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California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara on Monday announced a new partnership of several state government agencies to establish consistent statewide standards for home and community hardening that will reduce wildfire risk, protect lives and property, and help make insurance available and affordable to residents and businesses.

Lara said the partnership includes the California Department of Insurance and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, including the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research and the California Public Utilities Commission.

“Hardening” refers to measures that prepare homes and communities to better survive a wildfire, such as building upgrades, defensible space and fire-resistant landscaping.

While California has existing wildfire building standards for new development as established by Cal Fire, this new partnership consisting of state wildfire, catastrophe and insurance experts will establish standards that are consistent, based in fire science, and apply to retrofits for older existing homes in order to help them seek and maintain insurance coverage, thus giving policyholders and insurance companies a shared strategy for reducing wildfire risks.

“With home and community hardening standards in place, Californians can hope to save lives and property through safer homes and increase insurance availability at the same time,” said Commissioner Lara. “Our insurance market is responding to higher wildfire risk, so safeguarding homes will assist consumers in finding and keeping their insurance. I look forward to working with Gov. Newsom and his administration on this critical mitigation effort to protect homes and communities from wildfire loss.”

“Climate change is a major contributor to the increased severity and frequency of California wildfires, and to the resulting unprecedented loss of life and property in recent years,” said Kate Gordon, director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research and the Governor’s Senior Policy Advisor on Climate. “Unless we take coordinated action now, these impacts will only worsen – especially in our most vulnerable communities. Identifying consistent statewide standards for home and community hardening is critical to California’s goal of reducing wildfire risk while increasing our overall resilience.”

“Development of a statewide retrofitting program that can reduce insurance loss is an important step in ensuring communities are hardened against the devastating effect of wildfire,” said State Fire Marshal Chief Mike Richwine. “Taking the necessary measures to prepare your home can help increase its chance of survival when wildfire strikes.”

“As our state continues to grapple with catastrophic wildfires, it is important that we take proactive steps to prepare and protect our communities,” said Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. “We look forward to working with Commissioner Lara and our partners to collaboratively strengthen California’s preparedness and mitigation efforts.”

“The CPUC welcomes this collaboration with our sister agencies on this very important issue,” said CPUC President Marybel Batjer. “We each play an important and distinct role in wildfire mitigation, community resilience, and recovery, and our work together will help ensure that Californians are aware of efforts at the state level, the assistance that is available to them, and ways they can help reduce risk.”

This partnership is the latest step to enact regulatory and administrative actions that Commissioner Lara announced on Sept. 16, 2020, using his existing regulatory authority under voter-approved Proposition 103 to protect the state’s insurance market.

Commissioner Lara held hearings on Oct. 19 and Dec. 10, 2020, to gather public input into fire mitigation and other steps to address the availability and affordability of insurance due to wildfires. Watch video of those hearings and learn more at www.insurance.ca.gov.

Last year, Gov. Newsom signed legislation to increase consumer protections for wildfire survivors, including Senate Bill 872 authored by state Sen. Bill Dodd and sponsored by Commissioner Lara, among other measures.

In his signing message for SB 872 and Assembly Bill 3012, Gov. Newsom stated that “we must do more” and directed the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, CalOES, and Cal Fire to “work with the Insurance Commissioner to evaluate and recommend ways that residents, communities and the insurance industry can work together to better mitigate wildfire risks. This work should inform the development of solutions for residents in wildfire-prone areas who continue to face the threat of policy non-renewal and rising premium costs for those policies that are available.”

This partnership is in furtherance of the governor’s signing message and to help protect residents from the increasing risk of wildfires and stabilize the insurance market.

Dodd – who formerly represented Lake County in the state Assembly and now serves all or portions of Napa, Solano, Yolo, Sonoma, Contra Costa and Sacramento counties in the California Senate – on Monday lauded the creation of the new statewide plan for home and community hardening.

“I want to thank Gov. Newsom and Commissioner Lara for following through for people who’ve endured tremendous hardship over the past several years of devastating wildfires,” Sen. Dodd said. “This has been a high priority for me and I appreciate their collaborative approach. We must deliver for Californians who deserve accessible and affordable insurance.”

