By Herb Scribner, Deseret News 

Chances are you’re unhappy with your job.

A report from Gallup found that 70 percent of Americans report feeling unhappy, uninspired and less engaged in their job. This has led American workers to be less productive, costing the United States anywhere from $450 to $550 billion a year, the report said.

To find this, researchers sent out questionnaires to thousands of employees and asked whether they felt they were engaged or not.

Engaged workers tended to be more loyal to their companies and were “responsible for the most innovation within their organization,” according to CBS News.

Meanwhile, those who said they were less engaged also were more likely to take out their unhappiness on their co-workers by “undermining what their engaged co-workers” accomplished, according to CBS News.

Read the whole story

By Kyle Roerink, Las Vegas Sun

After his company faced criticism for proposing to build a $1 billion power plant, NV Energy CEO Paul Caudill outlined the near-future plans on the 706-megawatt project, according to testimony he filed with the Public Utilities Commission.

The company has asked regulators for $2.4 million to study building the $1 billion plant and described it as part of a “preferred plan” for the future. Solar, environmental and small-business groups in the state have already shown opposition.

The proposal first appeared in a 4,493-page report that details the company’s energy supply plan for the next 30 years. The commission has jurisdiction to decide if the utility can fund the study and will do so by January.

Read the whole story

By Don Melvin, CNN

A heck of a lot more Americans were toking up in 2012-13 than 10 years before — and not for medical reasons, either — according to a new study.

The percentage of American adults who had used marijuana within the last year was 9.5 percent, the study found. That compared to 4.1 percent in 2001-02.

The study — published this week in Jama Psychiatry, a monthly journal published by the American Medical Association — was sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. It was based on in-person interviews with more than 36,000 Americans over the age of 18.

Read the whole story

A gunman robbed the Round Table Pizza in Truckee on Thursday night.

The robber, who brandished a black semiautomatic handgun at an employee, left with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The suspect entered the Donner Pass Road restaurant about 10pm Oct. 22 just before closing. The manager was totaling the daily receipts and preparing the night deposit when the gunman approached him and demanded the money.

The suspect is described as an adult male, between 5-feet-8-inches and 5-feet-10-inches, wearing a black hooded sweat shirt and a skeleton mask that was described as having big black eyes.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Sgt. Danny Renfrow at 530.550.2339 or drenfrow@townoftruckee.com.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

·       Do you want to get breaking news alerts from Lake Tahoe News? If so, fill out this paid subscriber form. Subscribers most recently were the first to learn about the Tour of California returning to Lake Tahoe. Paid subscribers also qualify for special deals like tickets to Giants games. Subscribers are helping to ensure Lake Tahoe News continues to be the only place to get news about Lake Tahoe seven days a week.

·      The draft EIR for the Martis Valley West project is online. Comments are being taken until Dec. 7.

·      The second Brewer’s Cup at Cold Water Brewery & Grill in South Lake Tahoe is Oct. 28. Sampling and voting will take place from 5-7pm. For more info, go online.

·      Austin’s House, which provides emergency shelter and compassionate care for up to 10 children between the ages of birth to 18, is on a fundraising kick. For more info or to donate, go online.

·       Guy Yeaman will be teaching a dog obedience class Nov. 5-Dec. 17 at Kahle Community Center in Stateline. Each dog needs a choke chain and fabric or leather lead. Dogs must be at least 4 months old. Cost is $80. For more information or to register, call 775.586.7271.

By Brian K. Sullivan, BloombergBusiness

It has choked Singapore with smoke, triggered Pacific typhoons and left Vietnamese coffee growers staring nervously at dwindling reservoirs. In Africa, cocoa farmers are blaming it for bad harvests, and in the Americas, it has Argentines bracing for lower milk production and Californians believing that rain is finally, mercifully on the way.

El Nino is back and in a big way.

Its effects are just beginning in much of the world — for the most part, it hasn’t really reached North America — and yet it’s already shaping up potentially as one of the three strongest El Nino patterns since record-keeping began in 1950. It will dominate weather’s many twists and turns through the end of this year and well into next. And it’s causing gyrations in everything from the price of Colombian coffee to the fate of cold-water fish.

Read the whole story

Gilbert Wetenkamp, the South Lake Tahoe man accused of killing a bear in July, was granted more time to present his case.

Wetenkamp’s public defender on Oct. 23 requested the delay for further discovery. The next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 4 in El Dorado County Superior Court in South Lake Tahoe.

In September Wetenkamp pleaded not guilty one misdemeanor count of unlawful taking of an animal. He is accused of shooting a black bear to death on July 9.

The 2½-year-old bear was shot in the backside with buckshot from a shotgun.

The maximum penalty if convicted is one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Lake Tahoe Community College sociology and anthropology instructor Scott Lukas will present The World Expo and the Future of Culture: Reflections from World Expo 2015 Milan on Nov. 3 at 7pm.

