Washoe Lake State Park

WASHOE VALLEY, Nev.–Astronomy experts and park rangers invite the public to Washoe Lake State Park on August 2 from 8:00 p.m. through 11:30 p.m. for a stargazing party.

High-powered telescopes will be available to view galaxies, nebulae, star clusters, satellites, the moons of Jupiter and many other fascinating objects in the Milky Way sky.

Bring a light jacket because evenings can be cool.

The park is located on Eastlake Blvd. 10 miles north of Carson City and 15 miles south of Reno off U.S. 395. After entering, go left to the overflow boat lot, just east of the group pavilion area.

Cathedral Gorge State Park, Nevada

It’s easy to understand why Cathedral Gorge was made into one of Nevada’s first state parks in the 1930s. With its tall, deeply grooved, tan-brown, clay spires rising high above a narrow valley, Cathedral Gorge is something truly unique.

Cathedral Gorge is a place with great texture, beauty and mystery. Deep, shadowy crevices in the craggy cliff walls hint at hidden, dark passageways that lead into the unknown.

Read the complete story at the Backyard Traveler.

Washoe Lake State Park

WASHOE VALLEY, Nev.– Take a leisurely stroll through Washoe Lake’s wetlands with park rangers and bird experts on July 26, 2008 from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Learn ways to identify different birds in the field by sight, sound and behavior

Although the park has a few binoculars available for loan, it is advised visitors bring their own binoculars. Staff will have birding books on hand.

Everyone will meet on July 26 from 8 a.m. through 10 a.m. at the wetlands viewing area The viewing area is located one and a half miles east on East Lake Boulevard off Highway 395, exit 44, between Reno and Carson City.

The program is free.

Dangberg Home Ranch

MINDEN, Nev.– Nevada State Parks invites the public to a free stargazing event on Saturday, July 26, at the Dangberg Home Ranch Historic Park in Minden.

Beginning at 8:30 p.m., park staff along with members of the Astronomical Society of Nevada will be on site with telescopes to view Jupiter, the moon, Milky Way and other astronomical sights in the sky over Carson Valley. People with their own telescopes are welcome to bring them to the event. The event will end at 10:00 p.m.

Visitors are advised to put on bug repellant, bring a blanket, lawn chairs, a light jacket and a non-alcoholic beverage. A portable restroom is available on-site.

Dangberg Home Ranch Historic Park is located just west of Minden, approximately one mile south of Douglas High School at 1450 Highway 88. When approaching from the north on State Route 88, turn right on the dirt road where the Park Cattle Company sign is located.

Please drive slowly as cattle may be on the road. The ranch house is located approximately a half-mile from the turnoff on Highway 88.

Tours of Dangberg Home Ranch Historic Park are conducted Wednesdays through Sundays at 10:00 a.m., with a second Sunday tour at 2:00 p.m. Advance tour reservations are required and can be made by calling the park at 775-783-9417 or e-mailing dangbergranch@parks.nv.gov. Tour group sizes are limited to 10 people. Tour admission is $3.00 for adults and free for children 12 and under.

LAKE TAHOE, Nev.–The Nevada Division of State Lands is continuing fuels reduction work on state-owned, urban parcels on the eastern side of the Lake Tahoe basin. Work consists primarily of brush removal and the thinning of smaller diameter trees in residential areas of Washoe and Douglas counties.

“Reducing hazardous fuel is our primary objective as most of the state-owned parcels are in residential neighborhoods,” said Jim Lawrence, Division of State Lands’ administrator. “We are fulfilling our responsibilities as owners of these parcels.”

Parcels scheduled for treatment are an important piece of a larger strategy that incorporates fuels reduction work by other cooperators and agencies. Nevada Division of State Lands collaborates with local communities, the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District, the Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District, the U.S. Forest Service and the Nevada Fire Safe Council.

In 1993, the state began a fuels reduction and forest improvement program to decrease the fire risk on its urban parcels.

“Our goal is to treat each parcel every eight to 10 years,” Lawrence said. “At this point, 85 percent of our lots have had an initial treatment. This work is critical to minimize the risk and impact of a wildfire by reducing the amount of potential fuels on state-owned parcels.”.

