Passengers and cargo are increasing at Reno-Tahoe International Airport. Photo/LTN file

By Jason Hidalgo, Reno Gazette-Journal

Long Beach pie and Reno revelry crossed paths in the Biggest Little City on Monday as a new JetBlue flight arrived to a band and cheering squad on the tarmac at Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

Underneath all the fanfare and positive vibes, however, is the latest test for Reno-Sparks — specifically in its efforts to add more flights and maintain its newfound momentum following a severe recession. It is the second major flight addition for JetBlue to Reno following its nonstop service to New York City.

The positive performance of the New York flight was cited as a key reason for the new Long Beach route. Asked about any new routes in the works for Reno, one JetBlue official expressed optimism to the Reno Gazette-Journal about more potential routes, at least in the West.

Parcels in blue are set to be sold by the California Tahoe Conservancy, with two approved for pre-sale and four to be voted on by the board next month. Map/CTC

The California Tahoe Conservancy plans to sell several parcels in South Lake Tahoe.

The board at its September meeting will be asked to approve the pre-sale agreements for the properties located in the Tahoe Valley Area Plan. A letter went out Aug. 15 to people in the vicinity.

“The Conservancy is working closely with the city of South Lake Tahoe and the community at large to maximize walkable, bikeable, and environmentally sustainable areas on and around these parcels,” the letter reads. “Specific goals include helping to implement the Tahoe Valley Area Plan greenbelt, water quality projects, and placement of permanent conservation easements over sensitive areas on these asset lands.”

The state agency based in South Lake Tahoe started the asset lands program as a way to unload developable property and therefore be able help stay solvent.

Two of the parcels are next to the former Factory Stores at the Y that are being redeveloped into the Crossings.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Flames shoot up from the Tahoe Queen on Aug. 16. Photo/LTN

Updated 8:20pm

By Kathryn Reed

ZEPHYR COVE — The Tahoe Queen on Tuesday morning sustained substantial damage when a fire ripped through the paddle-wheeler.

“It is probably not salvageable, but the owners and insurance have to decide,” Tahoe Douglas Fire Marshal Eric Guevin told Lake Tahoe News. “It will be a very close call either way.”

Aramark, which owns the tourist boat, is self-insured.

Earlier on Aug. 16, Karen Cutler with Aramark public relations in Arizona told Lake Tahoe News, “We are still determining the damage so we cannot address future plans at this time.”

Aramark officials at the resort shut a door on Lake Tahoe News.

Two people were injured Aug. 16, but both refused to be transported to a hospital. One person sustained a sprained back and the other smoke inhalation.

Painters and welders were working on the renovation when the fire broke out after 8am.

Potentially toxic smoke spews from the Tahoe Queen. Photo/Jaymi Hardy

“When we arrived there was a large body of fire in the Tahoe Queen. It spread to the outside of the vessel,” Guevin said.

Booms were placed in the water at Zephyr Cove Marina to catch any chemicals if they spilled from the boat as well as the foam from the firefighting efforts. A sheen of what looked like oil was floating on the surface of Lake Tahoe in the morning.

The front of the boat clearly has fire damage. Flames could be seen from Highway 50, smoke from much farther away.

Normally the Tahoe Queen is docked at Ski Run Marina, but it has been moored at the Nevada marina because the lake is too low at the California site for it to reach the dock. The other reason the Queen has been at Zephyr Cove is that it is undergoing another remodel.

Firefighters on land and water work to suppress the flames on the Tahoe Queen. Photo/Kathryn Reed

The Dixie, the other paddle-wheeler operated by Aramark, had to cancel its cruises on Tuesday.

“We are awaiting additional information to determine when service can resume,” Cutler said.

Aramark operates the resort on U.S. Forest Service land.

The Forest Service also wasn’t available for comment, though their crews helped with the fire and a management team had arrived.

The Tahoe Queen is engulfed in flames the morning of Aug. 16. Photo/Joe Besson

Where the fire started is not known and the cause is under investigation.

The U.S. Coast Guard will lead the investigation. A team from the Bay Area has arrived and will work with Tahoe Douglas fire officials more in the morning.

By Benjamin Spillman, Reno Gazette-Journal

STATELINE — Crumbling pavement and some unoccupied mobile homes are among the reminders of what used to occupy the site of the future Tahoe Beach Club.

But the developers, politicians and local business leaders on the beach in Stateline Monday afternoon weren’t there to pick through remnants of what used to be. The dignitaries, including Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, were looking out toward Lake Tahoe and what they envisioned for the future of the 20-acre, lakefront property.

The club, according to developers and planning agency staff, would be the first new, full-ownership lakefront homes on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe in about 30 years, although there have been time-share developments in that time.

