Thunderstorm activity hit the Tahoe National Forest all weekend, with more in the forecast.

The graphic to the left shows the lightning activity.

A fire was detected in the Boca Springs area, northeast of Truckee, Sunday evening. This brings the total number of fires to four — all small — for the Tahoe National Forest. The Mears, French, and Disney fires are all contained.

Marble-size hail hit the Meadow Lake area Sunday.

Expect thunderstorms through the Lake Tahoe Basin today, as well as into the Reno-Carson City areas.

The storms could cause flash flooding, especially near streams that have not receded to their normal level for this time of year. Recent burn areas could also see problems from the heavy rainfall.

The National Weather Service in Reno has issued a flash flood watch for the basin, and much of Western Nevada.

The brunt of the storms are expected in the late afternoon, early evening.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Denny Walsh, Sacramento Bee

A Sacramento federal judge has quashed a joint federal-state plan to improve conditions for a rare High Sierra fish, ruling that an auger driven by a gasoline-powered generator cannot be used in designated wilderness areas.

For more than 25 years, government agencies have sought by various means to increase the population of the Paiute cutthroat trout and restore this rare creature to its historical range.

Six years ago, U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. ordered a halt to the state’s plan to poison one stretch of a High Sierra creek and a lake as part of the recovery project.

It was Damrell again stepping in to block the latest plan with a permanent injunction based on the federal Wilderness Act.

Spokespersons for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Fish and Game vowed Friday that the agencies will continue to work together to find a way to accomplish the recovery and restoration of the Paiute cutthroat trout.

“Our team of lawyers are currently reviewing the order to see what we can do to move forward,” said Fish and Game spokesman Kevin Thomas.

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By Kathryn Reed

Instead of creating the potential for another marathon council day, South Lake Tahoe’s 2011-12 budget will be discussed at a special meeting Sept. 15 at 7pm.

The regular meeting is Sept. 13 at 9am. Both are at Lake Tahoe Airport.

Public input will be taken at the budget meeting, but it’s possible the council could approve it that night. This has been an unusual budget season in that Thursday will be the first time the document will have been seen by the public and discussed by the council in public.

The next fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

It’s projected the council will be asked to eliminate close to 30 positions. Some involve not filling positions vacated by retirements or other changes, while about 22 are actual people who will lose their jobs.

Because of union-city agreement the people being added to the 16.7 percent unemployment rate in the city must be given 30-days notice before being terminated.

While the city is still looking at eliminating the three division chief positions in the fire department, technically negotiations are in mediation after having gone to impasse. But because the three are at-will employees in an association – not a union – the city can eliminate their positions with a stroke of the pen.

The three have hired an attorney to represent them, but negotiations are not getting far, according to both sides.

The only union to date to make concessions in terms of health care and pension contributions is the firefighters whose ranks are captain and below. In the budget is a 2 percent raise for this group as a reward for working with the city.

City employees have told Lake Tahoe News off the record they don’t believe their unions are representing them as a group, but instead favoring certain people. These individuals, who would not allow their names to be printed for fear of retribution, plan to go to the council soon to express their desire to take the cuts necessary to balance the budget while keeping their job.

The city has a $5.2 million budget gap it needs to close by the end of the month.

Even if employees were to agree to the proposals by the city that would save $1.5 million through pension and health care changes, layoffs would be necessary because of the ever-increasing budget deficit.

It has been known since early spring that if the employee groups don’t help defray costs – $1 million a year in savings if they pay their PERS and $500,000 with health care changes – jobs will be lost.

The main issues on the regular Tuesday council agenda pertain to the ever divisive and unenforced sign ordinance.

The public will be able to visually immerse themselves in two of the best-known lakes in the United States thanks to a $2.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation to UC Davis’ Tahoe Environmental Research Center.

The three-year grant will be used to develop three-dimensional visualization technology to enhance public understanding and stewardship of freshwater lake ecosystems and earth-science processes. The project will directly reach about 400,000 visitors to Lake Tahoe in California and Nevada, and Lake Champlain in Vermont and New York.

The project’s collaborators hope it will serve as a global prototype for lake and watershed education.