Funding for the work comes from multiple sources, with the majority coming from the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, or SNPLMA. These funds are vital for the continued treatment success and future management activities of the almost 500 state-owned urban parcels, which were purchased by the state as part of the voter-approved 1986 Tahoe Basin Act.

For information, please contact Jeff Haas at 775-684-2743 or Elyse Randles at 775-684-2735.

Ruling grants Southern Nevada Water Authority 18,755 acre-feet annually of 34,752 acre-feet requested

CARSON CITY, Nev.—Nevada’s State Engineer Tracy Taylor released his ruling today on the Cave Valley, Dry Lake Valley and Delamar Valley water right applications filed by the Las Vegas Valley Water District. The applications are now held by the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Taylor’s ruling grants to SNWA 18,755 acre-feet of water annually. LVVWD applied for 34,752 acre-feet annually in applications that were originally filed in 1989.

Today’s ruling comes after a hearing held in February.

Allen Biaggi, director of the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said that the State Engineer’s ruling demonstrates the strength of Nevada’s water law in balancing the needs of its citizens, protecting existing water rights and protecting Nevada’s natural resources.

“Taylor’s ruling is consistent with state law, is based on the best available science, and it allows for mitigation should environmental impacts occur in these basins as a result of pumping ground water,” he said.

Taylor previously ruled on ground-water withdrawals from Spring Valley and the first day of hearing is scheduled for Snake Valley on July 15.

KEY FINDINGS

The ruling’s key points include:

• Protests to application numbers 53987 through 53992 were overruled in part and upheld in part.
• The State Engineer is prohibited by law from granting an application to appropriate public waters where
o There is no unappropriated water at the proposed source.
o The proposed use or change conflicts with existing rights.
o The proposed use or change conflicts with domestic wells.
o The proposed change or use threatens to prove detrimental to the public interest.
• The State Engineer concludes there is unappropriated water for export from each of the valleys.
• The applications are granted subject to:
o A monitoring and mitigation program prior any water exportation
o A minimum of two years of data collection, as approved by the State Engineer, prior to exportation.
o Possible mitigation and/or halting of any pumping if there are impacts to existing water rights, conflicts with existing domestic wells or the pumping threatens to prove detrimental to the public interest or is found not to be environmentally sound.

KEY TERM

Perennial yield: The perennial yield of a ground-water reservoir may be defined as the maximum amount of ground water that can be salvaged each year over the long term without depleting the ground-water reservoir. Perennial yield is ultimately limited to the maximum amount of natural discharge that can be salvaged for beneficial use.

MORE INFORMATION

Download the complete ruling

Dry, Cave, Delamar Valleys Hearing Web site

Nevada Division of Water Resources Web site

Spring Valley ruling

Washoe Lake State Park

WASHOE VALLEY, Nev.—The Nevada Division of State Parks is offering a program on map and compass readings at Washoe Lake State Park July 12. Topics include the use of a compass, basic map reading and pacing for distance measurement. By the end of the session, participants will be able to successfully navigate a route on a short map and compass course.

This program will be held 9 a.m. to noon and is limited to 20 participants. Please call  775-687-4319  to reserve a place in the program. Children over the age of 10 are welcome. Participants will meet at the park’s group pavilion.

Spooner Lake sits in an alpine meadow to the east of Lake Tahoe, almost at the junction of highways 28 and 50. A Nevada State Park, Spooner Lake is part of a trail system that connects Tahoe Rim Trail, Marlette Lake, Spooner Summit and the Great Flume trails that go north from Highway 50 to Mount Rose Interpretive Trail along Highway 431 at the north. Most of these trails are long hauls — 10 and 20-mile treks that gain more than 1,000 feet in elevation.

Spooner Lake is great for families because it’s flat and just a 1.6-mile loop. But the real fun of Spooner Lake is its changing scenery as hikers move around the lake.