The partnering agencies and departments will begin meeting this month.
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Younger adults living alone were more likely than older adults living alone to report symptoms of both anxiety and depression in recent weeks, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data.

The Household Pulse Survey provides insight into the mental health and well-being of adults living alone during the Coronavirus pandemic. The survey asks two questions related to symptoms of anxiety, and two questions about symptoms of depression.

Phase 3 of the survey collects data over two-week intervals, and this article relies on publicly available data collected from Oct. 28 through Nov. 9, a time period in which the Census Bureau sent invitations to 1,035,752 households and received a total of 58,729 responses.

Among adults living alone, respondents age 65 and over reported lower rates of anxiety and depression than those in other age groups (Figure 1).

Those between ages 18 and 29 and 30 and 44 reported higher rates of anxiety and depression. The age groups were not statistically different from each other on either measure.

Respondents in the 45-64 age group reported symptoms of both anxiety and depression at rates that fell between those of the youngest and oldest respondents.



Financial stress

Economic disruptions such as a loss of income had an impact on the mental health of those living alone, as did the expectation of losing employment income in the next four weeks (Figure 2).

About half (51%) of individuals living alone who either lost or expected to lose employment income reported anxiety, compared with only about a third (32%) of those who had not experienced or expected the same type of economic disruption.

Similarly, about 44% of those who had experienced or expected lost income reported symptoms of depression, compared with about 26% of those who had not experienced or expected economic disruption.



Does health matter?

Adults living alone who reported excellent overall health had lower rates of both anxiety and depression: Only 23% reported symptoms of anxiety and 16% reported symptoms of depression (Figure 3).

On the other hand, among adults living alone who reported being in poor health, about two thirds reported symptoms of anxiety and depression (around 65% and not statistically different from each other on both measures).

It is important to emphasize that these questions and analysis do not capture causality. In other words, we do not know whether the mental health of those in good overall health was bolstered because of that good health, or whether poor mental health caused people to report lower levels of overall health.

It is likely that both are true: mental health influences overall health and vice versa.



Households with children

Overall, about 36% of all adults reported feeling anxiety in the previous week. Adults living alone and those in households with children were slightly more likely to report feeling anxious (about 38% each) than adults living in households without children (34%).

Meanwhile, about 28% of all households reported feeling depressed over the previous week.

When analyzed by specific household type, about 30% of those living alone and those in households with kids reported symptoms of depression, compared to about 26% of adults in households with other adults but without children (Figure 4).

We examined differences in mental health by racial and ethnic groups for those living alone but the results were generally inconclusive and are therefore not included here.

The Household Pulse Survey asks four questions about mental health over the previous seven days, two relating to symptoms of anxiety and two relating to symptoms of depression.

These questions are collected in partnership with the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). This analysis follows an approach outlined by NCHS, which categorizes individuals based on how frequently they reported feeling anxious or depressed, consistent with diagnoses of generalized anxiety disorder or major depressive disorder.

Household Pulse Survey data include Household Pulse Survey tables, Technical Documentation and Public Use File, or PUF, microdata.

Thom File is a sociologist in the Census Bureau’s Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division. Matthew Marlay is a sociologist and demographer in the Census Bureau’s Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has new dogs available to adopters this week.

Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Belgian Malinois, Chihuahua, German Shepherd, heeler, pit bull and Rottweiler.

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.

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”).

Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm for information on visiting or adopting.

“Bruce” is a male pit bull terrier in kennel No. 3, ID No. 14346. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Bruce’

“Bruce” is a male pit bull terrier with a gray and white coat.

He has been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 3, ID No. 14346.

“Little Lady” is a young female heeler-German Shepherd mix in kennel No. 6, ID No. 14341. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Little Lady’

“Little Lady” is a young female heeler-German Shepherd mix with a medium-length black and white coat.

She is in kennel No. 6, ID No. 14341.

