The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection’s Bureau of Water Quality Planning has approximately $1 million in federal funding available to provide grant assistance for projects that prevent or control nonpoint source water pollution, the leading cause of water quality impairment in Nevada. 

Nonpoint source water pollution occurs when rain, snow melt and irrigation water flows over developed or disturbed land, carrying with it contaminants including oil, sediment, pesticides, bacteria and nutrients. This contaminated water makes its way into Nevada’s waterways either directly or through storm drains.

State, local and tribal governments, nonprofit organizations and educational institutions are eligible to apply. A non-federal match (cash and/or in-kind) of at least 50 percent of the total project cost is required.

Proposals will be accepted until 5pm Aug. 25.

Contact Birgit Henson at 775-.687.9550 or via email at bhenson@ndep.nv.gov for more information.                                                         

To the community,

To help address the needs of the hungry of our community, Bread & Broth, a nonprofit, all volunteer organization, has been serving free, nutritious meals for all who come to our Monday dinner at St. Theresa Grace Hall. 

To fund these meals, B&B invites individuals, families, businesses and service clubs/organizations to sponsor an Adopt A Day of Nourishment. By donating a tax-deductible gift of $250, up to 110 people will be fed and up to five folks from the sponsor group can participate alongside the B&B volunteers at their sponsorship dinner.

Thanks to Vail’s EpicPoromise grant, Heavenly and Kirkwood mountain resorts each sponsor six AADs annually and on June 26 the AAD sponsor crew from Heavenly Mountain Resort’s product, sales and services team hosted the dinner. The B&B volunteers always look forward to having a Vail Resorts crew because frequently the team members are repeat volunteers who know the dinner’s routine and are always fun loving and outstanding workers.

The Heavenly PSS team was no exception. Led by Megan Madrid, senior manager, her team included Jared Autio, assistant manager; Chris Barbar, scanning manager; Devon Kornak, team lead; and Mary Taylor-Cooper, supervisor. Speaking for her team, Madrid wrote, “It feels really good to work with the Bread & Broth organization who is so involved in giving back to the community.”   

Bread & Broth feels very fortunate and is very grateful to partner with Vail Resorts and their wonderful team members who feel it is so important to help those in need in our community.

Carol Gerard, Bread & Broth

Recreation facilities in the Loon Lake area are going to be improved this summer.

The projects will include improvements to trails between Loon Lake, Buck Island Lake and Rubicon Reservoir, replacing toilets at Pleasant Campground with new composting toilets, and repair of the Loon Lake Boat Ramp.

Sacramento Municipal Utility District in coordination with the Eldorado National Forest is doing the work.

Helicopters midweek will transport materials to remote work locations and four California Conservation Corps crews will be performing trail work.

Public access will be restricted at times.

Pleasant Campground will be closed July 5 through Labor Day. Trail repairs will occur through Oct. 31, but trails will remain open to public use during this time. There may be some minor delays associated with trail use during this time, and visitors are asked to use these trails with caution. The Loon Lake Boat Ramp will be closed after Labor Day weekend to complete repairs to the damaged lower portion of the ramp. Loon Lake reservoir levels will also be drawn down to facilitate the repair.

Other facilities in the area, including Loon Lake Campground, Loon Lake Chalet, Northshore Campground, and the Rubicon Trail will remain open during construction. Visitors to these sites midweek should expect to experience some construction-related noise during the summer season.

Updates will be available by calling 530.644.2349.

Bill Evers

By Sam Whiting, San Francisco Chronicle

Bill Evers, a San Francisco attorney who co-founded the League to Save Lake Tahoe and served as head of the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Economic Development under George Moscone and Dianne Feinstein, has died.

Mr. Evers died June 28 at his home in Pacific Heights after a short illness. He was 90, and he had still been driving to work at his law office on Van Ness Avenue.

During a long and distinguished career, Mr. Evers switched between private practice and public service.

Mr. Evers was involved in the opening of the Alpine Meadows ski area, which opened in 1961, and Boreal Ridge, which opened in 1964.

Read the whole story

By Associated Press
 
The San Jose Earthquakes say Matheus Silva has emerged from a coma, two days after the Brazilian defender was rescued from Lake Tahoe.

Silva came out of the coma Thursday morning. He was responsive and able to speak, but will undergo additional testing.

The 20-year-old was playing this season on loan for Reno 1868 FC, which is part of the United Soccer League.