At the west end are a number of flat granite boulders that were used by Washoe Indians hundreds of years ago to grind pine nuts and acorns into staples such as biscuits and mush. According to the book, “Lake Tahoe,” by Lisa Gollin Evans, the lake area was the site a summer camps for the Washoe.

Read the complete story at the Chico Enterprise Record.

Drought conditions, increasing daytime temperatures and high winds have prompted the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Carson City District Office, the Carson and Bridgeport Ranger Districts of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, and the Nevada Division of Forestry’s Sierra Forest Fire Protection District to announce the implementation of fire restrictions Tuesday, July 1, 2008, and lasting until further notice.

Vegetation in western Nevada and eastern California has dried out significantly since receiving only about 50-percent of normal snowfall last winter. A large crop of grass and brush is evident at lower elevations and trees and other forest vegetation at higher elevations are quickly drying out. The public is encouraged to safely enjoy the public lands, bearing in mind that the recent Martis, Waterfall, Andrew and Hawken fires were all human-caused.

Motorists are advised to be careful when driving off-road, because hot exhaust systems can ignite dry grasses. The potential for another devastating fire during the summer is very real. Report fires to the Interagency Dispatch Center, Minden, Nevada,   (775) 883-5995, or dial 911.

Fire Restrictions Prohibit:

1. Building, maintaining, attending or using a fire (using wood, charcoal or any other material), campfire, or stove fire except a portable stove using gas or pressurized liquid fuel, outside of a developed fee campground or picnic area (except by permit).

2. Smoking, except within an enclosed vehicle or at a developed campground or picnic area.

3. Welding, or operating an acetylene torch with open flames, except by permit.

4. Using or causing to be used, any explosive, except by permit.

5. Possession or use of fireworks, or any other incendiary device.

6. Use of tracer rounds, steel-core ammunition or exploding targets while recreational shooting.

7. Open burning (e.g. weeds, brush and yard debris).

In addition, the Nevada Division of Forestry restrictions within the Sierra Fire Protection District prohibit operating vehicles off of existing hard surface gravel roads or dirt roads in wildland areas, and operating vehicles or equipment traveling on or using wildland areas without at least an axe, shovel and one gallon of water. The BLM and the Forest Service recommend avoiding cross-country travel whenever possible to prevent grass from igniting from hot exhaust systems. All agencies recommend that individuals carry cell phones while in the wildlands or national forests to report wild fires.

Affected Areas:

BLM -all areas, roads and trails on the BLM-Carson District outside of developed recreation sites with the exception of Sand Mountain Recreation Area, and the portion of the Walker Lake Recreation Area within 100 yards of Walker Lake, or between Walker Lake and U.S. Highway 95 where camp fires are permitted.

Forest Service - all areas, roads and trails, with the exception of campfires covered by a valid campfire permit in the Hope Valley & Blue Lakes areas.

NDF – all areas, roads and trails within the boundaries of the Sierra

Forest Fire Protection District in Carson City and Storey County. This order also applies to the following state parks: Lake Tahoe Nevada, Washoe Lake, the Carson River Ranches portion of Ft. Churchill, and Dayton in western Nevada, and Beaver Dam, Cave Lake and Spring Mountain in Southern Nevada.

Citizens are reminded that the charcoal grills cannot be used during fire restrictions. Charcoal burns longer and hotter than wood and may appear to be cold; however, embers can linger for hours. Winds can spread the embers from charcoal and campfires into vegetation, igniting a wildfire. Propane or white gas stoves, however, are acceptable for use during fire restrictions.

As fire season continues the BLM, Forest Service and NDF will be aggressively citing those who do not comply with the posted restrictions and those who use or possess fireworks. Violation of these prohibitions is subject to punishment by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than six months or both, as Class B misdemeanors under federal law (agency statutes vary). Persons may also be responsible for resource damage, suppression costs and any injuries that occur if they are found liable for causing a wildfire.

For more information or clarification on the restrictions, please contact the BLM-Carson City District Office at 775-885-6000, the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest at 775-882-2766  (Carson Ranger District) or 760-932-7070 (Bridgeport Ranger District), or the Nevada Division of Forestry at 775-849-2500.