“Little Rose” is a young female heeler-German Shepherd mix in kennel No. 6b, ID No. 14342. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Little Rose’

“Little Rose” is a young female heeler-German Shepherd mix with a medium-length black and white coat.

She is in kennel No. 6b, ID No. 14342.

This male pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 7, ID No. 14339. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male pit bull terrier

This male pit bull terrier has a short brindle and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 7, ID No. 14339.

This male border collie is in kennel No. 9, ID No. 14331. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male border collie

This male border collie has a short black and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 9, ID No. 14331.

This female pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 10, ID No. 14330. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Female pit bull terrier

This female pit bull terrier has a short brown coat.

She’s in kennel No. 10, ID No. 14330.

This male pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 13, ID No. 14338. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male pit bull terrier

This male pit bull terrier has a short black and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 13, ID No. 14338.

“Sargent Chunk” is a young male Rottweiler in kennel No. 15, ID No. 14303. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Sargent Chunk’

“Sargent Chunk” is a young male Rottweiler with a short red and black coat.

He is in kennel No. 15, ID No. 14303.

This senior female Chihuahua is in kennel No. 21, ID No. 14324. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Female Chihuahua

This senior female Chihuahua has a short liver-colored coat.

She is in kennel No. 21, ID No. 14324.

“Jack” is a young male Rottweiler in kennel No. 22, ID No. 14328. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Jack’

“Jack” is a young male Rottweiler with a short black and red coat.

He is in kennel No. 22, ID No. 14328.

This young male Belgian Malinois is in kennel No. 29, ID No. 14269. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male Belgian Malinois

This young male Belgian Malinois has a medium-length red and black coat.

He is in kennel No. 29, ID No. 14269.

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.
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A pine siskin. Photo by Vickie J Anderson, http://www.wildlifeimagesupclose.com, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Since December, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and wildlife rehabilitation centers have been inundated with calls from residents who are finding sick or dead finches at bird feeders.

Most reports have come from locations on California’s Central Coast, the San Francisco Bay Area and Sierra Nevada communities.

CDFW’s Wildlife Investigations Laboratory has evaluated birds from several locations and determined the cause of illness to be salmonellosis, a disease caused by salmonella bacteria.

Pine siskins, a species of finch that winters in California, are the primary species affected by the outbreak. The disease has also been reported in smaller numbers of lesser goldfinches and American goldfinches.

“Salmonellosis occurs periodically in pine siskins in some winters throughout their range. When large numbers of pine siskins congregate, the disease can spread rapidly causing high mortality. Most birds die within 24 hours of infection,” said CDFW Senior Environmental Scientist Krysta Rogers, an avian disease specialist.

Birds become infected with salmonella when they ingest food, water or come into contact with objects – such as bird feeders, perches soil – contaminated with feces from an infected bird.

Sick birds often appear weak, have labored breathing, and may sit for prolonged periods with fluffed or ruffled feathers.

Salmonellosis is almost exclusively reported from locations with bird feeders where birds congregate.

Residents can help reduce disease transmission by removing bird feeders and bird baths. Allowing birds to feed on natural seeds rather than at bird feeders reduces contact between birds and helps slow spread of the disease.

Residents can report dead birds to CDFW’s Wildlife Investigations Laboratory using the mortality reporting form, which helps biologists monitor the outbreak.

Disposable gloves should be worn and hands should be thoroughly washed after disposing of dead birds, and handling of bird feeders and bird baths.

If sick birds are found, please contact your local wildlife rehabilitation center for advice.
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The SARS-CoV-2 virus is mutating. Aitor Diago/Moment via Getty Images

The SARS-CoV-2 virus mutates fast. That’s a concern because these more transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2 are now present in the U.S., U.K. and South Africa and other countries, and many people are wondering whether the current vaccines will protect the recipients from the virus. Furthermore, many question whether we will we be able to keep ahead of future variants of SARS-CoV-2, which will certainly arise.

