UPPER LAKE, Calif. – An early Monday morning crash that authorities said was the result of drunk driving left two drivers with injuries and resulted in the arrest of one of them.
The California Highway Patrol’s Clear Lake Area office said the crash occurred at 12:40 a.m. Monday on Highway 20 near Upper Lake.
Gabriela Garcia, 28, of Ukiah was driving her black 2011 Nissan Altima westbound on Highway 20, east of Scotts Valley Road, as Pedro Mendoza, 30, of Lakeport was driving his white 2006 Dodge Dakota eastbound in the same area, the CHP said.
The CHP report said that due to Garcia’s level of intoxication, she allowed her Nissan to cross over the solid double yellow lines, directly into Mendoza’s path of travel, and the two vehicles collided head-on.
As a result of the collision, Garcia was rendered unresponsive, with major injuries. She was extricated by emergency personnel from her vehicle, while Mendoza exited his vehicle on his own and related his entire body was in pain, the CHP said.
The CHP said firefighters transported both Garcia and Mendoza by ambulance to Sutter Lakeside Hospital in Lakeport. Mendoza was reported to have moderate injuries.
Garcia was transported from Sutter Lakeside to Kaiser Vacaville by air ambulance, according to the CHP.
At the hospital, Garcia was contacted by CHP from the Solano Area office at 4:45 a.m. and determined to be under the influence of alcohol. The CHP said she was then notified she was under arrest for felony DUI.
Both drivers were wearing their seat belts, the CHP said.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
BERKELEY, Calif. – Increasing the minimum wage and expanding a tax credit for low-wage workers may prevent more than 1,200 suicides each year, according to a new working paper by a team of UC Berkeley researchers.
The study, which will be published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, shows that a 10-percent increase in the minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit has a dramatic impact on the number of non-drug-related suicides among men and women without college degrees.
“A lot of the time the discussion of higher minimum wages is framed in narrow economic terms,” said Anna Godøy, a research economist with UC Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and a co-author of the paper. “What this study shows is that the debate is not only about jobs and wages, it is also about mental health.”
“In short,” Godøy added, “our study shows that higher minimum wages are likely to save lives.”
While other studies have suggested connections between higher minimum wages and a decline in suicides, the working paper, titled “Can Economic Policies Reduce Deaths of Despair?,” is the first to prove a direct relationship.
Using 16 years of mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control, census figures and analyses of government wage and tax policies, the research team, which included economists and public health experts, was able to show how the new policies caused a decline in suicides.
“Our models show that when states implement these policies, the suicide rate drops,” Godøy said. “This further supports our conclusion that this is a cause-and-effect relationship.”
Specifically, a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage dropped suicides among men and women without college degrees aged 18 to 64 by 3.6 percent. A 10 percent increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit dropped suicides among the same group by 5.5 percent.
"Our results show that even modest increases to the incomes of low-wage workers can make a difference,” said William Dow, interim dean of UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health and a co-author of the paper. “The largest effects were on women, who are more likely to work minimum wage jobs and be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit.”
The paper found that increases to the minimum wage and tax credits had no significant effects on drug-related deaths.
The researchers also controlled for factors like expansion of Medicaid and did not see similar declines in suicides among a college-educated placebo sample.
Godøy said that while the Berkeley paper did not examine why an increase in minimum wage or tax credits lead to a drop in the number of suicides, previous research has shown that greater financial security is connected to improved mental health.
The strong link between changes to tax and wage policies should encourage policy makers to understand the “full consequences of changes to economic policies,” when debating increasing the federal minimum wage, Godøy said.
In addition to Godøy and Dow, the research team included Christopher Lowenstein, a graduate student researcher at the School of Public Health, and Michael Reich, a professor of economics at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.
COBB, Calif. – A 3.2-magnitude earthquake was reported in south Lake County early Saturday.
The quake was reported at 5:33 a.m. Saturday, 3 miles west northwest of Cobb and 11.9 miles southwest of Clearlake, at a depth of six-tenths of a miles, according to the US Geological Survey.
