• Tahoe Creamery of Minden gets a mention as a “readers’ favorite” in the March-April issue of Via magazine.

• Sierra-at-Tahoe has opened its 400-foot long superpipe for the season.

• The controversial Do It Center submitted plans earlier this month for a remodel of the building it has leased on Lake Tahoe Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe. Multiple calls to Do It Center officials went unreturned to confirm or deny the rumor they are trying to sublease the property.

• Serac Adventure Film School of Boulder, Colo., is putting on a weeklong class in Lake Tahoe March 21-28. Click here for details.

• Bliss Salon has opened on Kingsbury Grade in Stateline.

By Kathryn Reed

Until these Winter Olympics close on Feb. 28, the true greenness of them won’t be known. Green as in environment, not the cash collected.

The goal from the outset of the Vancouver Olympic Committee was to make the 2010 Games the greenest to date. (London has already said it will out-do Vancouver when it hosts the 2012 Summer Olympics.)

An early goal was to offset 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide the Games were forecast to produce. Officials say 110,000 tons of carbon dioxide would be direct emissions, while two-thirds of the total would be from air travel.

Part of the off-set comes by building venues in clusters so transportation needs are cutback; expansion of public transit; hydro power replaced some diesel generators; and energy from ice refrigeration plants and the heat put off from them at places like the Whistler Sliding Centre being harvested to be turned into renewable energy.

Twenty hydrogen buses are traveling along the Sea to Sky Highway that goes from Vancouver to Whistler.

Critics say Olympics can’t really be sustainable because of the transportation issues as well as the billions of dollars in construction that is required.

Vancouver Olympic Committee officials did not return multiple calls.

Coke is doing its part to make the Games sustainable. Photo/Kathryn Reed

To reach sustainability goals it has taken the cooperation of government, corporations and the public.

Coca-Cola, a major sponsor of the Olympics, is all about recycling. The company said its goal is to have a minimum of 95 percent of the waste during the 17-days of the Olympics be diverted from landfills.

In addition, 100 percent of plastic, single-serve beverage bottles and other recyclables are being taken to a recycling center near Vancouver.

At the Richmond Oval, which is just outside of Vancouver and is the speed skating venue, rainwater is collected to be reused for irrigation and plumbing.

Richmond Oval Photo/Provided

When the Nordic venue just outside of Whistler was established, trees needed to be cut down. More than 30,000 cubic yards of wood waste was left. The material was chipped, then an organic compound was added to it and all of it was placed in plastic bags. When it’s ripe the material will be spread out to help revegetation occur.

Eight sports venues and two athletes’ villages were shooting for at least silver designation in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Two have hit gold. But in today’s construction world, LEED silver is becoming the norm and is no longer an anomaly.

Methane gas from an old landfill near Whistler is being captured and turned into a heat source.

Software company Pulse Energy partnered with utility firm BC Hydro to track energy consumption at nine Olympic venues.

For more information about sustainability efforts at the Vancouver Olympics, click here.

By Jim Sloan, Sacramento Bee

Development takes much of the blame for the long decline in Lake Tahoe’s legendary clarity. Now, in a move they admit seems “counterintuitive,” regulators are counting on more housing, ski lodges and hotel rooms to help reverse it..

Although construction of new projects has all but ceased at the sensitive Sierra lake, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) has launched a new initiative – dubbed the Community Enhancement Program – with the goal of attracting a different breed of builder.

Artist's rendering of what Homewood may become.

The idea: to replace blighted or environmentally damaging projects from the 1950s and ’60s with new, “green” buildings that not only fit in with their surroundings but also would hold back lake-clouding runoff.

Read the whole story

On March 4 at 6pm Jenny Hatch, program manager of the Northern Sierra Regional Cal/Trout Organization, will provide an in-depth look at the condition of native trout throughout the region.

Then Victor Babbitt of Tahoe Fly Fishing will give a fly tying demonstration and ask for public participation.

This event is free at Explore Tahoe in the Heavenly Village in South Lake Tahoe.

For more information, call (530) 542.4637.

Pending favorable weather, USFS Fuels Management Crews are planning additional hazard fuels reduction prescribed fire work on Feb 23 on national forest lands near Highway 267 and National Avenue.

Up to 12 acres of hand piles may be involved in the operation.

Residents and travelers can expect to see smoke from prescribed fire project areas.

Other Fire Management Agencies both state and local, may also be conducting prescribed fire activity during this period.

By Maggie Thatch, Reno Gazette-Journal

Skiers were greeted with fresh powder and high winds at Mount Rose on Sunday for the second day of the 4A state meet — not the kind of conditions that are ideal for giant slalom racing.

The weather, along with timing clock issues, pushed back the start time about two hours. That made it impossible to have two runs, so skiers had just one shot to make it to the podium.

Despite the obstacles, the South Tahoe boys team remained dominant.

Read the whole story

Fifty Ways to Love Your School is a celebration of Whittell High School’s 50th Anniversary. The spring auction school fundraiser is at MontBleu in Stateline on May 22 at 6pm.

The night will include music, live and silent auctions, wine toss and more.

The cost is $60 per person, which includes dinner.

For more information, go to http://zceswhittell.schoolauction.net/50ways/.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory from 4pm Tuesday to 10am Wednesday.

A mix of rain and snow is expected to develop Tuesday afternoon across western Lassen County before changing to all snow and spreading to the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Between 4 to 8 inches of snow are expected in the basin by Wednesday morning, with 8 to 12 inches above 7,00 feet.

Blue skies filled Northstar on Monday, but that is not likely to be the case the rest of the week. Photo/Kathryn Reed

The Weather Service is expecting slick roads, with chain controls up by Tuesday afternoon.

It took search and rescue crews two hours to find five snowboarders from Denver who were lost after skiing out-of-bounds at Heavenly Mountain Resort.

One of the riders called authorities from his cell phone at 5:15pm Saturday to say the group was lost.

With nightfall and harsh winter weather conditions, the call was ranked an extreme high-priority for Douglas County SAR. More than 20 SAR members helped in the search. They used GPS triangulation of the caller’s cell-phone signal to identify the general area where the subjects were lost.

Two snowshoe teams, four snowmobile search teams, and a snowcat tracked rescue vehicle aided in the search. It was a snowshoe teams that located the lost snowboarders. The rescue team guided the lost snowboarders across a stream and up a steep hill, to a nearby road where the snowcat transported them to safety.

The snowboarders, ranging in age from 23-27, were identified as: Jonathan Edmonds, Justin Hubler, Byron Paschell, Aaron Williams and Kerry Crunkleton.

The Douglas County Search and Rescue Team does not charge recipients for the cost of rescue efforts. DCSAR is a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization. Members are on call 24/7 year-round, and frequently perform their tasks in harsh weather during late night and early morning hours. The unit depends on generosity from the public for funding and equipment. Financial donations may be mailed to DCSAR at: PO Box 1306, Minden, NV 89423.

Are you in charge of a community event in which food is served? Does your service club, youth group, school or political organization sell food at community events, such as fairs and festivals? If so, you need to be aware of state law governing the sanitation requirements for Temporary Food Facilities – the California Retail Food Code Law or CRFC.

Placer County’s Environmental Health Division’s Consumer Protection Section will be having a class on temporary food facilities, designed to help event coordinators and sellers keep food safe and comply with the law.

The first class of the 2010 season will be March 4 from 4-6pm at the Placer County Environmental Health Department. The class will take place in the Community Development Resource Center, 3091 County Center Drive in Auburn, in the Cypress room. The class is free.

To receive more information or to make a reservation,  call (530) 745.2300.