In my laboratory I study the molecular structure of RNA viruses – like the one that causes COVID-19 – and how they replicate and multiply in the host. As the virus infects more people and the pandemic spreads, SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve. This process of evolution is constant and it allows the virus to sample its environment and select changes that make it grow more efficiently. Thus, it is important to monitor viruses for such new mutations that could make them more deadly, more transmissible or both.

People wait in line for vaccine.
People wait for a COVID-19 vaccine during England’s third national lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus. Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images

RNA viruses evolve quickly

The genetic material of all viruses is encoded in either DNA or RNA; one interesting feature of RNA viruses is that they change much more rapidly than DNA viruses. Every time they make a copy of their genes they make one or a few mistakes. This is expected to occur many times within the body of an individual who is infected with COVID-19.

One might think that making a mistake in your genetic information is bad – after all, that’s the basis for genetic diseases in humans. For an RNA virus, a single change in its genome may render it “dead.” That’s not too bad if inside an infected human cell you’re making thousands of copies and a few are no longer useful.

However, some genomes may pick up a change that is beneficial for the survival of the virus: Maybe the change allows the virus to evade an antibody – a protein that the immune system produces to catch viruses – or an antiviral drug. Another beneficial change may allow the virus to infect a different type of cell or even a different species of animal. This is likely the pathway that allowed SARS-CoV-2 to move from bats into humans.

Any change that gives the virus’s descendants a competitive growth advantage will be favored – “selected” – and begin to outgrow the original parent virus. SARS-CoV-2 is demonstrating this feature now with new variants arising that have enhanced growth properties. Understanding the nature of these changes in the genome will provide scientists with guidance to develop countermeasures. This is the classic cat-and-mouse scenario.

In an infected patient there are hundreds of millions of individual virus particles. If you were to go in and pick out one virus at a time in this patient, you would find a range of mutations or variants in the mix. It’s a question of which ones have a growth advantage – that is, which ones can evolve because they are better than the original virus. Those are the ones that are going to become successful during the pandemic.

Of the mutations that have been detected, is one of particular concern?

Any single variant or change in the virus is probably not that problematic. A single change in the spike protein – which is the region of the virus that attaches to human cells – is probably not going to be a big threat as the medical community rolls out the vaccines.

Spike protein interacting with the ACE2 receptor.
The new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, B.1.1.7., was first identified in the U.K. in December. The red object is a spike protein of the coronavirus, and it interacts with the (blue) ACE2 receptor on the human cell to infect it. The mutations of the new variant are labeled, showing their position on the spike protein. Juan Gaertner/Science Photo Library via Getty Images


The current vaccines induce the immune system to produce antibodies that recognize and target the spike protein on the virus, which is essential for invading human cells. Scientists have observed the accumulation of multiple changes in the spike protein in the South African variant.

These changes allows SARS-CoV-2, for example, to attach more tightly to the ACE2 receptor and enter human cells more efficiently, according to preliminary unpublished studies. Those alterations could enable the virus to infect cells more easily and enhance its transmissibility. With multiple changes in the spike protein, the vaccines may no longer produce a strong immune response against these new variant viruses. That’s a double whammy: a less effective vaccine and a more robust virus.

Right now, the public doesn’t need to be concerned about the current vaccines. The leading vaccine manufacturers are monitoring how well their vaccines control these new variants and are ready to tweak the vaccine design to ensure that they will protect against these emerging variants. Moderna, for example, has stated that it will adjust the second or booster injection to more closely match the sequence of the South African variant. We’ll have to just wait and see, as more people receive vaccinations, whether the transmission rates will drop.

Why is lowering transmission key?

A drop in transmission rates means fewer infections. Less virus replication leads to fewer opportunities for the virus to evolve in humans. With less opportunity to mutate, the evolution of the virus slows and there is a lower risk of new variants.

The medical community needs to make a big push and get as many people vaccinated and thus protected as possible. If not, the virus will continue to grow in large numbers of people and produce new variants.

How the new variants are different

The U.K. variant, known as B.1.1.7., seems to bind more tightly to the protein receptor called ACE2, which is on the surface of human cells.

