Mark your calendars now for the 8th Annual North Lake Tahoe Truckee Earth Day Festival on Saturday, April 18, at the Village at Squaw Valley USA. The event is free with fun for all ages. The Earth Day event provides an opportunity to learn about recycling, composting, alternative energy, sustainability, watershed and forest health, reducing our carbon footprints and more. North Lake Tahoe Truckee Earth Day has become the largest environmental event in the region, combining a vast array of eco-friendly exhibitors with world class musical entertainment and family-friendly activities.

Earth Day 2009 will once again strive to be a Zero Waste event.  Last year's event resulted in only 7 percent of the total waste needing to be disposed of in a landfill.  All other materials were recycled or composted. Typical trash receptacles will not be available during the Earth Day event, in an effort to drastically minimize waste. Booth participants are requested to minimize handouts and implement other forms of waste reduction.  All food vendors will be using biodegradable take-out containers made of either paper or PLA, a high tech starch-based plastic. Food and biodegradable waste will be collected and composted. The compost will return to Sierra Nevada College’s demonstration garden in Incline Village.

The waters of Lake Tahoe were clear to an average depth of 69.6 feet in 2008, according to University of California, Davis scientists who have monitored the lake since 1968. That keeps the clarity measurement in the range where it has been for about the past eight years.

When measurements began in 1968, a white "Secchi disk" lowered into the lake was visible at an average depth of 102.4 feet.

Last year UC Davis reported that data since 2001 suggested lake clarity was not declining as fast as it had been. That encouraging finding is supported by the 2008 average, which is nearly identical to the 2007 average of 70.1 feet.

The U.S. Forest Service fuels management staff will be conducting  prescribed fire operations in Slaughterhouse Canyon beginning Wednesday, March 18, and continuing through the weekend pending favorable weather conditions. Residents and travelers can expect to see smoke from prescribed fire project area on the East Shore.

This and other prescribed fire projects are designed to reduce wildfire risks to communities and critical resources.  Smoke management is part of every prescribed fire burn plan, and efforts will be taken to reduce actual or potential smoke impacts on community areas.

A new attack is being waged today in the fight against the Asian clam infestation in Lake Tahoe, as researchers try out new methods to reduce the Asian clam population. If the weather cooperates, those new methods will be tested starting today, March 16.

Asian Clams, an invasive aquatic species, are a concern for Lake Tahoe, and the University of California, Davis research staff at the Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC) in Incline Village has been working hard to develop solutions for combating this unwelcome visitor.

Also known as Corbicula fluminea, the Asian clam was first discovered near the southeast shore of Lake Tahoe in April 2008. These creatures "are well known as aggressive competitors that have significant environmental impacts on the aquatic systems they invade," according to preliminary findings by UC Davis researchers.