World Water Issues Film Festival — Oct. 14, Oct. 28 and Nov. 11, 6:30-8:30pm, Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences, Rooms 139 & 141

The Earth has vast amounts of water, yet less than one percent of the world’s fresh water (estimated 0.007 percent of all water on earth) is accessible for direct human uses. This is the water found in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and those underground sources that are shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. Only this amount is regularly renewed by rain and snowfall, and is therefore available on a sustainable basis.

How is this precious resource being co-opted by the bottled water industry? Is our tap water safe or tainted with rocket fuel and pharmaceuticals? How should we manage our water supply in light of increasing scarcity and pollution?

Sierra Nevada College and the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center are excited to screen three award-winning, thought-provoking pieces exploring these and other questions. Preview the new local film Charting the Course to Clarity and talk with local experts about your own drinking water and water quality. The festival will conclude on Nov. 11 with presentations and panel discussion led by University of Nevada Reno’s Student Association for International Water Issues (SAIWI) to discuss what actions we can take today to help solve some of these problems in real and lasting ways.

Oct. 14th: Blue Gold: World Water Wars

http://www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com/

Hosted by Professor Kate Berry, UNR

According to Blue Gold, winner of numerous film festival awards, future wars will be fought over water, not oil. As we pollute, divert, pump, and waste our limited supply of fresh water we are causing desertification of the earth. And as our population increases and industry expands, the demand for fresh water only grows.

Meanwhile, corporate giants and governments are using water for economic and political gain, setting the stage for battles over water. Blue Gold follows numerous examples of people fighting for their basic right to water, from violent revolutions to local protests at grade schools. A line is crossed as water becomes a commodity. Will we survive?

Oct. 28th: Poisoned Waters (PBS special)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/poisonedwaters/

Hosted by Michael Rosen, research hydrologist, USGS and Madonna Dunbar, Tahoe Water Suppliers Association.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Emmy Award-winning producer Hedrick Smith dives headfirst into the contamination of America’s great waterways, in particular Puget Sound and Chesapeake Bay. A new wave of pollution is killing fish, causing mutations in frogs, and threatening human health. Diffuse sources of pollution are introducing chemical compounds into our water, from urban runoff to poultry farm byproducts to pharmaceuticals. These chemicals are endocrine disruptors, affecting metabolism and reproductive systems in both humans and animals. Poisoned Waters forces viewers to take a closer look at the state of our ecosystems and drinking water.

Join staff from the Tahoe Water Suppliers Association to discuss local issues related to our own drinking water. How safe is our drinking water? What are the issues and actions you can take to protect our local drinking water source? Michael Rosen, research hydrologist with USGS, has been studying endocrine disruptors in Lake Mead, organic contaminants in tributary streams to Lake Tahoe, and the Truckee River to determine their effect on the aquatic ecosystem.

Nov. 11th: Student Association for International Water Issues Presentations

http://www.unr.nevada.edu/~saiwi/

Hosted by Heather Segale, UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center.

The Student Association for International Water Issues or SAIWI (pronounced Say-wee”) is a student organization at the University of Nevada, Reno, working to develop an understanding of global water issues and promote community empowerment through education and water resource development.

This culminating event will include presentations by students and community members that have participated in water development projects around the world. Hear about these amazing project successes that make a huge difference in villages around the world. Find out how you can get involved locally and globally.

* World Water Issues with Margaret Shanafield

* Addressing Water Issues on a Community Level with Jacquie Brownstein

* Logistics and Benefits of Well-drilling with Cathy Fitzgerald

* Cameroon Past Project with Annie Lassaline

* Guatemala Future Project with Miles Becker

* How to Get Involved with Miles Becker

* Question/Answer Panel Discussion

Being a student at Mt. Tallac High doesn’t require being on probation or having a baby.

Those were two key points Karina Aldana made as she spoke to the Lake Tahoe Unified School District board of education Tuesday night.

Joining her were students Luis Cervantes and Maricela Prieto. The three are part of the school’s leadership team. They talked a bit about life at the school, what it means to them and then invited the board to the school’s open house.

Open house is Oct. 21 from 9am-noon.

Read Lake Tahoe News next week as Mt. Tallac students write about their experience at the school, dispel myths and share dreams.

South Lake Tahoe’s Laurel Ames has won the Jerome Waldie Lifetime Achievement award.

This is the inaugural year for the El Dorado County Democratic Party to award Volunteer Awards.

Ames is well known in the environmental community. In addition to co-founding the Sierra Nevada Alliance, she is a former executive director of the League to Save Lake Tahoe.

Receiving the Democratic Spirit Award is Kathy McCoy. The Community Steward Award goes to Barbara Smiley.

The recipients will be honored at the inaugural Jefferson Jackson Dinner in memory of Jerome Waldie on Oct. 24. Waldie, who died earlier this year, had been a California lawmaker, congressman and member of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency for 16 years.

For more information about the dinner, call (916) 941.9910.