I don’t think we’ve seen clear evidence that these viruses are more pathogenic, which means more deadly. But they may be transmitted faster or more efficiently. That means that more people will be infected, which translates into more people who will be hospitalized.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

The South African variant, known as 501.V2, has multiple mutations in the gene that encodes the spike protein. These mutations help the virus evade an antibody response.

Antibodies have exquisite precision for their target, and if the target changes shape slightly, as with this variant – which virologists call an escape mutant – the antibody can no longer bind tightly, as it loses its power to protect.

Why do we need to monitor for mutations?

We want to make sure that the diagnostic tests are detecting all of the viruses. If there are mutations in the virus’s genetic material, an antibody or PCR test may not be able to detect it as efficiently or at all.

To be sure that the vaccine is going to be effective, researchers need to know if the virus is evolving and escaping the antibodies that were triggered via the vaccine.

Another reason that monitoring for new variants is important is that people who’ve been infected might be infected again if the virus has mutated and their immune system can’t recognize it and shut it down.

The best way to look for emerging variants in the population is to do random sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 viruses from patient samples across diverse genetic backgrounds and geographical locations.

The more sequencing data researchers collect, the better vaccine developers will be able to respond in advance of major changes in the virus population. Many research centers around the U.S. and the world are ramping up their sequencing capabilities to accomplish this.The Conversation

Richard Kuhn, Professor of Biological Sciences, Purdue University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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NASA and three international partners have signed a statement of intent to advance a possible robotic Mars ice mapping mission, which could help identify abundant, accessible ice for future candidate landing sites on the red planet.

NASA and three international partners have signed a statement of intent to advance a possible robotic Mars ice mapping mission, which could help identify abundant, accessible ice for future candidate landing sites on the red planet.

The agencies have agreed to establish a joint concept team to assess mission potential, as well as partnership opportunities.

Under the statement, NASA, the Italian Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced their intention to develop a mission plan and define their potential roles and responsibilities. If the concept moves forward, the mission could be ready to launch as early as 2026.

The international Mars Ice Mapper mission would detect the location, depth, spatial extent, and abundance of near-surface ice deposits, which would enable the science community to interpret a more detailed volatile history of Mars.

The radar-carrying orbiter would also help identify properties of the dust, loose rocky material – known as regolith – and rock layers that might impact the ability to access ice.

The ice-mapping mission could help the agency identify potential science objectives for initial human missions to Mars, which are expected to be designed for about 30 days of exploration on the surface.

For example, identifying and characterizing accessible water ice could lead to human-tended science, such as ice coring to support the search for life.

Mars Ice Mapper also could provide a map of water-ice resources for later human missions with longer surface expeditions, as well as help meet exploration engineering constraints, such as avoidance of rock and terrain hazards.

Mapping shallow water ice could also support supplemental high-value science objectives related to Martian climatology and geology.

“This innovative partnership model for Mars Ice Mapper combines our global experience and allows for cost sharing across the board to make this mission more feasible for all interested parties,” said Jim Watzin, NASA’s senior advisor for agency architectures and mission alignment. “Human and robotic exploration go hand in hand, with the latter helping pave the way for smarter, safer human missions farther into the solar system. Together, we can help prepare humanity for our next giant leap – the first human mission to Mars.”

As the mission concept evolves, there may be opportunities for other space agency and commercial partners to join the mission.

Beyond promoting scientific observations while the orbiter completes its reconnaissance work, the agency partners will explore mission-enabling rideshare opportunities as part of their next phase of study. All science data from the mission would be made available to the international science community for both planetary science and Mars reconnaissance.

This approach is similar to what NASA is doing at the Moon under the Artemis program – sending astronauts to the lunar South Pole, where ice is trapped in the permanently shadowed regions of the pole.

Access to water ice would also be central to scientific investigations on the surface of Mars that are led by future human explorers. Such explorers may one day core, sample, and analyze the ice to better understand the record of climatic and geologic change on Mars and its astrobiological potential, which could be revealed through signs of preserved ancient microbial life or even the possibility of living organisms, if Mars ever harbored life.

