By Leona Allen

Personnel from the Lake Valley Fire Protection District are participating in rope rescue training this month in conjunction with El Dorado County Search and Rescue, South Lake Tahoe Fire Department, Meeks Bay Fire Protection District, U.S. Forest Service, and CalFire.

Due to the recreational atmosphere within the jurisdiction of these agencies, it is necessary for them to train and prepare for these potential hazardous conditions. Agencies in the Lake Tahoe Basin rely frequently on mutual aid from the various fire, EMS and law enforcement agencies, making it important to train together to enhance their skills. Such skills are also considered high-risk, but used with low frequency, and thus need to be practiced often.

Lake Valley firefighters practice high angle rope rescue. Photo/Provided

High angle rope rescue enables personnel to affect the rescue of a stranded and/or injured climber. With the high number of popular climbing areas in the Lake Valley FPD jurisdiction, we would like to remind the public of the following safety tips:

• When enjoying a day climbing or participating in any outdoor recreation, never travel alone. Know the capabilities of your companions (what equipment they have and their ability level), make a plan for your day, and let someone know where you’ll be going and when you plan to return.

• Make sure your equipment is rated for the intended use.

• Check the weather forecast, and be prepared for fast changes in the weather.

Leona Allen is the public information officer for Lake Valley Fire Protection District.

Divers out for a fun day under Lake Tahoe found a body that is believed to have been there since the late 1990s.

The divers discovered the corpse last weekend, with sheriff’s deputies able to recover it Wednesday. It was along a rock wall about 265 feet down near Rubicon.

“Previous attempts to locate the victim when the accident occurred were unsuccessful due to depth and exact location challenges,” El Dorado County sheriff’s Lt. Les Lovell told Lake Tahoe News.

Lovell said at this point nothing indicates the man’s death as being anything but an accident.

“Positive identity of the victim will take some time due condition,” Lovell said. “The body is believed to be from a deep water dive accident dating back to the late ’90s.”

— Kathryn Reed

By Kathryn Reed

It will take years for Eneliko “Sean” Smith to pay back the hundreds of thousands of dollars he owes South Lake Tahoe in back hotel taxes, but the payment plan has been increased.

The issue is whether he’s learned his lesson that he actually has to pay the money. This month is the second time a judge has told him to do so.

Eneliko Smith

“His restitution payments have been increased to about $1,000 a month, but the court has also told him that he can ask for reconsideration once he had his statement of financial affairs on file with probation,” El Dorado County Assistant District Attorney Hans Uthe told Lake Tahoe News.

Smith operated The Block and Cedar Lodge hotels near Stateline. Both are now bordered up blighted facilities. The Block is owned by BMR Funding LLC and the Cedar Lodge is owned by First Credit Bank. The city has liens on both properties for delinquent TOT.

Smith was picked up in Las Vegas in June on a DUI charge, held there about a week before being extradited to South Lake Tahoe. He spent more than a month in the local jail before leaving town.

“The court gave him very firm and clear orders about future conduct, and most especially about not neglecting, as he had, his reporting responsibilities to the court and probation department,” Uthe said. “We have indicated that we will probably recommend state prison if he blows off probation and court a second time.”

By Jesse B. Gill, San Bernardino Sun

Sheriff’s deputies have arrested a 51-year-old man in Douglas County they suspect killed a 62-year-old Yucaipa man in 1982.

On Oct. 2 that year, deputies arrived at an apartment complex in the 31400 block of Yucaipa Boulevard after a neighbor saw blood on the sidewalk and heard moaning in an apartment.

A deputy found Ralph Knappenberger severely beaten in a bedroom, according to a sheriff’s news release.

Paramedics rushed Knappenberger to Loma Linda University Medical Center. He died on Feb. 4, 1983, while in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, authorities said.

The cause of Knappenberger’s death was blunt force trauma, sheriff’s officials said.

Knappenberger’s powder blue, 1979 Ford Fairmont was missing from the apartment complex. Riverside police found the car on Oct. 5, 1982, in Riverside.

Sheriff’s detectives identified Bernhard Hahm – now 51, but 22 at the time of Knappenberger’s death – as a man seen in the Ford Fairmont a few days before the beating, sheriff’s officials said.

Detectives alleged that Knappenberger gave Hahm a ride to the apartment. But investigators never found Hahm to interview him.

