By KCRA

The 2022 Winter Olympic Games are more than a decade away, yet a Sacramento group is already working on the pitch to bring the games to Lake Tahoe.

The California Winter Games Committee announced a partnership between political, business and community leaders to explore ways to attract the worldwide spectacle to the Sierra for the first time since Squaw Valley hosted the games in 1960.

The committee said bringing the Olympics to Lake Tahoe would bring enormous economic benefit to hub cities like Sacramento.

The California committee will join forces with the Reno-Tahoe Winter Games Coalition to promote both states as combined hosts.

“We believe California needs a strong statewide effort to match up with the knowledge and resources from Nevada to create a unique, carefully constructed and economically feasible plan,” said Michael Faust, interim president of the California Winter Games Committee.

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By Kathryn Reed

Tour de California, the multi-day bike race that starts on the South Shore next month, can officially come to Tahoe. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency approved the permits April 28.

However, the enthusiasm for the ride is dependent on who one listens to.

At a meeting of Heavenly Village folks on Tuesday they spoke of gearing up for the May 15 start. Flags touting the event are hanging from poles. A band has been secured to play that Sunday. A big screen will be erected near Fire + Ice so people can watch the cyclists as they lap the lake 1½ times. That will be going on from 10:30am-2:30pm. Food vendors are still being secured.

The city of South Lake Tahoe is providing 15 tents to nonprofit organizations that will be put up between Stateline and the Y.

“Those got snatched up really quick,” Lauren Thomaselli, South Lake Tahoe events coordinator, said.

Private businesses are planning to have parties – some invite only, some open to the public along Highway 50.

However, don’t expect Lake Tahoe Community College to be participating. When board member Karen Borges asked interim President Steve Maradian on Tuesday what LTCC was doing for Amgen, he smirked and had nothing good to say.

“It’s not going to be as robust as originally thought,” he said of the whole event. “It’s not coming together the way they wanted it to, including the publicity.”

Maradian said the college is not having a booth at the expo at Horizon because of the expense.

Information about the events leading up to the start and for the two days the cyclists are in Tahoe is online.

By Carlos Alcalá, Sacramento Bee

It’s gold vs. golden trout.

And gold vs. coho salmon. And gold vs. Shasta crayfish.

The California Department of Fish and Game is wrestling – under court order – with a new set of rules to control suction dredge mining in the state’s rivers and streams.

Officials must take into account the health of aquatic species and aim to approve new rules by November.

It’s a tough task.

Dredge miners – several thousand individuals and hobby clubs – are angry about a moratorium in effect since 2009, and anxious to get back in the rivers now that gold is hitting $1,500 an ounce.

Many of the most popular areas are in the Mother Lode outside Sacramento. A survey of California miners listed Placer, El Dorado and Sierra as three of the top five counties for dredging visits.

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By Jeff Delong, Reno Gazette-Journal

Determined to stop Nevada’s first black bear hunt in its tracks, organized opponents are appealing a regulation allowing the hunt passed by the Nevada Wildlife Commission last December.

Commissioners are tentatively scheduled to consider the appeal when they meet in Reno May 12.

The administrative appeal filed by the nonprofit group NoBearHuntNV.org attempts to invalidate the hunt on the basis the Nevada Department of Wildlife and the Wildlife Commission failed to meet minimal public noticing and information requirements and failed to consider potential economic impacts to Lake Tahoe businesses.

The decision is also being challenged on the grounds it failed to provide an adequate wildlife management justification for the hunt and failed to properly employ science in estimating Nevada’s bear population.

Critics of the hunt, slated to begin in August, remain incensed.

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By Jeff Delong, Reno Gazette-Journal

Lake Tahoe regulators aim to get tough when it comes to people attempting to evade inspectors trying to protect the lake from aquatic invaders attached to boats launching into the lake.

Later this month, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency will consider rules making it illegal to lie to boat inspectors or tamper with seals designed to show boats have been inspected and are free of invasive species such as the quagga mussel.

The change is designed to beef up a boat inspection and decontamination program that’s been in place at the landmark alpine lake since the spring of 2008.

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The Tahoe Resource Conservation District will again manage the Truckee Area Watercraft Inspection Program for 2011.

Entering its second season, Truckee area inspections and boater education on aquatic invasive species will take place at Donner Lake and Boca, Prosser, and Stampede reservoirs from April 30 through Sept. 30. Current funding for Truckee Area watercraft inspections and outreach has been provided by the Truckee River Fund.

Inspections are voluntary, but highly recommended to avoid the spread of AIS, such as quagga and zebra mussels, New Zealand mudsnails and aquatic invasive plants, which pose a significant threat to Truckee/Tahoe area water bodies and the local economy. Free decontaminations will be available for high-risk vessels wishing to launch at Truckee area water bodies at the Alpine Meadows Transportation Station parking lot off Highway 89 and Northstar-at-Tahoe Castle Peak parking lot off Highway 267.