Ice is also a critical natural resource that could eventually supply hydrogen and oxygen for fuel. These elements could also provide resources for backup life support, civil engineering, mining, manufacturing, and, eventually, agriculture on Mars. Transporting water from Earth to deep space is extremely costly, so a local resource is essential to sustainable surface exploration.

“In addition to supporting plans for future human missions to Mars, learning more about subsurface ice will bring significant opportunities for scientific discovery,” said Eric Ianson, NASA Planetary Science Division deputy director and Mars Exploration Program Director. “Mapping near-surface water ice would reveal an as-yet hidden part of the Martian hydrosphere and the layering above it, which can help uncover the history of environmental change on Mars and lead to our ability to answer fundamental questions about whether Mars was ever home to microbial life or still might be today.”

The red planet is providing a great research return for robotic exploration and the search for ancient life in our solar system. This latest news comes ahead of the agency’s Perseverance rover landing on Mars, which is scheduled to take place on Feb. 18, following a seven-month journey in space. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) also recently announced they are moving forward with the Mars Sample Return mission.

Learn more about NASA’s Mars Exploration at https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main and https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors this week will consider accepting the donation of land for a new Northshore park and discuss whether to continue limiting the county’s in-person services to the public.

The‌ ‌meeting‌ ‌will‌ ‌begin‌ ‌at‌ ‌9‌ ‌a.m.‌ ‌Tuesday,‌ ‌Feb. 9, and will be available to the public virtually only.
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The‌ ‌meeting‌ ‌can‌ ‌be‌ ‌watched‌ ‌live‌ ‌on‌ ‌Channel‌ ‌8,‌ ‌online‌ ‌at‌ ‌https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx‌‌ and‌ ‌on‌ ‌the‌ ‌county’s‌ ‌Facebook‌ ‌page.‌ ‌Accompanying‌ ‌board‌ ‌documents,‌ ‌the‌ ‌agenda‌ ‌and‌ ‌archived‌ ‌board‌ ‌meeting‌ ‌videos‌ ‌also‌ ‌are‌ ‌available‌ ‌at‌ ‌that‌ ‌link.‌ ‌

To‌ ‌participate‌ ‌in‌ ‌real-time,‌ ‌join‌ ‌the‌ ‌Zoom‌ ‌meeting‌ ‌by‌ ‌clicking‌ ‌this‌ ‌link‌ ‌at‌ ‌9‌ ‌a.m.‌ ‌The‌ ‌meeting‌ ‌ID‌ ‌is‌ ‌968 6101 7739,‌ ‌password‌ 659362.‌ ‌The meeting also can be accessed via on tap mobile at +16699006833,,96861017739#,,,,*659362# US (San Jose).

All interested members of the public that do not have internet access or a Mediacom cable subscription are encouraged to call 669-900-6833, and enter the Zoom meeting ID and passcode information above.

Chromebook devices are also available at the Lakeport and Clearlake Library branches, which will open early on Tuesday. Chromebooks can be checked out for three hours for use on the library premises and contactless pickup is available. The Lakeport Library Branch can be reached at 707-263-8817, and Clearlake at 707-994-5115.

WiFi is accessible in the parking lot of each County Library Branch, so residents can park at these locations to use WiFi on borrowed or personal devices, by connecting to the “Lake County Library” network (no password) anytime from 7a.m. to 8 p.m.
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To‌ ‌submit‌ ‌a‌ ‌written‌ ‌comment‌ ‌on‌ ‌any‌ ‌agenda‌ ‌item‌ ‌please‌ ‌visit‌ ‌https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx‌‌ and‌ ‌click‌ ‌on‌ ‌the‌ ‌eComment‌ ‌feature‌ ‌linked‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌meeting‌ ‌date.‌ ‌If‌ ‌a‌ ‌comment‌ ‌is‌ ‌submitted‌ ‌after‌ ‌the‌ ‌meeting‌ ‌begins,‌ ‌it‌ ‌may‌ ‌not‌ ‌be‌ ‌read‌ ‌during‌ ‌the‌ ‌meeting‌ ‌but‌ ‌will‌ ‌become‌ ‌a‌ ‌part‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌record.‌ ‌

On Tuesday, the board will consider a resolution accepting a 620-acre bequest to the county from the John T. Klaus 1994 Trust for the creation of a park along East Highway 20 in Clearlake Oaks.