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The coaster at Heavenly is an added reason to visit the South Shore resort. Photo Copyright 2016 Carolyn E. Wright

By Dennis Schaal, Skift 

There is a broad shift under way in U.S. consumer spending that could have very positive implications for the travel industry if the trend persists.

Analyzing the federal government’s July 2016 numbers on retail sales, the Wall Street Journal pointed Saturday to a “seismic shift in consumer spending.”

“Americans are still splashing out, but they are splurging less on goods such as apparel and electronics and more on entertainment, travel and health care,” the Wall Street Journal states.

First Data Corp. reported that travel sales in July increased 8.6 percent compared with July 2015.

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By Ben Botkin Las Vegas Review-Journal

Labor-backed groups are putting their organizing muscle and manpower into the 2016 campaign season in Nevada, an effort that will deploy thousands of canvassers and result in hundreds of thousands of voter contacts.

It’s a massive undertaking that labor leaders hope will tip the scales in Nevada, a swing state in the presidential election and ground zero for a hotly contested U.S. Senate race for the open seat of outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Republican Congressman Joe Heck and Democratic candidate Catherine Cortez Masto, a former Nevada attorney general, are facing off for that seat.

The AFL-CIO’s 2016 effort is its largest compared with efforts during prior elections, the organization says. Nevada is one of six battleground states that the powerful AFL-CIO, which backs Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, has made a priority. The other five are Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

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Researchers are using an exclusive modeling system to study the effects of slower snowmelt across various regions of the Western United States including the Cascade, Sierra Nevada, Wasatch and Rocky mountains.

All of these areas see significant seasonal snow accumulation and generate water resources for downstream communities. Sixty million people in the Western United States depend on snowmelt for their water supply.

Western communities are facing effects of a warming climate with slower and earlier snowmelt reducing stream flows and possibly the amount of water reaching reservoirs used for drinking water and agriculture, according to a study published in July.

“As the climate warms, there is actually a slower snowmelt – both in timing and rates, which makes for a less efficient stream flow,” Adrian Harpold, ecohydrologist at UNR, said in a press release. Harpold, who initiated the study two years ago at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is a co-author of the paper published in AGU publications Geophysical Research Letters.

“I know, it’s counterintuitive, but with a warming climate snowmelt starts sooner in the season, and at a slower rate because the warming occurs earlier when days are shorter and we have less sunlight,” he said. “What makes runoff less efficient is that slower snowmelt reduces the amount of moisture being pushed deep into the subsurface where it is less likely to evaporate”

Harpold, who’s Nevada Mountain Ecohydrology Lab is based in the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources, continued to work with the team from CU Boulder after coming to UNR.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

By Tomikka Anderson, San Francisco Chronicle

A bill to scrap daylight-saving time has just made its way through another Senate committee, which means California may be closer to standard time year round.

In an interview with the Sacramento Bee, Assemblymember Kansen Chu, D-San Jose, – who authored the bill – said, “Daylight-saving time is an institution that has been in place largely without a question for more than half a century.” Chu continued, “I think we owe it to the general public to be given the opportunity to decide for themselves whether or not daylight saving time ought to be continued.”

Chu also cited statistics in the bill that link daylight-savings time to a higher heart attack rate, traffic accidents and fatalities and energy waste.

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A Jet Ski accident on the South Shore has left one man dead.

Raeshon Williams, 22, of Oakland was found under water near Timber Cove Pier in the early evening of Aug. 13.

His friend, whose name has not been released, was able to swim to the personal watercraft after they were both thrown from the vessel. They were reportedly about 100 yards from shore.

There is a 5mph, no-wake zone 600 feet from shore throughout the basin. Neither man was wearing a life jacket even though it is the law to do so.

The accident is under investigation.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Kings Beach opened an affordable housing complex in 2014. Photo/LTN

By Mayumi Elegado and Dave Zook, Moonshine Ink 

Agreements and execution are different beasts, and sizable differences exist between the two. It could be said that nowhere is that distance greater than in the creation of affordable housing.

As home prices soared in the late 1990s and families found themselves priced out of the market, local agencies were pressured to find solutions. Prompted by government regulations, developers now are commonly required to incorporate affordable or employee housing as part of a project’s overall scope, and specifics hinge on the individual requirements of the jurisdiction or county.

Within the last decade or so, the Truckee has established affordable housing regulations for development mitigation, and Placer County has had a workforce housing policy for more than 20 years, but for projects in Tahoe, it would be fair to say that implementation is still in the pilot phase.

While affordable housing has been built into the conditions of approval for more than a handful of development projects, the completion record for the affordable projects is mixed. Successful projects in the past 15 years have put at least 200 new affordable housing units on the ground, but many developers have fallen short of their finalized plans, and some have built nothing at all.

Meanwhile the resulting lack of beds affects the community daily: Waitlists for the few rent-controlled apartment complexes in the area sit hundreds deep.

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