washoevalley.org

The South Valleys Area Plan was approved by the
Regional Planning Governing Board
on May 14, 2009

Highlights:
•    Strong vision and mission statements to maintain the rural character
of Washoe Valley
•    One house per five acres for East Washoe Valley including
Ophir Lake Properties (no specific plan for Mr. Weston)
•    One house per ten acres for West Washoe Valley with encouragement for ongoing agricultural land use
•    Defined commercial area boundaries with limited expansion
•    Compatible Allowed Uses for the commercial area
•    Language that shows the support Washoe County and the
Regional Planning Commission for a scenic byway
A fourteen mile Washoe Valley State Scenic Byway has been approved by the Nevada Department of Transportation.
Please check washoevalley.org for updates.
Goal not met:       The South Valleys Area Plan does not keep the TMSA out of Washoe Valley. Mr. Weston has a TMSA request for public water and sewer for his entire 640 acres.  Negotiations are in progress to limit his TMSA access to the north of the hydrographic basin line (currently being surveyed) on the property.  The TMSA request will be heard before the end of this year.
Please check washoevalley.org for updates.
Appreciation:
Thank you to Commissioner David Humke; Washoe County Community Development; East and West Washoe Valley CAB members; the Washoe Valley Working Group members; and to the dedication and spirit of the entire Washoe Valley community.
Special thanks to washoevalley.org for keeping us informed.

We were treated to a rare lightning show last night as a cell moved over the Carson Range to the west moving from south to north. For more lightning photos go to my flickr.com site.

We recently received this question:

“Does anyone know why there are so many dead fish on the beach at Washoe Lake?”

We received this info from State Parks:

“According to the fisheries biologist from the Department of Wildife the fish are dying off due to the low lake levels and warm water temperatures. The fish are basically oxygen starved. Wildlife says there are too many fish competing for oxygen in too small a space. The small fish on the beach are Sacramento Perch. We are trying to pick the dead ones up the birds don’t eat and dispose of them.”

Donna Silva
Washoe Lake (State Park)

I suspect as the lake evaporates, this will continue- ed.

Just got our newsletter about the freeway extension. It’s a good reminder to check out their cool website at

www.freewayextension.com

Dear Rick:  I wrote you previously with a question about weeds, and you were very helpful.

Any info or explanation you can provide (or forward my question to some “expert”?), I would appreciate.

Hi, Dear Reader,

I’m sorry you received no help from the UNRCE. It is too bad they say they want our help butthen ignore us! As far as invasive weeds go, I went to the website of the Washoe/Pleasant Valley Cooperative Weed Management Area (the folks who I think put up the sign) and couldn’t find a definition. Their site needs some work. But try their email link anyway.

I think, in my limited knowledge, that invasive or noxious weeds are those that are not native to our area and push out the native and more beneficial plants and “weeds”.

I think the “authorities” are mostly concerned with a set list of weeds that they are battling in large areas such as parks,  pastures, roadsides and waterways. We here at washoevally.org have expanded that with our information about “obnoxious” weeds that appear in our yards at home.

If you have specific weed you are curious about, send us a photo and we’ll try to learn more about it and add it to our list!

weed shown: Spiny Skeleton Weed. Ouch! But easy to root out.

We drove by Incline Lake the other day and noticed it was drained. It has since been mentioned in the media. Recently, the feds spent $46 million for a property with the major feature, and presumably the majority of the value, of an alpine lake. Now, after paying a premium for a lake, the feds say their is a danger of the 1946 dam failing. Huh? Couldn’t this be determined before we bought the lake?

Maybe we could have gotten a deal by saving the owner of the liability.

Anyway, we need to figure out a way to save our investment. Right here above Washoe Valley we have an answer, I think. Recently a homeowner in the northwest side of the valley allegedly modified Joy Lake, another old reservoir, without approved engineering or permits according to news reports. After the work was completed, the state engineer awarded him with a letter saying essentially that all standards had been met and the lake would “be safe for years to come”.

Let’s send this dam genius up to Incline Lake, let him work his magic on his homeowner’s budget and get a similar stamp of approval from the Nevada State Engineer.

One party sold us a lake that doesn’t exist and another took it upon himself to make a lake bigger and safe. We need to convince these dam people who know how to work the system to work for us too!

We got this “heads up” from a neighbor:

“Early this morning while leaving for work there was a vehicle that appeared to be casing the neighborhood and paid particular interest to the mailboxes on the street. The sherrif’s department was notified and stated that they would send out an officer to check on the situation.

This is unsettling to me so I wanted to pass this on to others. I know that the peacefulness of the valley can often decieve and make us think that we are immune to these situations when in fact we really are part of a large metropolitan area and that we need to keep our guard up at all times.”

With the economy the way it is and more people falling on hard times there is more risk than ever that “big city” crime will move into rural areas. A friend of ours had his wallet stolen from his unlocked car up at Tahoe the other day in his previously “quite and friendly” neighborhood. Yeah, he was a dummy to do that anywhere but we can all be lulled in to carelessness the same way out in Washoe Valley.

Washoe County Neighborhood Watch Program

According to the Wall Street Journal, other Nevada locales are gearing up for another Mormon Cricket invasion due to the mild winter. Places like North Reno and ghosttowns such as Tuscarora are being creative in their defense strategies against the sea of 2 inch insects. Residents of Tuscarora, all 13 of them, claim that the crickets hate hard rock music and are arranging  semicircle of boomboxes around the town to play noxious tunes from morning to night.

Meanwhile, here in Washoe Valley, we saw a 2 inch scorpion roadkill today on our walk and are cursing the burr buttercup that is springing up all over that will soon be the bane of any dogs paws.

Reno Evening Gazette, October 30, 1880

A Grand Illumination.

Franktown was blazing last night. A procession with torches, banners and transparencies marched up and down. There were many ladies in the procession. Huge bonfires blazed at every corner. A unique feature was vast illumination on the mountainside west of town. A fire had been raging there for a week and it had left dots of flame scattered about all up and down the vast wall for some distance. The evening was dark and the grand illumination showed up splendidly and roused a great deal of admiration. It seemed as if the very mountains were endorsing Garfield and Arthur.

(editors note: James Garfield won the presidency in November and Chester Arthur was vice president. In July 1881, Garfield was assasinated and Arthur took over as president until 1885.)

The San Francisco Call, January 14, 1896

Carson Opium Smugglers

Officers Find Fifty Pounds of the Drug and a Counterfeit Mixture in a Cache

Carson, Nev. Jan. 13. United State District Attorney Jones to-day found fifty taels of opium buried in one of the stalls at the racetrack. Lee Brooks, who hid the drug there, recently left town and now is serving sentence in the Washoe County Jail for defrauding a Reno man out of $60.
A man named Jordan, who occupied a cell with Brooks in jail some time ago, was his confidante, and learned that Brooks had a quantity of opium buried in one of the stalls at the Carson racetrack.  Brooks wanted him, as soon as he was released from custody, to take the opium away so officers would not find it. Jordan, instead of doing as requested, immediately informed the Sheriff of Washoe County and he came over yesterday and told the United States District Attorney. Together they went to the track and found one case of opium, containing fifty boxes.
Some of it was a mixture of molasses, etc. with which Brooks and his partner, Harry Butts, are supposed to have duped unsuspecting Chinamen, presumably showing them good opium and then selling the mixture, which was similar to it in appearance. Three hundred pounds of the same mixture was recently found at Washoe Lake.

(editors note: a “tael” is a chinese unit of measurement, sometimes about 40 grams. Also, this article was transcribed exactly as it appeared in the paper.)