Key to the project will be “immersive” 3-D visualizations of lake and watershed processes, with the Lake Tahoe portion being housed in the Otellini 3-D Visualization Theater at the Lake Tahoe center. Content for the visualizations will be developed from a variety of sources including high-resolution lidar, a laser-based remote sensing technology; sonar; satellite imaging; 3-D hydrodynamic modeling; and in-situ lake measurements. The audience will be enveloped by the data and, by accessing a suite of visualization, measurement and navigation tools, can explore every facet of the virtual display.

The resulting educational program will focus on water quality and ecosystem health, lake formation, lake food webs, weather and climate, and the impact of people on the ecosystem. In addition to 3-D visualizations, the lessons also will be conveyed via portable science stations, docent training guides and manuals for informal science education venues.

The project also aims to evaluate how 3-D visualizations and related technologies can be used more broadly to support education and training in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Collaborating on the project with the Tahoe Environmental Research Center will be the W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences (KeckCAVES) at UC Davis, the UC Berkeley Lawrence Hall of Science, ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center in Vermont, and the Institute for Learning Innovation in Maryland.

By Jessie Marchesseau

Rounding the corner en route to the Duke Theatre at Lake Tahoe Community College on Sunday, I walked into a sea of tiny American flags, 2,977 of them to be exact. One for each victim of the attacks.

A loud bell was tolling — 2,977 times.

Each flag represents one of the 2,977 people who died at the World Trade Center. Photos/Jessie Marchesseau

In commemoration of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, LTCC presented The 9/11 Project. The event, which consisted of a theatrical presentation, a panel discussion, and a special commemoration and reception, was not only to pay tribute to those who died that day, but also to celebrate local public safety personnel.

“I wanted to honor and remember the victims of 9/11 and morph it into something a little more hopeful,” Susan Boulanger, director of theater arts at LTCC, said.

Girl Scouts wearing sashes handed out programs at the door and asked for donations for the South Lake Tahoe Search and Rescue. The local Boy Scout troops had placed the nearly 3,000 miniature flags into the ground. Most of the Scouts did not look old enough to remember that day in 2001, some of them were probably not even born yet.

The Duke Theatre, which holds 190 people, was packed. Some attendees were forced to stand in the walkways. As the lights went down, 18 actors dressed in black took their places on stage in front of 18 chairs. Seeing them standing there, somber, on a stage of all black, a firefighter uniform and hats from various public service departments displayed in the rear corner of the stage, it was apparent there would be no singing and dancing in this play.

Boulanger chose to do a collection of monologues from two plays for the 9/11 presentation. Seventeen actors would be reading from “With their eyes – September 11th: The view from a high school at Ground Zero,” a series of real-life accounts of faculty, staff and students at Stuyvesant High School, located just four blocks from the World Trade Center. The 18th actor would perform excerpts from “The guys,” a play based on a true story about a New York City fire captain who lost eight of his men in the tragedy, and is then faced with the task of finding the words to remember each of them.

Before a syllable was even spoken on stage, I felt the lump forming in my throat and the tears beginning to well in my eyes. A woman in front of me pulled a tissue from her purse. Just the thought of that day brings about myriad emotions for many of us.

Law enforcment gather at LTCC for Sunday’s event.

The performance was dramatic. Not a giggle or a snicker in the house. Each oration was a reminder of the real people affected that day, not mythical heroes or ghosts, but ordinary people whose lives would never be the same.

“We tend to forget that they’re human beings,” Boulanger said. “We put heroes on a pedestal.”

She said she chose this particular set of monologues to remind us all of that.

After the theatrical presentation, a panel of seven law enforcement officers, firefighters and military veterans took their place on stage to share how the events of 9/11 affected each of them personally and their professions. The audience was also encouraged to pose their own questions to the group.

South Lake Tahoe Police Chief Brian Uhler said it was an honor to be asked to be part of the panel. “I’m glad that people are still paying attention, and we haven’t become numb to the events of 9/11,” he said.

A plaque at LTCC honors those who lost their lives Sept. 11, 2001.

Due to weather, the commemoration and reception that had been slated to follow at the Ledbetter Terrace was moved into the theater. Boulanger announced the planting of two crab-apple trees in the terrace along with a plaque reading “In Honor of the Heroes and Victims of 9/11 And the Heroes Who Protect Us Today September 11, 2011.” As she gave thanks to our public service personnel, the audience offered a standing ovation.

“I wasn’t there when it happened, and I couldn’t do anything then,” Joanie San Agustin, one of the actors, said after the performance. “This was a really great way to pay tribute to those who gave their lives and those who lost their lives.”