Rebekah, 10, and Ben, 5, Miller of Meyers take in the views Saturday from the mid-station of Heavenly's gondola. Photo/Kathryn Reed

Today is the last day to ride Heavenly Mountain Resort’s gondola before the ski season begins next month. The resort takes the eight-passenger transport offline each fall for routine maintenance.

The gondola line is dotted with snow. At the top on Saturday several inches remained from last weekend’s storm. The slick terrain was closed to hikers.

More wet weather is expected to arrive this week, with sleet and freezing rain coming Saturday.

Bona Fide Books based in Meyers is seeking literary essays for a collection about life and work in U.S. national parks. Diverse park experiences desired. What happened there, and how did it influence your life?

See www.bonafidebooks.com for guidelines.

Galumpha

By Robert Schimmel

Does an art festival or weeklong multi-event arts “happening” on the South Shore sound good if not unheard of?

Well, that’s what the organizations involved in “Arts Expo Lake Tahoe” believe, not to mention that the community will embrace it and want to expand upon it annually.

The Oct. 9-17 “Arts Expo Lake Tahoe” may appear to have existed for some time simply by the inclusion of and association with two well-established organizations’ events, Tahoe Arts Projects’ (TAP) “Galumpha” performance at MontBleu and the Tahoe Art League’s (TAL) annual “Tahoe Art Expo” at Edgewood.

What kicked off the idea of expanding disparate events came from a vision held and promoted 20 years ago by ArtsVision, a lake-wide arts advocacy and umbrella organization that generated great excitement and hope at the time. That vision was centered on bringing the arts together at Lake Tahoe and to ultimately use this cultural engine to drive a bigger and better event that included as many as possible all around the lake – a huge ArtFest, as it was quietly dubbed then.

I was the president of ArtsVision during its life and efforts to bring along that vision into the quiet shoulder season of fall when tourism wanes yet beauty and energy are still high.

As the current president of the TAL, I have experienced how seldom organizations communicate with each other, and feel that if the larger players on the South Shore can share needs and mutual support then more can be accomplished.

I ran this idea by Peggy Thompson, executive director of TAP, back in March along with the idea that this fall would be the perfect time to test “togetherness” and the expansion of an already existing event (TAL’s Art Expo) into a full venue of events over multiple days. Thompson agreed with the potential and we gathered Steve Farnsley (executive director of the Tahoe Tallac Association), Phyllis Shafer (Art Department chair of Lake Tahoe Community College), Alexandra Profant of the Tahoe Foundation, and others to see what would be possible.

Ultimately and finally, after monthly meetings and spontaneous, fortuitous coordination, “Arts Expo Lake Tahoe” evolved with a minimum of nine events occurring across nine days.

The logic and good news that prompted this effort were: each organization has at its heart the desire to promote the arts in various ways to multiple audiences and needs all the help each can muster, and six or more of the events were in place so that only a modest amount of creating was needed. This was truly an example of making “one + one = three” as the groups joined hands in a collaboration to benefit the community and themselves.

Perhaps for the first time in South Lake Tahoe, TAP’s mission “to provide cultural enrichment and diversity for the community through performing arts and education with particular focus on our youth; TAL’s mission “to promote fine arts and art education through free monthly art programs to the public, classes and workshops, art programs in the elementary schools, scholarships for our high school and college students, and support for the visual arts”; and Tallac’s goal “ to assist the Forest Service in restoring the three estates on the Tallac Historic Site and develop the site as an historic center while sponsoring as well as producing the annual Valhalla Arts & Music Festival on the Heller Estate of the Site”; and LTCC’s mandate “to educate and grow the academic abilities of any and all who wish to enter its doors” have all come together to value, promote, and provide a diverse, exciting, and educational exposition of talent to our community and visitors.

And who knows what else is possible? Autumn is a time of change, and with all the wonderful organizations, businesses, casinos, resources and talent in the Lake Tahoe region, perhaps that larger and better “ArtFest” concept will once again come to life and manifest itself in a new cultural and economic opportunity lake-wide.

But as I like to say, “Let’s get it started on the South Shore first and set an example.”

Deb Jensen, executive director of the El Dorado Arts Council, also played a huge support role in getting this week-plus of activities the needed publicity in hard copy – a beautiful 18×11 poster – it required to give the public something tangible to grasp and remember. Her enthusiasm for the concept fueled everyone, as all our plates were full and it was uncertain how to get this project “over the top”, which the poster did.

Robert Schimmel is president of the Tahoe Art League.

By Kathryn Reed

American flags are apt to be in abundance today as 75 Marines arrive on the South Shore for a bit of mountain fun before being deployed overseas.

When the men and women took off first thing this morning from Hawthorne, Nev., they didn’t know where they were headed.

“It’s a random act of love,” is how Gary Weigel described it.

His friends, Greg and Jeanne Burns of Gardnerville, have a son-in-law (Sgt. Steve Morris) in the 3rd Recon Battalion. The Burnses set up the Carson Valley fun, while Weigel used his connections at Lake Tahoe.

