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Snow-covered Earth Day Festival

Jack Barnwell
jbarnwell@tahoedailytribune.com
U.S. Forest Service employee Aimee Lorincz (left) hands out sugar pine saplings during the South Tahoe Earth Day Festival at Bijou Park on Saturday.
Jack Barnwell / Tahoe Daily Tribune |

Spring snow greeted a South Lake Earth Day festival on Saturday as a foot of snow blanketed Bijou Community Park.

That didn’t stop people from turning out or vendors from setting up for the annual festival.

Instead it provided a white background as people trudged through the snow or ambled from booth to booth looking at the various displays by local nonprofit agencies.



South Lake Tahoe Police Department Explorers helped coordinate traffic while pedestrians crossed from the Lake Tahoe Community College parking lot to the park.

The U.S. Forest Service held on-the-spot briefs about identifying trees and provided free sugar pine saplings for people to plant, the El Dorado County Vector Control District educated on various mosquito species, and the League to Save Lake Tahoe provided information on the lake’s environment.



At 1 p.m., Bijou Community School’s after-school circus club put on a jungle-themed play written by the students.

Amaia Gallego and her brother Breden took the opportunity to explore the U.S. Forest Service booth.

“We learned about what trees and pinecones there are and how they make letters from the pine needles,” Amaia said.

The snow provided a different twist, too.

“It’s kind of crazy but it helps with the lake’s water,” Amaia said.

South Tahoe Earth Day’s committee chair Jeanne Lear said the turnout and festival went well considering the snow.

“It made us find our snow packs, our mittens and jackets,” Lear said cheerfully. “We were all thinking it’s spring time and we were right because that’s what spring is like in Tahoe.”


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