The USGS said it received 13 shake reports from around Lake County, the Bay Area and as far away as Tustin.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
Lakeport Police Department Evidence Technician Tammy Prather and Det. Dale Stoebe at the department’s National Prescription Drug Take Back Day event on Saturday, April 27, 2019. Photo courtesy of the Lakeport Police Department.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Police Department on Saturday took part in the National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, part of an ongoing effort to remove harmful drugs from the community.
The agency reported that the event was very successful.
“We had a steady stream of community members coming throughout the event and we collected over 97 pounds of prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Many of these drugs were dangerous controlled substances including opioids,” reported Chief Brad Rasmussen.
When not properly disposed of, unused and expired prescription drugs have a high potential to be diverted for abuse, are dangerous to children and harmful to the environment.
Rasmussen said Saturday’s event wrapped up four months of collection by the department of more than 248 pounds of prescription drugs from the community.
At the start of January, the department began offering a safe medication disposal collection site that was donated by the Rite Aid Foundation KidCents Project, as Lake County News has reported.
Lakeport Police Staff will transport the drugs it has collected out of county to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which will properly destroy them along with those collected by other police agencies across the United States, Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen thanked Evidence Technician Tammy Prather and Det. Dale Stoebe for running the event and managing the department’s Take Back program.
He also thanked the many local organizations including news, radio and community groups that advertised Saturday’s event over the past several weeks.
“Lastly, we thank the community members who took advantage of the event. Everyone working together leads to a safer community,” Rasmussen said.
Prescription drugs collected by the Lakeport Police Department during National Prescription Drug Take Back Day on Saturday, April 27, 2019. Photo courtesy of the Lakeport Police Department.
Some of the flavor components in Greek cooking. They include olive oil, lemon and garlic, and the herbs dill, oregano and mint. Photo by Esther Oertel.
We dine at a common table, beneficiaries of the nourishment that our planet provides. May the whole of our human family become closer to us as we explore the world together through food, the tie that deliciously binds, whether it’s grown nearby or enjoyed many miles from our door.
It’s sunny in Lake County as I write this. The skies are vacant of clouds, wildflowers explosively bloom, and a chorus of birdsong fills the air.
Our beautiful spring has arrived.
However, not so long ago, wet, gray days were strung together like pearls on a necklace, and my soul longed for a place where the sun was impossibly bright.
With its whitewashed houses perched cliffside and the sun-sparkled seas that embrace it, Greece seemed like such a spot. It called to me when overcast skies threatened to overwhelm my mood.
Thoughts of Greece fill my heart even now, and not just because of its warm beauty.
The food also calls, as Greece entices me with one of my most beloved world cuisines.
Greek culinary tradition is more than 4,000 years old and is key to the culture and history of the country. Names of foods, ingredients, and cooking methods haven’t changed much with the passing of millennia.
Greece is thrust like a hand into water at the end of the Balkan Peninsula. Thusly perched at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, its climate is characterized by wet winters and hot, dry summers, not dissimilar to ours.
These are perfect conditions for the “Mediterranean triad” of wheat, olive oil, and wine on which Greek cookery is based.
The cuisine epitomizes what has come to be known as the Mediterranean diet.
Olive oil, which gives Greek cuisine one of its most characteristic flavors, is produced from the plethora of olive trees in the area, some more than 2,000 years old, and is partly responsible for the health benefits said to come from adopting a diet common to the Mediterranean region.
Citrus trees also thrive in Greece’s toasty temperatures, and lively lemon juice adds a beautiful tang to many dishes. This bright, tongue-rousing flavor is one of my favorite reasons to enjoy Greek food.
With the longest coastline in Europe (and the 11th longest in the world), Greece is surrounded on three sides by four different seas (the Mediterranean and Cretan Seas to the south, the Aegean Sea to the east, and the Ionian Sea to the west). No more than 90 miles separates any part of the Greek mainland from the sea.
In addition, there are an astounding 6,000 plus Greek islands (of which only 227 are inhabited), so it’s no surprise that fish and seafood are an important staple of Greek cookery.
Eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, making it a land of small farms, by and large organic, and of mostly diminutive livestock.
Lamb and kid goats are popular holiday food, and using sweet spices such as cinnamon, allspice, and cloves with meat dishes is a trait of Greek cooking.