The case went cold after detectives were unable to find Hahm.

Read the whole story

Steve Wasserman, the South Lake Tahoe man in prison for nearly slashing his ex-girlfriend to death, will spend at least another seven years in prison.

He was up for parole this week, but was denied. The parole board said he could try again in seven years. The victim, Susie Rizk Laney, had hoped the next chance Wasserman would have for parole would be in 15 years.

On Oct. 25, 2005, Wasserman nearly killed Laney with a 2-foot-long Samurai sword. Their daughter who was 4 at the time watched as he tried to kill her at their South Lake Tahoe home.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

The North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District responded to a brush fire on the corner of Alder Avenue and Northwood Boulevard in Incline Village on the afternoon of July 27.

The cause of the 15 foot by 30 foot blaze is under investigation.

By Ed Fletcher, Sacramento Bee

Eastern Placer County may see its political influence diminish as the county adjusts political boundaries to accommodate the Lake Tahoe area’s shrinking full-time population.

Under tentative redistricting maps, the supervisorial district that includes the north shore of Lake Tahoe will grow to include Auburn.

“It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that the city of Auburn would move into District 5,” said Tom Miller, Placer County’s executive officer.

The Board of Supervisors will see the latest maps in early August and hopes to finalize the new boundaries by the end of the month.

District 5 currently includes the area of North Auburn north of Highway 49 and runs along Interstate 80 east to the Nevada border.

The shift in boundaries is being precipitated by substantial population growth in Roseville, Lincoln, Rocklin and Granite Bay, while other parts of the county have either remained stable or decreased in population.

Read the whole story

By Juan Lopez, Reno Gazette-Journal

A more than 16,000-acre fire in Tulare County, Calif., an area about 300 miles south of Reno, is sending up clouds of hazy smoke into the Truckee Meadows area.

Scott McGuire, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said the Lion Fire’s smoke is reaching “along the entire spine of the Sierra Nevada” because of a southwestern wind which is pushing up all of the smoke.

“And we’re not looking at much significant afternoon wind to push this smoke out in the next couple of days,” he said. “We are expecting continued reduced visibilities through the evening because of the fire.”

Read the whole story

Contractors for Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board expect this to be a record summer for treatment of acid mine drainage at the Leviathan Mine superfund site in Alpine County.

Treatment prevents toxic discharges from the mine to Leviathan Creek, Bryant Creek, and the East Fork Carson River.

As a result of the highest amount of rain and snowfall since 1995, acid mine drainage from ponds at Leviathan Mine threatened to overflow in April. The Water Board mobilized a contractor three months earlier than normal to prevent overflow.

From April through May, the Water Board conducted spring treatment of the AMD to prevent discharge of untreated water. That operation treated more than 7 million gallons of AMD.

Summer treatment operations that just begun are expected to treat an additional 10 million to 15 million gallons of AMD, potentially making it the greatest amount of toxic mine drainage treated by the Water Board at the site.

Leviathan Mine is an abandoned sulfur mine five miles east of Markleeville and six miles west of Topaz Lake that was owned and operated by the Anaconda Copper Mining Company in the 1950s and 1960s. California acquired the mine in 1984 to clean up water quality problems caused by the mining operations. The Water Board completed a pollution abatement project at the mine in 1985, and since 1999 has continued to actively treat waters discharged from the mine site.

Avalon Lodge in South Lake Tahoe has partnered with Clean the World Foundation to recycle amenities to be redistributed to impoverished and disaster stricken areas in need.

This is just one of the ways it is promoting sustainability.

Hotel amenities will be collected, recycled, sanitized, and distributed worldwide to reduce the risk of pneumonia, diarrhea, the leading cause in deaths of children under 5, as well as other diseases. Studies have shown the risk of disease has been reduced 60 percent in regions that received donations. Countries receiving recycled soaps include Haiti, Pakistan, Armenia, India, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Swaziland.

To further support sustainable living, the Avalon Lodge uses local vendors whenever possible, resulting in handmade furniture by local craftsman Mike Leary, breakfast breads from the Sugarpine Bakery and art and jewelry featured for sale in their Market Café by members of the Tahoe Art League. This summer, the Avalon Lodge began promoting walking and biking rather than driving by providing bicycles for their guests to borrow free of charge.