The proposal was first taken to the board in July, as Lake County News has reported.

The trust also includes dedicated financial resources. Public Services Director Lars Ewing’s July report to the board said the trustee had reported assets including bank accounts totaling approximately $1.5 million, appraisal values of properties owned by the trust and not yet sold amounting to approximately $650,000, and recurring annual lease income of approximately $127,000 from a property in Livermore that has been leased to an oil change business for more than 20 years.

Conditions on the donation include naming the park “John T. Klaus Park,” with one-third of the land on the rear of the property to be reserved as a refuge for wildlife and the rest of the park to be developed for sporting and athletic activities for youth.

In other business, the board will review a resolution from last month authorizing temporary reduction of in-person services to the public due to COVID-19 pandemic conditions and also will review its temporary closure of the Board of Supervisors chambers for in-person meetings.

Also on Tuesday, the board will get its weekly update from Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace at 9:06 a.m.

The full meeting follows.

CONSENT AGENDA

5.1: Approve letter of opposition to SB 55 and authorize the chair to sign.

5.2: Consideration of amendment to the County of Lake Covid-19 Public Health Emergency Worksite Protocol.

5.3: (a) Waive the formal bidding process, pursuant to Lake County Code Section 38.2, as it is not in the public interest due to the unique nature of goods or services; and (b) approve the agreement between the county of Lake and Redwood Community Services Inc. for the Lake County WRAP Program, Foster Care Program, and Intensive Services Foster Care Program for Specialty Mental Health Services for Fiscal Year 2020-21 for coverage of services provided during Fiscal Year 2019-20 for a contract maximum of $44,623.66 and authorize the board chair to sign the agreement.

5.4: Approve minutes of the Board of Supervisors meeting Jan. 5, 2021.

5.5: Approve the continuation of a local health emergency related to the 2019 Coronavirus (COVID-19) as proclaimed by the Lake County Public Health officer.

5.6: Approve the continuation of resolution ratifying the declaration of local health emergency and order prohibiting the endangerment of the community through the unsafe removal, transport, and disposal of fire debris for the LNU Complex wildfire.

5.7: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the Mendocino Complex Fire incident (River and Ranch fires)

5.8: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to the Pawnee Fire incident.

5.9: Approve the continuation of a local emergency due to COVID-19.

5.10: Approve the continuation of a local emergency in Lake County in response to the LNU Lightning Complex wildfire event.

5.11: Approve an agreement between the county of Lake and Califa for the provision, installation and maintenance of advanced network (data) services, for the period from July 1, 2021, until June 30, 2022, for an amount not to exceed $50,000 annually; and authorize the chair to sign.

5.12: Approve contract between county of Lake and Lake County Office of Education for community based child abuse prevention services from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2024, and authorize the chair to sign.

5.13: Approve contract between the county of Lake and Lake Family Resource Center for Cal-Learn services in the amount of $50,000 from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021, and authorize the chair to sign.

TIMED ITEMS

6.2, 9:06 a.m.: Consideration of update on COVID-19.

6.3, 10 a.m.: Consideration of (a) resolution amending Resolution No. 2020-133 to amend the FY 2020-21 Adopted Budget by Adjusting Reserves, Fund Balance Carry Over, Revenues, and Appropriations; and (b) Resolution Amending Resolution 2020-134 to Amend the Position Allocations for FY 2020-21 to conform to the mid-year budget adjustments.

UNTIMED ITEMS

7.2: Review of Resolution No. 2021-11 authorizing temporary reduction of in-person delivery of county services to the public due to COVID-19 pandemic conditions.

7.3: Reconsideration of temporary closure of the Board of Supervisors chambers for in-person meetings.