Scott Lukas

The free talk will take place in the college’s board room.

Lukas’ presentation will focus on his experiences at the 2015 World Expo in Italy. The specific focus of the talk is the importance of the world exposition in terms of its showcasing of culture, technology, and architecture, its overall effect on culture and politics, and some of the controversies that impacted the Expo.

The presentation will include images and videos from the 2015 World Expo that highlight its many sights, sounds, and experiences. The talk will also include a consideration of the “future of culture” in terms of how the world exposition and related spaces and events, such as the Olympics or the World Cup, may provide a blueprint for intercultural communication and cooperation between cultures.

Soil and water samples will be taken next week on the South Shore in the ongoing contamination case of multiple wells.

It was summer 2014 when Tetrachloroethene (PCE) was discovered in two of Lukins Brothers wells along with some private wells in the area. Too much of it and the water is deemed undrinkable. PCE can cause eye, skin and respiratory problems on the low end, cancer on the more serious side.

Since the chemical was found Lukins has been getting some of its water from South Tahoe Public Utility District. The one well Lukins has provides most of its customers with water.

Funding from a state grant is paying for the $125,000 worth of tests next week. It will include 20 borings and extracting eight samples from existing monitoring sites. It could take up to a month for the results.

“The goal is to determine the cause or the source of it,” Jennifer Lukins, who runs the company, told Lake Tahoe News. The polluter is responsible for the cleanup costs.

The drought may be exacerbating a problem that has been known about since the 1990s. Two dry cleaners used to operate at the Y. PCE is a common byproduct of that process.

“We will evaluate what they are telling us. It will give us a better idea of the extent and magnitude of the contamination,” Lauri Kemper, deputy executive officer with the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, told Lake Tahoe News. “It will give us information about what it will take to treat it and remove it.”

Lukins will also use the information as it goes forward with building a treatment plant. The South Lake Tahoe water company is in the process of applying for grant money from the state to build a $1.4 million treatment plant. It will be a granulated, activated, carbon facility similar to what the Tahoe Keys uses to treat PCE in its wells. It’s possible the plant would be operational next summer.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

A barge-mounted excavator hammers away at Glines Canyon Dam in Washington, the largest dam removal in U.S. history. Photo/Ben Knight

By Anne Knowles

MINDEN — Dams and other surface storage are “dinosaurs.”

That’s according to Daniel P. Beard, the former commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the government agency responsible for building and maintaining 475 dams across the country.

Beard spoke before and after a showing of the 90-minute documentary “Dam Nation” at the CVIC Hall here Oct. 21, hosted by University of Nevada Cooperative Extension and GreenACTnv, a local nonprofit promoting sustainable energy.

Dan Beard

“They are the least effective way to deal with today’s problems,” according to Beard. “What we need to do is stop wasting water and promote water conservation and reuse. It is the cheapest, easiest solution to our water problem.”

Beard said Californians have already saved more water since Gov. Jerry Brown ordered cutbacks in April than would be produced by two proposed multibillion dollar dam projects in the Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin River Gorge.

“California conservation has demonstrated there is tremendous slack in the system,” Beard said.

He said we need to rethink the way water is priced in order to encourage conservation.

“We don’t hesitate to spend $3 for a half liter of water at the airport, yet somehow in our homes we expect we should get a lot of water and it should be cheap,” he said.

Beard also cited Australia where a 12-year drought forced the country to change its water law.

“Our water laws are irrational, first in time and use it or lose,” said Beard.

He said as a result water authorities such as the Southern Nevada Water Authority “circumvent” the law and buy up ranches and farms for the water rights.

SNWA spent $79 million to buy seven ranches in Southern Nevada a decade ago with the eventual goal of using the ranches’ groundwater to serve Las Vegas. The water authority grazes 11,000 sheep and cattle on the 960,000 acres.

Beard said he laughed when he read that the Nevada Legislature in the 2015 session could not pass a bill requiring vested water rights holders to prove their claims in an effort to inventory the state’s water supply.

Beard, who served as commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation from 1993 to 1995, is the author of the recently published book “Deadbeat Dams,” in which he calls for the elimination of the Bureau of Reclamation and the removal of the Glen Canyon Dam.

The Glen Canyon Dam was built by USBR in the 1960s on the Colorado River in northern Arizona to provide water to the growing southwest. The dam filled the canyon to create Lake Powell and has been widely opposed ever since.

Beard said about 1,100 of the nation’s dams have been removed, mostly smaller ones. Larger dams cost millions to dismantle, such as Elwha Dam in Washington, the demolition of which is featured in the dam documentary.

Elwha Dam’s removal cost $350 million, said Beard.

Beard was the keynote speaker earlier Wednesday at a meeting of the Carson River Coalition in Carson City.