Greeks have crafted sumptuous cheeses since ancient times and they’re consumed with gusto. There are far more varieties produced in Greece than the feta prevalent in supermarkets here.
Honey is widely used in desserts, including in baklava, thin layers of phyllo dough stuffed with crushed walnuts and smothered with the honey which gives it its characteristic sweetness.
The generous use of oregano, mint, garlic, dill, bay laurel, fennel, basil, and thyme are lively on the palate, and the bright, fresh flavors that these add to the food make me feel energized when I partake of it.
Dining out is common in Greece, and small dishes known as meze include a variety of foods, among them dolmades (rice, currants, pine kernels wrapped in grape leaves), grilled octopus, lentils, olives, small fish, and feta cheese. This is popular fare in local restaurants.
Some Greek foods, such as gyros, hummus and pita bread, originated in other Mediterranean areas and spread throughout the region, including to Greece.
Gyros (pronounced YEE-ros) is meat in a cone-like shape cooked slowly on a spit, shaved while still skewered for sandwiches. It’s similar to shawarma, which is served throughout the Middle East, with both versions having roots in the Turkish doner kebab.
Interestingly, gyros is the Greek word for “turn” and shawarma means “turning” in Arabic, references to the way they’re cooked.
Based on historical information from the 13th century, hummus likely originated in ancient Egypt. Chickpeas were then, and still are, abundant in the Middle East; in fact, the word hummus means chickpea in Arabic.
Flat, pocketed pita bread may have originated with the Bedouins (the Amorites are the other contenders) and its popularity spread through Bedouin trade and travel routes.
Other dishes currently eaten in Greece can be traced back thousands of years. Skordalia (a potato and garlic spread), pastili (a dessert made with honey), and lentil soup are among those that hail from ancient times.
Retsina, a white or rose wine sealed with pine resin, is also from this era.
With good reason, Greece is considered the cradle of Western civilization. It’s the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, trial by jury, and equality under the law.
We also owe the ancient Greeks gratitude for important literary, scientific, and mathematical contributions, and we can thank them for another first – fusion cuisine going back to 350 BCE.
Their geographical position as a crossroads between Europe, Africa, and Asia contributes to much of this, but so does their history. Alexander the Greek extended the Greek Empire from Europe to India, bringing in eastern and northern culinary influences.
When Greece fell to the Romans in 146 BCE and when the Ottoman Empire fell to the Turks in 1453 CE, those cultures influenced its cuisine. (Many Greek dishes, such as tzatziki and dolmades, are still known by their Turkish names.)
Greece can boast another culinary first. Greek gourmet Archestrados wrote the first known cookbook in 330 BCE, suggesting that food has been an important part of Greek culture for quite some time.
Being welcoming to strangers is deeply rooted in Greek culture, and the country is consistently rated as being among the most hospitable to visit.
The Greek principle of hospitality, extant since ancient times, is known as philoxenia. A sacred relationship exists between host and guest, elevating the guest (even if a stranger) to a position equal to the host. The goal is to make them feel protected and taken care of.
It is said that even today if one knocks on a stranger’s door in Crete, they will be received as an honored guest.
Below are two dishes well-loved in Greece, tzatziki, a cooling cucumber-yogurt salad (also used as a dip), and hummus, the chickpea spread mentioned previously. Both are perfect fare for hot days when we just don’t want to cook.
And finally, here’s a standard Greek toast and a wish for good health: Yia Mas!
Olive oil gives much of Greek cooking its distinct flavor and provides health benefits. Photo by Esther Oertel.
Tzatziki salad
This cool, refreshing salad is best when made with traditional Greek yogurt. I created this version for a culinary class I taught on Greek cuisine. For a variation in flavor, add chopped fresh mint or thyme rather than dill.
Tzatziki is often used as a condiment, and to create a smoother sauce for this purpose, use a food processor to make a rough cucumber puree. If this method is used, the peeled, sliced cucumber should be salted and placed in a colander to drain for 30 minutes before pureeing. Otherwise, the dip will be watery.
