Litter

STATELINE, Nev. - Using the MLK Day of Service to volunteer, staff from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) spent Monday picking up trash around the informal sled hill between Heavenly Village and Harrah's Tahoe.

The 11 volunteers picked up 68.5 lbs of trash equaling 90 gallons of volume. TRPA is part of the League to Save Lake Tahoe Blue Crew and have committed their volunteers to working in the area twice a month. They'll be back later this week to clean along Montreal Road and Van Sickle Bi-State Park.

Tahoe is a wonderland. Every season creates not only beautiful landscapes, but also new opportunities to get outside and play. For those of us that enjoy playing in the outdoors there are some simple practices we can all engage in to spread cheer all year and everywhere.

Tread Lightly
In the show “The Crown” the queen educates Margaret Thatcher on proper behavior while stalking a stag. She mentions the importance of dressing properly, speaking quietly, and avoiding wearing perfumes. The same is true for spending time outside while visiting Tahoe.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe will be holding an adoption day on Wednesday, September 23 at 10:00 a.m. They have over a dozen vaCATion puppies and kittens available for adoption at that time.

Adoptions will be via a safe and secure virtual adoption process.

If you're not quite ready for that kind of commitment, they are encouraging people to turn travel savings into a lifesaving donation. There are several different types of contribution levels the will be helping save lots of little lives.

Donate $50 for Treats & Toys for our Shelter Pets

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Lake Tahoe is the vacation destination for millions of people annually, but recent behaviors of many of the tourists have the residents on edge. Trash is being left behind on beaches, trails and picnic areas, overflowing trash containers are shown daily on social media pages, stores are packed and roads are crowded, all during a pandemic while travel orders are still in place for the California.

With international travel at a standstill many are keeping their vacationing during the coronavirus to locations near their homes, and Lake Tahoe is one of those spots.

A few spots are left in the this summer's Tahoe Forest Stewardship Day on Saturday, July 25 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Join the League to Save Lake Tahoe for a small, RSVP only and physically distanced restoration event. The deadline to sign up is coming quickly - 4:00 p.m. on Friday, July 24.

By pitching in, you are improving ecosystem health and the wildlife habitats that surround Lake Tahoe. Healthy forests and meadows act as natural pollution filters to Keep Tahoe Blue.

Volunteers of all ages and skill levels are invited to this fun, hands-on restoration day.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - In response to the COVID-19 pandemic the Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe (HSTT) has been providing increased support to the South Lake Tahoe community, distributing hundreds of pounds of cat and dog food along with numerous other services.

The food distribution from when HSTT shut down to the public due to COVID are as follows:

Dry dog food: 1719 lbs total ~ 171 lbs a week
Dry cat food: 178 lbs total ~ 18 lbs a week
Canned dog food: 636 cans ~ 64 cans a week
Canned cat food: 467 cans ~ 47 cans a week
Cat litter: 130 lbs total ~ 13 lbs a week

Thursday June 18 | 9 - 9:45 am
Tuesday, June 23 | noon - 12:45 pm
Wednesday, June 24 | 4:30 - 5:15 pm

Be a part of the solution by joining Tahoe Blue Crew and taking action to remove litter from your Lake Tahoe community! Through our Zoom training you will learn how to become a Tahoe Blue Crew Leader and how execute your own Blue Crew experiences.

Head to keeptahoeblue.org/events for more information and to register today!

Location

Wednesday, June 10 | noon - 12:30 pm
Wednesday, June 10 | 4:30 - 5 pm

Be a part of the solution by joining Tahoe Blue Crew and taking action to remove litter from your Lake Tahoe community! Through this Zoom training you will learn how to become a Tahoe Blue Crew leader and how to execute your own Blue Crew experience.

Head to https://www.keeptahoeblue.org/news/events/2020-June-3-TBC-training for more information and to register today.

Location

Friday, May 29 | 1 - 1:30 pm

Be a part of the solution by joining Tahoe Blue Crew and taking action to remove litter from your Lake Tahoe community! Through our Zoom training you will learn how to become a Tahoe Blue Crew Leader and how to execute your own Blue Crew experience.

Head to https://www.keeptahoeblue.org/news/events/2020-May-29-TBC-training for more information and to register today.

Location

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - A team of volunteers will be handing out sugar pine seedlings to students at four South Lake Tahoe school sites on Friday, April 24.

The Sugar Pine Foundation has given a box of seedlings to Bijou Community School, Sierra House Elementary, Tahoe Valley Elementary, and South Tahoe Middle School. The free seedlings will be given out when students pick up their meals between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. while supplies last.

At Tahoe Valley, TRex will be on hand to hand out the sugar pines, and at the Middle School, meet Hans the service dog.

INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. - The Incline Village General Improvement District (IVGID) Board of Trustees voted unanimously to prohibit the use of any form of tobacco at all district-owned and operated facilities, including restrooms, spectator and concession areas.

Per Nevada statutes, marijuana and vaping use were already prohibited in all public spaces.

The move by the board was to "help protect the health, safety, and welfare of the residents and guests of Incline Village and Crystal Bay."

