Third-generation farmer Gary Romano is sharing his secrets about growing food at high elevation in his book “July & Winter: Growing Food in the Sierra.”

Meyers publishing house Bona Fide Books is releasing the book Sept. 2.

Despite the challenging mountain climate and soil, Romano has successfully grown food on his 65-acre organic farm. He shares hard-earned tips in 10 essential chapters for home gardeners and small farmers. In this book readers will learn which varieties are right for which region, whether to use seeds or transplants, when and how to plant to maximize yield and the benefits of biodiversity.

Romano also discusses soil, water, and nutrients, pest management and how to extend the growing season.

Romano owns and operates Sierra Valley Farm in Beckwourth, and hosts the state’s only certified organic on-farm farmers’ market each Friday from 10am-2:30pm from June through mid-September. Romano also hosts barn dinners and concerts on the farm and can be found weekly at the Tahoe City, Truckee and Reno farmers markets.

“July & Winter” is available through Bona Fide Books and Gaia-Licious in South Lake Tahoe, The Bookshelf and Bespoke in Truckee, Sundance Books & Music in Reno, and Amazon.

The American Century Championship is often a boon for Stateline casinos. This year was no different.

The win was up 20.03 percent in July compared to 2015, at nearly $28 million, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board. This was the largest percentage gain in the state.

Five weekends and the Fourth of July helped the entire state have a good month. The win was up 10 percent, hitting the $1 billion mark.

North Lake Tahoe casinos were relatively flat, posting a decline of less than 2 percent.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Reuters

A federal judge on Tuesday postponed a key hearing in a bondholder lawsuit against Caesars Entertainment Corp until next month after a last-minute court ruling granted the casino group a brief reprieve from the multi-billion dollar litigation.

Shares of Caesars had plummeted on Monday after a federal judge in Chicago ruled the company must face lawsuits seeking up to $11 billion.

That ruling had opened the door to the U.S. District Court hearing on Tuesday in New York. The bondholders had asked the judge to enter an order in their favor, and Caesars had warned an adverse ruling could force it into bankruptcy.

Caesars is the parent company of Harrah’s Lake Tahoe and Harveys.

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Invasive species, like the clams that were suffocated by mats at Emerald Bay, were not an issue 20 years ago. Photo/LTN file

By Benjamin Spillman, Reno Gazette-Journal

A visit by President Bill Clinton in 1997 is credited with pushing Lake Tahoe onto the national stage.

That visit, part of the first Tahoe Summit, rallied disparate interests from California and Nevada around the idea of Lake Tahoe as a singular political issue that crossed state lines and federal agencies.

When President Obama visits today he’ll see progress on water clarity and political unity that can be traced back to the original summit.

And there’s a chance that 20 years from today people will look back at Obama’s visit as another turning point in the lake’s perception on the national political stage. That’s because it coincides with crunch-time for reauthorization of the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act. The reauthorization, which has been floating around Congress in some form since 2009, would authorize $415 million in federal spending at Lake Tahoe.

It also calls for future presidents to aggregate federal spending on Lake Tahoe into a single line item in the executive budget. The change would mean that during future budget-making processes the President would see Lake Tahoe as a singular cause, similar to Florida’s Everglades, the Great Lakes or Long Island Sound.

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Ash from the Tahoe Queen blows into Lake Tahoe on Aug. 30. Photo/LTN

By Kathryn Reed

Ash and other debris were seen entering Lake Tahoe on Tuesday from the charred remains of the Tahoe Queen.

“They are getting a lot of ash in the lake. They are not containing what used to be chairs and tables,” a person who works in the area told Lake Tahoe News.

The work finally had to be halted on Aug. 30 because the wind was picking up in the late afternoon. Ash was being blown onto nearby boats as well.

A team is in place to handle the removal of items as well as take care of the lake. Still, soot is reaching the waters.

The paddle-wheeler caught fire earlier this month in what has been ruled a construction fire. Painters and welders were on the vessel that morning when the fire started. The final report from the U.S. Coast Guard is expected this fall.

“In part of their contract is cleaning the lake bottom around the Tahoe Queen, removing the glass and all those things that fell into the lake,” Tahoe Douglas Fire Marshal Eric Guevin told Lake Tahoe News.

The mitigation team hired by Aramark, the firm that owns the boat, must record what the lake floor looks like and have divers remove the foreign objects.

Guevin said some ash on the lake is not something to be concerned about.