Ingredients:
2 medium cucumbers, peeled, seeded and thinly sliced 2 cups plain Greek yogurt 2 cloves garlic, smashed, peeled, then finely diced Juice of half a lemon Fresh dill (or mint or thyme) to taste Freshly ground black pepper & salt to taste
Combine the yogurt, garlic and lemon juice in a bowl. Add cucumber to yogurt mixture. Add the fresh herb of choice to taste. (If using dill, kitchen scissors may be used to cut small pieces of the leaves into the bowl; alternatively, finely chop the dill ahead of time.) Mix and enjoy!
Hummus spread
This is my go-to hummus recipe. It’s made often in our home because it reminds me of my first taste of hummus in a San Francisco deli in the 1980s. The recipe is from The Silver Palate Cookbook, which continues to be a favorite of mine, despite the fact that it’s decades old.
Ingredients
4 cups (about 2-1/2 cans) chickpeas (garbanzo beans) ½ cup tahini (sesame spread) 1/3 cup warm water 1/3 cup best-quality olive oil Juice of 2 or 3 lemons, to taste 4 or more garlic cloves, to taste 1-1/2 teaspoons salt, or to taste 2 teaspoons ground cumin Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Combine the chickpeas, tahini, warm water, olive oil, and juice of 1 lemon in the bowl of a food processor. Process until smooth and creamy, pausing once or twice to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Add the garlic, salt, cumin, and pepper, and process to blend. Taste and correct the seasoning if necessary. Add more lemon juice to taste. Scrape into a storage container, cover, and refrigerate until ready to use. Makes 1 quart.
Esther Oertel is a writer and passionate home cook from a family of chefs. She grew up in a restaurant, where she began creating recipes from a young age. She’s taught culinary classes in a variety of venues in Lake County and previously wrote “The Veggie Girl” column for Lake County News. Most recently she’s taught culinary classes at Sur La Table in Santa Rosa, Calif. She lives in Middletown, Calif.
The first type of molecule that ever formed in the universe has been detected in space for the first time, after decades of searching.
Scientists discovered its signature in our own galaxy using the world’s largest airborne observatory, NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, as the aircraft flew high above the Earth’s surface and pointed its sensitive instruments out into the cosmos.
When the universe was still very young, only a few kinds of atoms existed. Scientists believe that around 100,000 years after the big bang, helium and hydrogen combined to make a molecule called helium hydride for the first time.
Helium hydride should be present in some parts of the modern universe, but it has never been detected in space – until now.
SOFIA found modern helium hydride in a planetary nebula, a remnant of what was once a Sun-like star.
Located 3,000 light-years away near the constellation Cygnus, this planetary nebula, called NGC 7027, has conditions that allow this mystery molecule to form.
The discovery serves as proof that helium hydride can, in fact, exist in space. This confirms a key part of our basic understanding of the chemistry of the early universe and how it evolved over billions of years into the complex chemistry of today. The results are published in a recent issue of Nature.
“This molecule was lurking out there, but we needed the right instruments making observations in the right position – and SOFIA was able to do that perfectly,” said Harold Yorke, director of the SOFIA Science Center, in California’s Silicon Valley.
Today, the universe is filled with large, complex structures such as planets, stars and galaxies. But more than 13 billion years ago, following the big bang, the early universe was hot, and all that existed were a few types of atoms, mostly helium and hydrogen.
As atoms combined to form the first molecules, the universe was finally able to cool and began to take shape. Scientists have inferred that helium hydride was this first, primordial molecule.
Once cooling began, hydrogen atoms could interact with helium hydride, leading to the creation of molecular hydrogen – the molecule primarily responsible for the formation of the first stars. Stars went on to forge all the elements that make up our rich, chemical cosmos of today.
The problem, though, is that scientists could not find helium hydride in space. This first step in the birth of chemistry was unproven, until now.
“The lack of evidence of the very existence of helium hydride in interstellar space was a dilemma for astronomy for decades,” said Rolf Guesten of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, in Bonn, Germany, and lead author of the paper.
Helium hydride is a finicky molecule. Helium itself is a noble gas making it very unlikely to combine with any other kind of atom. But in 1925, scientists were able to create the molecule in a laboratory by coaxing the helium to share one of its electrons with a hydrogen ion.
Then, in the late 1970s, scientists studying the planetary nebula called NGC 7027 thought that this environment might be just right to form helium hydride. Ultraviolet radiation and heat from the aging star create conditions suitable for helium hydride to form. But their observations were inconclusive.
