[0]North Lake Tahoe Bonanza: Hundreds of people gathered Saturday to clean Incline Village’s streets in the fourth installment of Xstream Clean.

Event organizer Chris Laramore said participants covered 80 percent of Incline’s streets, more than in past years, and collected 6,800 pounds of garbage, down from about 9,000 last year.

“We’re not sure why that is yet; if it was because there were less people or because we held it on a Sunday,” Laramore said. “It could be that in the first few years we cleaned so well that less litter is accumulated.”

Laramore said less trash could signal that Xstream Clean’s anti-littering message is effective.

“Our goal has always been to educate the public about not littering, so that may have been a success,” he said. “People are more likely to keep an area cleaner once we’ve been through.”

No matter the reason, Laramore said, he was pleased with the results, though he may consider moving the event back to its traditional Sunday date to attract more participants. Originally, Laramore thought Saturday would bring more participants.
“I ran into a lot of people all week who said they had a baseball or soccer game to get to and couldn’t go,” Laramore said. “The input I’m getting is that people want to move it back to Sunday.”

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Laramore said the carnival, which followed the event, went off without a hitch, pointing to the National Guard climbing wall as a big hit with the kids in attendance. “The weather was great ,and the carnival was a big success,” Laramore said. “The dunk tank really got worked by the kids; they loved both dunking people and getting dunked.”