“They pumped out all the fuel and all the fire water, and it was taken out of the basin,” Guevin said.

Nothing hazardous remains on the boat.

Another firm has been hired to close a hole on the bottom of the boat where work was being done to replace the hull. That was part of the necessary work ordered by the Coast Guard after the Queen twice hit a sand bar in 2014.

As for the future of the vessel, that will be up to Aramark.

“No new info or updates,” David Freireich with Aramark told Lake Tahoe News.

It’s possible the steel hulled-boat could to sit at the Zephyr Cove dock through the winter. Reports are people in the area would like to buy the remnants.

To the president of the United States, Sens. Reid, Feinstein, Boxer and Gov. Brown,

Welcome to Lake Tahoe on this occasion of the Tahoe Summit. As you gather to consider matters related to the precious unique natural environment here, I ask you to speak to what we know is harming all of life; geoengineering and climate modification.

Living here so close to nature we are all experiencing and witnessing an ill advised response to climate change, gone very wrong. The word is out and people know what is being rained down on them from the stratospheric aerosal injection (SAI) and related climate engineerinig activities, which CIA Director Brennan spoke about last month. We have been seeing this ongoing for years in the form of the spraying of the skies that we are so close to here at Tahoe. The noise of drones and air tankers is constant even in the middle of the wilderness.

The environment here is in critical condition and the experiment has to stop right now if we and all lifeforms have any chance of recovering. Let the earth seek equilibrium under its own natural forces that never should have been manipulated to begin with. Spraying the chemical equivalent of coal fly ash into the atmosphere has proven unsuccessful and all life on earth is suffering as a result of science hijacking by a few in power like David Keith and Ken Caldeira. This is omnicide and the moral imperative is to stop it immediately.

The evidence is overwhelming and the facts are clear and are found in the 60 notice to stop geoengineering filed a month ago by the all pro bono Legal Alliance To Stop Geoengineering. The eyes of history are upon you as you face the most critical issue of our time.

Sincerely,

Linda Witters, Upper Lake Valley

Crews extinguish a blaze near the state line on Aug. 30. Photo/USFS

With the afternoon wind picking up on the South Shore on Tuesday afternoon, firefighters made a full assault on a blaze behind Raley’s at the state line.

The fire was reported at 4:17pm Aug. 30.

Crews were able to keep it about one-tenth of an acre.

U.S. Forest Service investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the blaze.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Those who don’t like Donald Trump were outside Harrah’s last week, while supporters sold out a fund-raising event. Photo Copyright 2016 Carolyn E. Wright

By John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle

RENO — Politically, Nevada is the anti-California.

The GOP runs both houses of the Legislature. Brian Sandoval, the state’s popular governor, is a Republican. Just like California, one party holds every state constitutional office, only in Nevada, it’s the GOP that ran the table.

And in Nevada, there’s also an actual presidential race.

In California, the RealClearPolitics average of polls has Democrat Hillary Clinton burying GOP nominee Donald Trump by 52 to 30 percentage points. But the former secretary of state holds just a three-point lead in Nevada, putting California’s eastern neighbor near the top of the fall battleground list.

The travel schedule of the two campaigns shows just how important Nevada and its six electoral votes are to the candidates, who need 270 nationwide to become president.

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Search and rescue teams retrieve a fallen hiker Aug. 30 at Eagle Falls. Photo/Provided

It took careful work from multiple agencies Tuesday morning to rescue a man from the Eagles Falls area.

Authorities were notified just after 7:30am Aug. 30 that someone had slipped and went over the cliff near the South Shore falls.

Search and rescue teams found the victim nearly 40 below trapped on a ledge.

“Rescuers provided care while rope systems were put together to move the victim a short distance,” El Dorado County sheriff’s Deputy Greg Almos told Lake Tahoe News.

A CHP helicopter than hoisted the victim out to an ambulance. The person, who’s name and hometown have not been released, was then taken to Renown Medical Center in Reno.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Seth A. Richardson, Reno Gazette-Journal

President Obama will make his first trip to Lake Tahoe on Wednesday, but he’s definitely not the first president to do so.

While a plethora of presidents have visited Truckee – once considered a battleground location in the presidential race – the lake, often admired for its beauty and referred to as The Jewel of the Sierra has played host to only a few presidents either before, during or after they were in office.

Obama’s visit to the Lake Tahoe Summit makes the first visit by a sitting president in 20 years and the eighth documented visit overall.

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