Subsequent efforts hinted it could be there, but the mystery molecule continued to elude detection. The space telescopes used did not have the specific technology to pick out the signal of helium hydride from the medley of other molecules in the nebula.
In 2016, scientists turned to SOFIA for help. Flying up to 45,000 feet, SOFIA makes observations above the interfering layers of Earth’s atmosphere. But it has a benefit space telescopes don't – it returns after every flight.
“We’re able to change instruments and install the latest technology,” said Naseem Rangwala SOFIA deputy project scientist. “This flexibility allows us to improve observations and respond to the most pressing questions that scientists want answered.”
A recent upgrade to one of SOFIA’s instruments called the German Receiver at Terahertz Frequencies, or GREAT, added the specific channel for helium hydride that previous telescopes did not have. The instrument works like a radio receiver.
Scientists tune to the frequency of the molecule they’re searching for, similar to tuning an FM radio to the right station. When SOFIA took to the night skies, eager scientists were onboard reading the data from the instrument in real time. Helium hydride’s signal finally came through loud and clear.
“It was so exciting to be there, seeing helium hydride for the first time in the data,” said Guesten. “This brings a long search to a happy ending and eliminates doubts about our understanding of the underlying chemistry of the early universe.
SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is a Boeing 747SP jetliner modified to carry a 106-inch diameter telescope. It is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DLR.
NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley manages the SOFIA program, science and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, and the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart.
The aircraft is maintained and operated from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center Building 703, in Palmdale, California.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Weed Management Area is hosting its 16th annual “Invasive Weeds Tour” on Thursday, May 9.
The event is being held in May this year in hopes of avoiding the July heat and viewing the weeds while they are still green and in flower.
As always, it is free and the public is welcome and encouraged to attend.
Participants will gather in front of the Ranch House at Anderson Marsh State Historic Park, 8400 State Highway 53 between Clearlake and Lower Lake, at 9 a.m.
They will take a leisurely guided walk of about a mile to see the amazingly diverse array of invasive plants that flourish in the park and the effects of control mechanisms such as control burns, and return to the house for lunch and discussion of aquatic invasive weeds under the trees.
Although the event is completely free and all members of the public are invited, reservations are required. Please RSVP with the Lake County Agriculture Department at 707-263-0217 by May 6.
The tour is sponsored by the Lake County Department of Agriculture and the Lake County Resource Conservation District.
The end-of-tour lunch is free but donations to help offset the cost of refreshments will be greatly appreciated and cheerfully accepted.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control this week has many cool dogs looking for new families.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of bluetick coonhound, Chihuahua, German Shepherd, Great Pyrenees, heeler, Labrador Retriever, pit bull, redbone coonhound, shepherd and wirehaired terrier.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
“Rio” is a male bluetick coonhound-shepherd mix in kennel No. 7, ID No. 11947. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Rio’
“Rio” is a male bluetick coonhound-shepherd mix with a short tricolor coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 7, ID No. 11947.
“Bear” is a male Labrador Retriever in kennel No. 8, ID No. 11986. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Bear’
“Bear” is a male Labrador Retriever with an all-black coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 8, ID No. 11986.
This male pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 13, ID No. 12043. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.
Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short brown and white coat.
He’s in kennel No. 13, ID No. 12043.
This male German Shepherd is in kennel No. 19, ID No. 12107. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male German Shepherd
This male German Shepherd has a medium-length black and brown coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 19, ID No. 12107.
This male pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 20, ID No. 11958. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short black coat.
He’s in kennel No. 20, ID No. 11958.
This male Chihuahua-terrier mix is in kennel No. 21a, ID No. 12112. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male Chihuahua-terrier
This male Chihuahua-terrier mix has a short black coat.
He is in kennel No. 21a, ID No. 12112.
This male wirehaired terrier is in kennel No. 21b, ID No. 12113. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male wirehaired terrier
This male wirehaired terrier has a coarse black coat.
He’s in kennel No. 21b, ID No. 12113.
This male Chihuahua is in kennel No. 22, ID No. 12114. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male Chihuahua
This male Chihuahua has a short tricolor coat.
