be made to Lily’s Hope Foundation, 5145 Applebutter Hill Road, Center Valley, PA 18034 or Logan’s Heroes Animal Rescue, 7404 Chestnut Hill Church Road, Coopersburg, PA 18036.

Lake Tahoe still has a ways to go before it hits natural rim. Photo/LTN

By Benjamin Spillman, Reno Gazette-Journal

It’s looking increasingly likely water levels in Lake Tahoe will climb above the natural rim at some point in the coming year.

That’s according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service streamflow forecast published Monday.

How high above the rim the water level will rise, however, remains a question because there are still too many variables to play out between now and the end of the April-through-July period covered by the forecast.

Read the whole story

By Kurtis Alexander, San Francisco Chronicle

Beneath the canopy of snow that recently blanketed California’s mountainsides are vast swaths of forest struggling to survive the drought.

A study released Monday by the Carnegie Institution for Science counts as many as 58 million trees statewide experiencing severe water loss, whose ruin would not only turn massive stands of pristine green to ugly brown but upset vital watersheds and wildlife.

The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follows a U.S. Forest Service report last spring that identified 12 million trees killed by drought but left questions about how many more might wither.

“Our maps reveal much wider, much larger-scale impacts on our forest than the dead trees would tell in themselves,” saidGreg Asner, an ecologist at Stanford University who led the new study. “What we found are large sections of forest at high risk of mortality if drought persists after the El Niño.”

Read the whole story

By USSA

SANTA CATERINA, Italy – Travis Ganong (Squaw Valley) and his U.S. teammates tackled one of the most challenging downhill tracks on the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup circuit Tuesday, where just making it to the finish line was a victory.

“There’s been lots of action, lots of crashes, lots of crazy stuff,” Ganong said after leading the U.S. Ski Team in 17 place. “I would say this is one of the toughest hills we ski. It’s really hard. It’s like Sochi on the top and Bormio on the bottom – super dark, bumpy, super fast speeds. It’s a real deal downhill. It’s a gnarly, gnarly hill – the after-Christmas wake-up call.”

Adrien Theaux of France won his third career World Cup downhill Dec. 29 on the dark, bumpy track. Hannes Reichelt of Austria was second, followed by David Poisson of France in third. World Cup downhill leader Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway finished seventh and moved into the overall World Cup leaded by 15 points over Marcel Hirscher of Austria, who did not race Tuesday’s downhill.

For the Americans, it was a challenging day. Steven Nyman (Sundance, Utah) was 26; Jared Goldberg (Holladay, Utah) was 33; Bryce Bennett (Squaw Valley) 37; Marco Sullivan (Squaw Valley) 42.

Producers of the annual Renaissance Fair at Camp Richardson on Monday announced via Facebook that the 2016 event is a no-go.

This is because the U.S. Forest Service is overhauling the campground. Work will not be done in time for the late May, early June fair.

The Badger’s Den area at Camp Rich was a potential alternative, but organizers said it is not “conducive to development of an event of the quality we are used to bringing to Tahoe. … For those reason, among others, we’ve decided that we will skip doing the Valhalla Renaissance Faire in 2016 and return the show it all its fine glory to Eagle’s Nest in 2017.”