Read the whole story

South Shore law enforcement mingle with the public at Alpina Cafe. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

Traffic issues was one of the dominating topics at the “coffee with a cop” event on the South Shore.

“We are actively trying to come up with solutions that will work,” CHP Lt. Cmdr. Terry Lowther told Lake Tahoe News. “We are looking at where we can legally close roadways to funnel traffic the right way. We are using helicopters to see where the stoppage is.”

He is in charge of the Meyers office, which oversees a vast amount of state highways.

One issue is people are using phone applications for alternative routes. This makes neighborhood streets unpassable and residents angry.

The helicopter can alert the boots on the ground to issues not readily known, like problems in the American River Canyon on Highway 50 or something in the Emerald Bay area. Information signs can change to alert motorists.

Lowther was at Alpina Café last week dispensing this information. Others from the California Highway Patrol and El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office were also on hand.

“It humanizes us,” EDSO Detective Damian Frisby told Lake Tahoe News of events like this. He was explaining to people what the various agencies in the basin do and how they work together.

Ruth Loehr, the local CHP public information officer, said meeting people like these helps to build relationships between officers and the public. So often the only interaction people have with law enforcement is when they see lights in their rearview mirror or on some other bad day.

For Lucia Angel, she wanted to meet the officers because one day she would like to be among their ranks. The 10-year-old has designs on becoming an FBI agent. She wants to “investigate murders, robberies and things like that.”

She and Loehr are both fans of the TV show “FBI Files.” Lucia also watches “Forensic Files” and “Unsolved Mysteries.”

For Sue and Bill Krawetz, they were at Alpina just for coffee. They come up to Tahoe every so often from Sonoma County. They were appreciative of the outreach effort by the officers. They engaged an officer in a conversation about homelessness in Tahoe because they haven’t seen much, and then asked about the best places to go hiking.

These informal gatherings with cops occur throughout the country. The local CHP office is hoping to have five this year, three in the basin and two in Alpine County. The first Alpine County one was also last week.

By Joe Mathews

If you wish to inspect the frontlines of the conflict between Donald Trump and California, head for San Diego.

Yes, so far the Golden State’s fight against the president has so far taken place in the courts and in cyberspace. And, sure, challenging The Donald’s legitimacy is not a mere local pastime but an all-consuming statewide prizefight. But as a matter of geography, culture and economy, the California-Trump War feels more intimate and higher-stakes in greater San Diego. 

Joe Mathews

What makes Trump’s wild swings land as punches in San Diego? Because the city is more deeply tied to the United States than California’s other big regions. Los Angeles and the Bay Area define themselves as global mega-regions that deviate from national norms. But San Diego is unapologetically American—“America’s Finest City” being its most durable slogan. And since San Diego is the nation’s biggest border city and home to one of the world’s heaviest concentrations of military power, many San Diegans represent America not just as civic commitment but as professional duty.

But San Diego practices an open-hearted brand of Americanness that doesn’t mesh well with Trumpian isolationism. The population of active military and veterans leavens its patriotism with hard-won wisdom about the world. And San Diego institutions have built ever-closer ties to Mexico, encouraging cross-border commutes, contemplating a cross-border Olympic bid and constructing an airport terminal that spans the border with Tijuana’s airport.

And so Trump’s obsession with border security is a threat to San Diego’s daily routine. The president’s increased deportations have inspired fear among immigrants here, and his blasts against cities that don’t use police to enforce immigration laws (San Diego among them) have inspired a poisonous backlash against federal law enforcement.

Further inflaming tensions, the Trump administration has made San Diego the host of the contest to design the president’s promised border walls. Sometime this month, contestant firms are expected to build samples of their border wall designs in the Otay Mesa neighborhood, which could touch off massive protests.

Trump’s bigoted smear of refugees as security threats doesn’t go down well in the region, long a California leader in welcoming refugees. San Diego county has taken in roughly half of all the Syrian refugees who have settled in California.

Trump’s anti-trade policies are a challenge for the border region’s economy and his attempts to restrict travel are seen as a danger to the massive tourism industry, which attracts more than 34 million visitors a year. His campaign against environmental regulation and proposed cuts to health and science funding threaten San Diego’s many top research institutes (studying everything from climate change to Alzheimer’s) and its life science companies.