Firefighters have the Holbrook Fire in south Douglas County fully contained.

The blaze that started Saturday charred 135 acres. No structures were lost.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

A 21-year-old Douglas County man is in custody on kidnapping, attempted sexual assault and other charges.

Jacob Wilcher was arrested Sept. 11 at about noon after fleeing Lifepoint Church in Minden where the alleged crimes occurred.

A teacher at the church was conducting an outdoor class for church youth members when Wilcher reportedly grabbed a 10 year-old boy from the group and ran around the side of the church building.

Jacob Wilcher

Church officials told officers they found Wilcher on the other side of the building disrobing while still holding onto the scared 10-year-old boy. Church officials grabbed the boy and attempted to detain Wilcher. Wilcher broke free, ran to his vehicle and drove away.

Church officials followed the vehicle. Douglas County deputies located the suspect traveling on Johnson Lane

Deputies said the vehicle Wilcher was driving belongs to his mother, which he had reportedly stolen earlier today.

The youth was not injured, deputies said.

Wilcher was being held on $332,000 bail.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Publisher’s note: Lake Tahoe News wanted to do a story for its 9/11 series about how K-12 educators in the Lake Tahoe Basin-Truckee area address the event in the classroom. The reporter was thwarted in his efforts. One assistant principal in Truckee said, “Teachers may or may not be open to talking to local media based on the topic, and Is the topic something that may be damaging to our school or district?” Lake Tahoe News regrets at this time not being able to tell you what local children are learning about 9/11.

By Valerie Strauss, Washington Post

Most states do not include in their social studies/history standards a direct mention of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a new study, and only four states actually name Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda.

An earlier stage of the study had found that many of the best-selling history and civics textbooks used in schools have “a startling lack of detail about what actually happened” on Sept. 11.

Twenty states plus the District of Columbia mention the terrorist attacks but most don’t require that students learn more than a few key facts devoid of context, it says. Of those that don’t directly mention Sept. 11, 14 states include some reference to terrorism or another key term related to the war on terror. And 14 states don’t include any reference to 9/11, the war on terror or terrorism.

“For the most part, students are not directed to examine the roots and causes of terrorism, but instead are asked to learn about the impact of these attacks, primarily on the United States,” a summary of the report says.

The study was conducted by Professors Jeremy Stoddard from the College of William & Mary and Diana Hess at the University of Wisconsin-Madison/Spencer Foundation. It was released by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tisch College at Tufts University.

It was released just days before the 10th anniversary of the attacks and contributes to a debate about how, when and what children should be taught in school about the event.

For example, a separate report just issued by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute argues that some 9/11 lessons being taught to children are missing the point of the event, giving too little information about the history and instead discussing related issues.

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By Reno Gazette-Journal

7:38pm update: The Holbrook Fire in Douglas County is 75 percent contained, Sierra Front Intelligence Dispatcher Helen Frazier wrote in a news release.

Rainfall has been “helpful in cooling the fire and reducing the threat,” and official said.

6:10pm update: The Holbrook Fire in Douglas County is 40 percent contained.

“The primary structure threat has been mitigated,” Sierra Front spokeswoman Helen Frazier wrote, though the fire still poses a risk to structures on the east side.

She wrote that Nevada 208 has been reopened but is being managed by the Nevada Highway Patrol.

“Expect 10 minute delays,” she wrote.

The fire in the Topaz Ranch Estates-Holbrook Junction area has burned 150 acres. Full containment is estimated by 8am Sunday.

“Units are actively engaged in re-inforcing the perimeter and mopup operations,” she wrote.

“Fire is smoldering with a few interior hot spots. Firefighters on scene do not anticipate any significant threat at this time.”

Air tankers were released, and “excess local agency equipment is being released this evening.”

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Placer County Board of Supervisors will conduct public hearings Sept. 13 on a proposed $765.8 million final budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year and on a redistricting map that could establish the boundaries of supervisor districts for the next decade.

Tuesday’s meeting is at 9am in the Board of Supervisors Chambers at the County Administrative Center, 175 Fulweiler Ave., Auburn. The public hearing on the redistricting map is scheduled for 10am and the hearing on the budget is set for 11am.

During Tuesday’s budget hearing, the board will take public comment on the county’s proposed final budget and direct staff to make any necessary changes before final consideration on Sept. 27.