The idea was simply to provide the soldiers some fun after spending the last six weeks in mountain warfare training in California and Nevada. The soldiers’ home bases are Okinawa and Arkansas.

Breakfast will be at Minden Park. Then the bus is scheduled to arrive at 10:30 this morning at the transit center near Stateline, where the public is welcome to greet the soldiers.

Andrew Strain, with Heavenly Mountain Resort, will welcome the men and women. (His father served in the Marines.)

Then the platoon will take a ride on Heavenly’s gondola. Shopping is also on the agenda.

Then it’s back on the bus to go to Zephyr Cove Resort for a barbecue. It’s possible a local bagpipe group will serenade them on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

Now that their training is complete, these Marines have two weeks to spend with their families before being deployed to the Middle East.

Living history – it’s the tagline of the Tahoe Maritime Museum in Homewood.

Most of the vessels on display continue to ply the waters of Lake Tahoe. Miss Tessa, a 1930 Dodge, was on display when the 5,800-square-foot facility opened in 2008. In 2007, it churned the waters during the annual Concours d’Elegance.

The exterior of the building is reminiscent of an old boat house. The interior of the two-story structure next to Homewood Ski Resort is open and airy.

Watercraft on display is rotated. Boats not in Homewood are stored at the museum’s annex in Truckee.

It’s an ideal outing for families because of the rich history depicted in seeing old vessels, as well as the display cases that change to keep the museum fresh, the simulator that demonstrates commandeering a boat on Tahoe, the motors filling one wall, activities corner for kids, old tools and other exhibits.

A 1922 Chris-Craft called “Godfather” was the sixth boat produced that year. It’s part of the museum collection. History about Gar Wood and Chris Craft are on display.

Two hydroplane boats are on a wall. Racing those boats used to be a big sport at the Lake. A rowing skiff from the 1960s is propped against one wall looks like it would have been one of heck of a workout to power it across the water.

For information, go to www.TahoeMaritimeMuseum.org or call (530) 525.9253.

Lake Tahoe Community College’s Diversity Committee is hosting its first Hispanic Heritage Celebration with a photographic exhibit, dancers, and movies Oct. 12-17

In the college commons on display will be “Luces de Una Memoria Compartida: Historia Grafica de Ameca 1895-1968”  by Enrique Curiel, a doctoral candidate from La Universidad de Guadalajara, Jalisco, México. This exhibit will highlight aspects of rural Ameca, a city located outside Guadalajara.

On Oct. 16, from 6-8:30pm the Community Youth Folkloric Ballet, composed of high school and college students, will perform traditional folkloric dances from different regions of Mexico that includes modern Mexican dancing such as “quebradita” and “banda.”

Oct. 17 is movie night. From 7:30-9pm “Rudo y Cursi” (Rough and Cheesy). The movie is a drama/comedy about two brothers from a rural lower class Mexican family; it is also a parody of contemporary Mexico’s “narco-society” perceptions of life and values. This film is rated R.

In addition the library has an extensive repertoire of written works by and about Hispanic figures.

All events are free and open to the public.

Denise Sloan Smart, (l-r) Pamela Stoddart, Sharon Bishop and Mona McNinch.

By Denise Sloan Smart

RENO — Frigid weather didn’t keep thousands of women and men from showing up early Sunday morning at UNR for the annual Race for the Cure 5K race, hosted by the Susan G. Komen Northern Nevada Affiliate.

Most of us just walked or ran faster to keep warm.

Official numbers aren’t in yet for attendance, but a sea of pink-garbed folks streamed through the three-plus mile course around the university campus helped raise money and awareness in the fight against breast cancer.

Runners and walkers wore official registration numbers as well as pink signs proclaiming “In Memory of” or “In Celebration of.”

I wore a pink sign that read “In Celebration of Jan,” my friend who is currently waging a severe battle with breast cancer that has spread to her brain.

A man in front of me wore a pink sign that read “In Memory Of Mom, I Miss You.”

Thousands of breast cancer survivors each carried a pink balloon with the amount of time they have been a survivor. The numbers ranged from many years to one month.

Representing the Barton Health team, known as the Barton Beauties, were Sharon Bishop and Pam Stoddart, both from the Barton Community Clinic; Mona McNinch from Tahoe Family Medicine; Marla Handsaker, RN at Barton Memorial Hospital and a five-year survivor; and Karen Tucker, RN for LTUSD and a four-year survivor; and this reporter who is Barton’s communications specialist.

As the six of us covered the gently sloping course, chatting and shedding layers as the sun came out to warm us, our friendships grew. And we raised money to boot for a great cause.

In the last three years, the Northern Nevada Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen For the Cure Foundation has granted more than $87,000 in funds to Barton Health to pay for free mammograms to anyone who qualifies. There are no age limits, they are available to men and women and financial need is the only qualifier.

Call (530) 543.5632 for a one-page application, or stop by the Barton Community Clinic for an application.

Denise Sloan Smart works for Barton and has been a journalist in South Lake Tahoe for more than 20 years.