Join Clean Tahoe on Saturday, September 21st from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm at Cove East for a cleanup along the Truckee River, followed by a beach picnic. Volunteers can meet at the Cove East trail (to the right of the entrance to the Keys Marina)and pick up trash on foot, or launch your kayaks behind Motel 6 and pick up litter on the river banks from the water. Our field crew will escort the kayaks down the river. Sign up at www.clean-tahoe.org/great-sierra-river-cleanup

Cigarette butts are the most commonly gathered items at beach and other clean-ups around Lake Tahoe. At the League to Save Tahoe's most recent cleanups this month (the Tahoe City Cleanup and the South Lake Tahoe Bike Path Cleanup) over 4,500 cigarette butts were collected. Last year more than 27,600 cigarette butts were collected in and around Lake Tahoe by the League alone.

Monday, June 3 | 5 - 8 pm

Help get South Tahoe's bike paths clean for the summer biking season, and prevent litter from entering our streams and Lake Tahoe.

Earn points for the Tahoe Bike Challenge.
Ride your bike to the event & receive a raffle ticket.
Free to attend & all ages welcome.

Hosted celebration for volunteers to follow at the League to Save Lake Tahoe with Oskar Blues beer, Robert Mondavi wine and Hors d'oeuvre.

For more information and to RSVP go to https://www.keeptahoeblue.org/news/events/bike-path-cleanup-2019.

Location

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Law enforcement and medical issues associated with the 2018 SnowGlobe Music Festival were down again on the event's second night, leading City of South Lake Tahoe staff to call the evening "another success."

After much concern from the community, staff has been working to alleviate concerns from them concerning noise and trouble for law enforcement.

Highlights of the second day include:

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Just as people are responding to those left homeless in the devastating Camp Fire in the town of Paradise, concerned citizens are also taking care of pets with those who were evacuated as well as those who have yet to be reunited with their owners.

Several trips have already been made by South Lake Tahoe locals to the camps in areas near Paradise both for humans and pets.

The Clean Tahoe Program would like to extend our sincere thanks to Ricky Reich for a $53,000 donation that allowed the program to purchase a new truck for our field crew. The donation came as a result of an emergency situation, as one of our much-used trucks was involved in an accident and deemed a total loss.

On the morning of Saturday, September 15, Clean Tahoe and Keep Tahoe Blue volunteers scoured beaches, rivers, and meadows along the south and east shores of Lake Tahoe to pick up trash and debris as part of the 10th annual Great Sierra River Cleanup.

Early on the morning of September 3, 2018, over 70 Keep Tahoe Blue volunteers arrived at Commons Beach in Tahoe City to comb the sands along six miles of shoreline in search of items left behind by those enjoying the previous night’s fireworks festivities.

They collected 224 pounds of litter including 2,064 cigarette butts and 1,520 pieces of plastic. League to Save Lake Tahoe staff ship the cigarette butts to a company on the east coast that upcycles them into new plastic products. Plastic cannot be upcycled and end up in landfills.

Tahoe Coalition for the Homeless (TCH) is grateful to Mechanics Bank for a corporate donation of $2500. Founded in 1905, Mechanics Bank provides personal banking, business banking, trust and estate services, brokerage and wealth management services throughout California. Merchants Bank invests in the same communities in which they live and work.

On Saturday May 12th, 294 volunteers scoured South Tahoe neighborhoods to help clean up litter and kick off the summer with a sparkling clean town. The groups of volunteers covered nineteen different locations and gathered an estimated 2,465 pounds of trash and debris from our environment.

Volunteers took to the streets along Lake Tahoe Blvd and around Stateline, Ski Run, Bijou, Al Tahoe, Rufus Allen, Tahoe Sierra/Sierra Tract, Tahoe Island, Gardner Mountain, and the “Y”. Some neighborhoods had multiple groups fanning out to cover more ground.

South Lake Tahoe joins at least 114 other entities in California in banning polystyrene, a type of plastic manufactured from non-renewable fossil fuels and synthetic chemicals that is not biodegradable and becoming a concern across the country.

Starting October 1, 2018, certain single use expanded polystyrene and plastic products will be banned in the City limits "in order to reduce and prevent the presence of this type of litter in the environment and to promote environmentally sustainable practices."

Included in the ban:

The South Lake Tahoe City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to start the process to implement a three-tier ban of Styrofoam (Polystyrene) in the city limits.

Following the path of over one hundred cities and counties in California, South Lake Tahoe will ban single-use Polystyrene used for take-out foods, and ban retail sales of foam coolers and single-use food containers at all retail stores. The third tier voted on is already a part of special event regulations - all containers used must be compostable.

A $5,000 matching gift by Tahoe Blue Vodka has led to over $10,000 raised to support the League to Save Lake Tahoe’s beach and community cleanups.

“We can’t thank Matt Levitt and Tahoe Blue Vodka enough for their continued support for our efforts to protect Lake Tahoe’s shoreline,” said Darcie Goodman Collins, PhD, the League’s executive director. “Our beach cleanups are a central part of our efforts to engage Tahoe’s community, and this gift brought the community together to help provide the funds we need.”