During 2010, Tahoe RCD inspectors logged more than 7,400 Truckee area boater interactions, including inspections and opportunities for boater education on AIS. Boater surveys completed during 2010 inspections indicated that 85 percent agree inspections are an important component in stopping the spread of aquatic invasive species.

To better serve the Truckee area and facilitate AIS prevention efforts, Tahoe RCD has opened a new office in the Tin Can Building in Truckee, located at 10116 Jibboom St. For more information, program updates and announcements go online or contact David Kean at (530) 587.4911.

The U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, working with the California Tahoe Conservancy, is proposing to restore the Sunset Stables Reach of the Upper Truckee River.

The project would replace the existing channel with one that has the width, depth and curves of a more naturally functioning river. The anticipated result would be a channel that is more stable and connected to the adjacent floodplain, provides better aquatic habitat and supports a healthier meadow ecosystem.

The project area includes about 13,000 linear feet of the river on approximately 297 acres, extending from the middle of the Lake Tahoe Airport runway to Highway 50 near Elks Club Drive.

The Forest Service and CTC are conducting a joint environmental review of the project and have produced a document that satisfies the California Environmental Quality Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The project is also subject to review by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

The project management team analyzed five alternatives, including the no-action alternative. The proposed project would involve constructing 12,000 feet of new channel, planting and temporarily irrigating native streamside vegetation along the new channel, creating floodplain features such as willow clumps to enhance wildlife and plant habitat, and removing conifers along the new channel. Under the proposal, CTC and the Forest Service would partially fill most of the old channel using excavated soil from the new channel, as well as some imported soil, and revegetate disturbed areas with native plants. Grade control structures at the upstream and downstream ends of each reach would redirect flow into the new channel and block off the old channel.

The Forest Service and CTC would implement the project in two phases, each lasting three to five years.

The Forest Service is accepting comments on the proposed project through midnight May 23. For more information, go online,  email Theresa Loupe at tloupe@fs.fed.us, or call (530) 543.2788.

El Dorado County has ventured into the world of video production in an ongoing effort to protect the world famous off-road Rubicon Trail. The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the new video titled, “It’s In Your Hands”.

“It’s In Your Hands” educates the public on proper use and expected behavior while visiting the Rubicon Trail in order to preserve it as the crown jewel of OHV trails for future generations. The video encourages off-road enthusiasts to consider the “Four S’s” of Trail use: Safety, Spills, Sedimentation and Sanitation.

Emmy award winning “Deadliest Catch” producer Todd Stanley produced the film under contract with El Dorado County. The video was shot at several locations on and nearby near the famed Rubicon Trail.

“It’s In Your Hands” was funded through a grant from the California State Parks, Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Division.

It is airing on the County website and on local cable Channel 2.

By Tom Knudson, Sacramento Bee

Outside Palm Desert, a young bobcat dies mysteriously at a nature preserve. South of Nevada City, a farmer finds an owl dead near his decoy shed. In San Rafael, a red-shouldered hawk bleeds heavily from its mouth and nose before succumbing at an animal care center.

Each of those incidents shares a link to a widely used toxin that is turning up at dangerous levels in wildlife across California: rat poison.

Over the years, rat poison has spared state residents untold filth and disease. But a new generation of highly toxic, long-lasting poisons is killing not only rats, mice and ground squirrels, but whatever feeds on them, too.

As a result, toxins are rippling outward from warehouses to woodlands, from golf courses and housing complexes to marshes and nature sanctuaries. In California, the victims include bobcats, barn owls, red-tailed hawks, coyotes, kit foxes, kestrels and scores of other predators and scavengers.

“Rodenticides are the new DDT,” said Maggie Sergio, director of advocacy at WildCare, a Bay Area wildlife rehabilitation center that has responded to dozens of poisoning cases. “It is an emergency, an environmental disaster. We are killing nature’s own rodent control.”

Researchers say the federal government has been slow to respond to the problem, which has been building for more than a decade. This June, after years of study, regulations take effect nationwide banning the most toxic, long-lasting rat poisons from hardware stores, big box home improvement centers and other consumer outlets.

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The Reno River Festival returns to downtown’s Truckee River Whitewater Park for year No. 8 on May 6–8.

The festival’s three days of nonstop outdoor fun includes live music and entertainment along with the return of crowd favorites such as the Friday night Kick-Off Party and concert with English Beat, 4th annual Run Amuck run and stand-up paddle board, boatercross and freestyle competitions featuring some of the world’s top whitewater athletes.

The 2nd annual Humans in Motion short video contest also hits screens again, featuring a $1,000 grand prize, in addition to the return of the Holland Project’s annual Double Dutch battle.

To register or for more information, go online or call (775) 784.9400, ext. 119.