He’s in kennel No. 22, ID No. 12114.
“Copper” is a male redbone coonhound in kennel No. 25, ID No. 11960. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Copper’
“Copper” is a male redbone coonhound with a short red coat.
Shelter staff said he is 7 years old. He’s good with other dogs and children, but not cats. He walks well on a leash, is mellow and doesn’t bark that much. He also loves treats.
Copper is in kennel No. 25, ID No. 11960.
“Taya” is a female pit bull terrier in kennel No. 26, ID No. 12005. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Taya’
“Taya” is a female pit bull terrier who a short tricolor coat.
He’s in kennel No. 26, ID No. 12005.
“Little Foot” is a white male Great Pyrenees is in kennel No. 27, ID No. 11854. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Little Foot’
“Little Foot” is a white male Great Pyrenees with a long white coat and gold eyes.
Shelter staff said the right home for him will not have cats, small dogs or livestock.
He has been neutered.
Little Foot is in kennel No. 27, ID No. 11854.
This female heeler is in kennel No. 31, ID No. 11962. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female heeler
This female heeler has a medium-length black and white coat.
She’s in kennel No. 31, ID No. 11962.
This female pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 33, ID No. 11950. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female pit bull terrier
This female pit bull terrier has a short brown and white coat.
She’s in kennel No. 33, ID No. 11950.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
The Mount Konocti fire lookout in Kelseyville, Calif. Courtesy photo. KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Cal Fire is soon to reopen the lookout tower on Mount Konocti for the season, again staffed by local volunteers.
The devastating wildfires in Lake, Sonoma and Mendocino counties make the fire lookout of great importance.
A tower training day is soon to be scheduled for new volunteers and as a refresher for those from previous years.
Once under way, volunteers will be able to schedule online for either eight- or five-hour shifts. They drive their own vehicle to the tower to begin their shift.
If smoke from fire is observed, a report is made via radio contact directly to Cal Fire dispatch.
Determining and communicating the location of the fire is a skill that comes from training and experience.
Those interested in volunteering to serve at least one day a month are encouraged to call tower leader Ric Abrams, 707-245-4171, or Chairman Jim Adams, 707-245-3771.
Chuck Sturges is a Mount Konocti fire lookout volunteer.
Courtney Schultz, Colorado State University; Cassandra Moseley, University of Oregon, and Heidi Huber-Stearns, University of Oregon
As spring settles in across the United States, western states are already preparing for summer and wildfire season. And although it may seem counter-intuitive, some of the most urgent conversations are about getting more fire onto the landscape.
Winter and spring, before conditions become too hot and dry, are common times for conducting planned and controlled burns designed to reduce wildfire hazard. Fire managers intentionally ignite fires within a predetermined area to burn brush, smaller trees and other plant matter.
Fire managers conduct prescribed burns to improve forest conditions and reduce the threat of future wildfires.
Forests need ‘good fire’
Forests across much of North America need fire to maintain healthy structures and watershed conditions and support biodiversity. For centuries, Native Americans deliberately set fires to facilitate hunting, protect communities and foster plants needed for food and fiber.
But starting around the turn of the 20th century, European Americans began trying to suppress most fires and stopped prescribed burning. The exception was the Southeast, where forest managers and private landowners have consistently used prescribed burns to clear underbrush and improve wildlife habitat.
Suppressing wildfires allows dead and living plant matter to accumulate. This harms forests by reducing nutrient recycling and overall plant diversity. It also creates more uniform landscapes with higher fuel loads, making forests prone to larger and more severe fires.
Today many forested landscapes in western states have a “fire debt.” Humans have prevented normal levels of fire from occurring, and the bill has come due. Increasingly severe weather conditions and longer fire seasons due to climate change are making fire management problems more pressing today than they were just a few decades ago. And the problem will only get worse.
Fire science researchers have made a clear case for more burning, particularly in lower elevations and drier forests where fuels have built up. Studies show that reintroducing fire to the landscape, sometimes after thinning (removing some trees), often reduces fire risks more effectively than thinning alone. It also can be the most cost-effective way to maintain desired conditions over time.