The litigious Trump should stay out of San Diego courts. He made few friends in the region’s legal community last year with his racist attacks on District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, a San Diegan who is a highly-respected member of the legal community there, for decisions in litigation against Trump University. Curiel is now assigned to a potentially precedent-setting case challenging the Trump administration’s deportation of a 23-year-old man who appeared to be legally in the U.S.

For all Trump’s provocations, opposing a president doesn’t come all that naturally to San Diego, a military town accustomed to saluting the flag and superior officers. Trump also has nodded in San Diego’s direction by proposing big increases in defense spending that could be a boon to the military and the area’s many defense-related businesses.

And San Diego’s middle-of-the-road politics—the county’s voters are closely split between Democrats and Republicans—makes dealing with Trump trickier than it is in California’s other, monolithically Democratic coastal cities.

So Trump poses a quandary for San Diego’s popular mayor, Kevin Faulconer, a Republican considered a possible contender for governor next year. Faulconer is not a Trump supporter, in word or deed—he backs comprehensive immigration reform, speaks Spanish, promotes cross-border trade, and touts his city’s Climate Action Plan. But his ambitions will require him to win the support of the small but powerful Republican base of voters who still mostly support Trump. Faulconer and other local Republicans, especially Rep. Darrell Issa, have had to walk a fine line between respecting a president of their party  and criticizing Trump’s many affronts to decency and common sense.

The California-Trump war is still young. It’s possible that the president and his self-destructive tendencies will make it easier for San Diego to unite and oppose him with full force. But if the president hangs in and gains traction on his border, immigration, trade and budget policies, while delivering more money to the region’s defense industry, then steel yourself, San Diego, for very bitter fights in your very beautiful city.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.

A wolf in Lassen County caught on camera on June 30. Photo/CDFW

California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists have captured and fitted a tracking collar to a female gray wolf in Lassen County, and confirmed that the wolf and her mate have produced at least three pups this year.

During summer and fall 2016, remote trail cameras captured images of two wolves traveling together in Lassen County. While the female’s origins remain unknown, genetic samples obtained from scat indicated the male wolf originated from Oregon’s Rogue Pack. The famous wolf OR7 is the Rogue Pack’s breeding male.

In early May, biologists from the U.S. Forest Service found evidence of recent wolf presence in the Lassen National Forest. CDFW biologists began surveying the area.

On June 30, after 12 days of trapping attempts, the 75-pound adult female gray wolf was captured. After a thorough exam by the biologists and a wildlife veterinarian – including the collection of genetic and other biological samples – the wolf was collared and released.

The following day, July 1, CDFW biologists returned to the field for a routine follow-up check on the female. They encountered tracks of what appeared to be wolf pups, and then found that a nearby trail camera operated by USFS had captured photos of the female with three pups. The pups were gray in color and were photographed playing in front of the camera.

These wolves, named the Lassen Pack by the USFS employee who first detected their location, are the second pack of gray wolves known in California since their extirpation in the 1920s. The first confirmed breeding pair in California produced five pups in eastern Siskiyou County in 2015, and are known as the Shasta Pack. The current status of the Shasta Pack is unknown, although one of the 2015 pups was detected in northwestern Nevada in November 2016.

Gray wolves are currently state and federally listed as endangered.

Mark DeForest

Mark DeForest has been in and out of jail several times. Officers would like him back behind bars.

The 30-year-old is accused of burglary and grand theft from Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort in 2016. He posted bail and never showed up for court last November.

A felony arrest warrant has been issued.

DeForest was also arrested in 2015 on burglary charges as well as driving under the influence.

He is described a 5-foot-10, 165 pounds, blond hair and blue eyes.

Anyone with information about DeForest’s whereabouts is asked to call 530.573.3300.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Two Carson City residents died in the head-on collision on Kingsbury Grade on July 4.

Thomas William Guard, 52, was driving and Moriah Ann Williams, 38, was the passenger. Guard’s 2012 Scion Xb crossed the center line into the direct path of a Ford F150 that was headed west.

The collision occurred at 9:26pm Tuesday about two miles up from Foothill Road.

Guard and Williams were pronounced dead at the scene.

The female driver and the male passenger in the Ford F150 were both transported by CareFlight to Renown Medical Center in Reno with serious, but non-life threatening injuries. Their names and hometowns have not been released. 

The driver of the Scion and both driver and passenger in the F150 were wearing seat belts.  The passenger in the Scion was not restrained. There was also a dog in the Scion that died.

Anyone with information regarding this collision is asked to call 775.687.9617 or email dhildebrand@dps.state.nv.us.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report