This winter in Colorado, for example, the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest conducted a prescribed burn while snow still covered much of the ground. This was part of a broader strategy to increase prescribed fire use and create areas of burned ground that will make future wildland fires less extreme and more feasible to manage.
A prescribed burn in the Arapahoe and Roosevelt National Forests, February 2019.USFS
State and local action heats up
From Oregon’s municipal watersheds to the Ponderosa pine forests of the Southwest, community-based partners and state and local agencies have been working with the federal government to remove accumulated fuel and reintroduce fire on interconnected public and private forest lands.
Oregon is in its first spring burning season with a newly revised smoke management plan designed to provide more flexibility for prescribed burning. In Washington, the legislature passed a bill in 2016 creating a Forest Resiliency Burning Pilot Project, which just published a report identifying ways to expand or continue use of prescribed fire.
Briefing before a prescribed fire training exercise for women in northern California.USFS/Sarah McCaffrey
Barriers to conducting prescribed fire
In our research on forest restoration efforts, we have found that some national policies are supporting larger-scale restoration planning and project work, such as tree thinning. But even where federal land managers and community partners are getting thinning accomplished and agree that burning is a priority, it has been hard to get more “good fire” on the ground.
The conventional wisdom is that air quality regulations, other environmental policies and public resistance are the main barriers to prescribed fire. But when we interviewed some 60 experts, including land managers, air regulators, state agency partners and representatives from non-government organizations, we found that other factors were more significant obstacles.
As one land manager told us, “The law doesn’t necessarily impede prescribed burning so much as some of the more practical realities on the ground. You don’t have enough money, you don’t have enough people, or there’s too much fire danger” to pull off the burning.
In particular, fire managers said they needed adequate funding, strong government leadership and more people with expertise to conduct these operations. A major challenge is that qualified personnel are increasingly in demand for longer and more severe fire seasons, making them unavailable to help with planned burns when opportunities arise. Going forward, it will be particularly important to provide support for locations where partners and land managers have built agreement about the need for prescribed fire.
Humans have inextricably altered U.S. forests over the last century through fire exclusion, land use change, and now climate change. We cannot undo what has been done or suppress all fires - they are part of the landscape. The question now is where to invest in restoring forest conditions and promoting more resilient landscapes, while reducing risks to communities, ecosystems, wildlife, water and other precious resources. As part of a broader community of scientists and practitioners working on forest and fire management, we see prescribed fire as a valuable tool in that effort.
Whale barnacles line the edges of the flukes of a humpback whale. Photo courtesy of Blue Ocean Whale Watch. BERKELEY, Calif. – Barnacles that hitch rides on the backs of humpback and gray whales not only record details about the whales’ yearly travels, they also retain this information after they become fossilized, helping scientists reconstruct the migrations of whale populations millions of years in the past, according to a new University of California, Berkeley, study.
Oxygen isotope ratios in barnacle shells change with ocean condition and allow scientists to chart the migration of the host whale, for example to warmer breeding grounds or colder feeding grounds. Now, marine paleobiologists led by UC Berkeley doctoral student Larry Taylor have discovered that barnacles retain this information even after they fall off the whale, sink to the ocean bottom, and become fossils."
As a result, the travels of fossilized barnacles can serve as a proxy for the peregrinations of whales in the distant past, like GPS trackers from the Pleistocene.
“One of the more exciting things about the paper, in my mind, is that we find evidence for migration in all of these ancient populations, from three different sites and time periods, but also from both humpback and gray whale lineages, indicating that these animals, which lived hundreds of thousands of years ago, were all undertaking migrations similar in extent to those of modern-day whales,” Taylor said.
One surprise finding is that the coast of Panama has been a meeting ground for different subpopulations of humpback whales for at least 270,000 years and still is today. Whales visit Panama from as far away as Antarctica and the Gulf of Alaska.
This information about ancient migration will help scientists understand how migration patterns may have affected the evolution of whales over the past 3 to 5 million years, how these patterns changed with changing climate and help predict how today’s whales will adapt to the rapid climate change happening today.
“We want to understand how malleable migratory behavior has been through time, how rapidly whales have adapted to previous climate changes, and see if this can give us some clues as to how they might respond to the current changes in Earth's climate,” he said. “How will whales cope with that, how will the food base shift, how will the whales themselves respond?”
Taylor and his colleagues, senior author Seth Finnegan, a UC Berkeley associate professor of integrative biology, Aaron O’Dea of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and Timothy Bralower of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, will publish their findings this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Riding the whales
Barnacles are crustaceans, like crabs, lobsters and shrimp, that remain stuck in one place their whole lives, encased in a protective hard shell and sticking out their legs to snatch passing food.
Most glue themselves to rocks, boats or pilings, but whale barnacles attach to a whale’s skin by boring down into it. Some whales have been estimated to carry up to 1,000 pounds of barnacles, which are visible when they breech. Clusters of barnacles are used to identify individual whales.
“This gives the barnacle several advantages: a safe surface to live on, a free ride to some of the richest waters in the world and a chance to meet up with other (barnacles) when the whales get together to mate,” O’Dea said.
Taylor’s technique works because different species of whale barnacle hitch rides on different species of whale, so paleontologists can know, when they find a fossilized barnacle, which species it rode with.
Normally, the barnacles stay with a whale between one and three years, until they fall or are brushed off, often at whale breeding grounds. At least 24 fossil assemblages of whale barnacles have been found around the world, Taylor said.
The new discovery means that the fossilized barnacles recovered at these sites can tell about ancient migrations of humpbacks, gray whales and perhaps other baleen whales (toothed whales, such as sperm whales, do not host many barnacles), potentially turning up previously unsuspected feeding and breeding areas.
The technique is based on measuring the oxygen isotopes in the calcium carbonate, or calcite, shell of the barnacle. The ratio of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16 goes up as the temperature drops. Since barnacles lengthen their shells by a few millimeters a month as they try to stay attached to whales in the face of the mammals’ shedding skin, the composition of the new shell reflects the ocean temperature and general isotopic composition where it formed.
Taylor built on previous work showing that barnacles attached to living gray whales record a chemical signature of their migrations. He confirmed that the isotopic composition of the humpback whale barnacle (Coronula diadema) also tracks its environment today during the whales’ yearly migration, showing monthly changes. He then demonstrated that fossilized barnacles from Panama and from the California coast could be analyzed similarly, and that they showed isotopic changes similar to that of today’s whales.
This technique will be particularly valuable for studying prehistoric humpback populations, Taylor said, because the humpback was and is more cosmopolitan than the California gray whale, cruising widely through the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Scientists theorize that whale migration began as food sources became more scattered as the climate changed five million years ago. Modern Pacific whales migrate tens of thousands of miles annually, visiting several known feeding areas and returning to warm waters off Central and South America or Hawaii to breed.
“We plan to push this approach further back in time and across different whale populations,” Finnegan said. “We hope that by analyzing other aspects of the geochemistry of the barnacles shells we might ultimately be able to figure out what areas different ancient whale populations were migrating to.”
This study was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National System of Investigators in Panama, the Paleontological Society, the Geological Society of America, Sigma Xi and the University of California Museum of Paleontology.
Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit fire crews from Konocti Conservation Camp and Delta Conservation Camp will hold their annual Fire Crew Readiness Exercises in Lake County on April 30 and May 1. . The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, in conjunction with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation operates 39 conservation camps with approximately 200 fire crews throughout California.
This partnership of state agencies provides a large force of trained crews for all types of emergency incident mitigation and resource conservation projects.
The Fire Crew Readiness Exercises provide an opportunity for the nine fire crews from the two conservation camps to be evaluated on their physical conditioning, firefighting knowledge, fire safety and personal protective equipment.
The exercise is an important part of preparing for fires in California. The crew members are educated and trained to work under extreme fire conditions, many times in triple-digit heat.
Under competitive pressure, the fire crews will construct fire lines utilizing chainsaws and hand tools, hike a set distance with varying terrain into a pre-designated site, deploy fire shelters, as well as expand their knowledge in fire, bulldozer and helicopter safety.
Proctors will remind them of the importance of communication, their personal protective gear and proper hydration.
It is an outstanding opportunity to put the year’s training to the test and to gear-up both physically and mentally for the ensuing fire season.
Personnel from Cal Fire and the CDCR will participate throughout all elements of the exercises.