7.4: Consideration of the following advisory board appointments: Fish and Wildlife Advisory Committee.

7.5: Consideration of resolution accepting bequest of real property and funds from The John T. Klaus 1994 Trust to the county of Lake.

7.6: Consideration of an Ordinance Amending Chapter 25 – Floodplain Management of the Lake County Code.

7.7: Consideration of Change Order No. Two for Clayton Creek Road at Clayton Creek Bridge Replacement Project, Federal Project No. BRLO-5914(077); Bid No. 20-10.

7.8: Consideration of agreement between the county of Lake and the California State Franchise Tax Board for FY 2020-2023; and authorize the Treasurer-Tax Collector to sign.

CLOSED SESSION

8.1: Conference with legal counsel: Existing litigation pursuant to Gov. Code sec. 54956.9(d)(1): Center for Biological Diversity v. County of Lake, et al.

8.2: Conference with legal counsel: Existing Litigation pursuant to Gov. Code sec. 54956.9(d)(1): California Native Plant Society v. County of Lake, et al.

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.
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Umami, also known as the fifth flavor, can be found in a variety of savory foods. The rich mushroom bisque and quinoa burger with aged cheddar cheese offered at Red’s at the Skyroom in Lakeport, Calif. are packed full of it. Photo by Esther Oertel.Umami, also known as the fifth flavor, can be found in a variety of savory foods. The rich mushroom bisque and quinoa burger with aged cheddar cheese offered at Red’s at the Skyroom in Lakeport, Calif. are packed full of it. Photo by Esther Oertel.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – We all learned about the four taste categories in school – sweet, salty, bitter and sour. It turns out there’s a fifth category – umami, which denotes a delightfully rich and savory flavor, one that can’t be categorized within the other four.

When compared to how long the theory of the four basic tastes has been around (Democritus, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, added the fourth category, bitter), umami is a relative newcomer. It wasn’t until 2002, when researchers discovered receptors on the human tongue specific to it, that it became universally accepted. (Well, almost universally accepted; there are some detractors.)

It can be a bit difficult to pin down umami. Some describe it as full-bodied and meaty, similar to a richly flavored, well reduced broth.

It’s more than just a flavor, however; it’s also a sensation. Umami coats the tongue, gives a sense of mouth fullness, and has a long-lasting, complex and balanced taste.

It is said that umami has three distinct characteristics: the taste spreads across the tongue, it lasts longer than other tastes, and it provides a mouth-watering sensation.

Think seared meat, aged cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, seafood, green tea, walnuts, and fermented things like soy sauce and kimchi. It’s a diverse grouping, isn’t it?

But what is umami exactly?

To answer this question, we have to go back more than 100 years – to Japan in 1908, when a Tokyo University chemist, Kikunae Ikeda, proposed its existence.

It came about through his enjoyment of a bowl of dashi, a classic Japanese stock made from seaweed. As Ikeda sipped his soup, he recognized that what he was tasting was beyond category. He later wrote that he knew that what he was tasting was “common to tomatoes, cheese, and meat, but … not one of the four known tastes.”

He wanted to discover whether the flavor he was experiencing was a biologically determined taste for something he couldn’t quite pin down.

In his lab, Ikeda examined the molecular structure of a key component of the broth, a variety of seaweed known as kombu (or kelp to us). He determined that one substance, an amino acid known as glutamic acid, was responsible for the intense and pleasurable flavor he experienced.

He named the taste umami, derived from umai, the Japanese word for delicious. The Japanese characters for delicious and taste form the word in that language, and umami can best be translated to English as deliciousness or even yumminess.

The more recent taste research mentioned above has since confirmed that the molecular compounds in glutamic acid – glutamates – bind to specific tongue receptors to create some pretty amazing flavor magic.

Though “meaty” is one descriptor of umami, the flavor is found in food sourced from both animals and plants. Any food in which glutamic acid occurs naturally (or after cooking, aging, or fermentation) is considered umami.

When glutamate breaks down, such as when a piece of meat is cooked, cheese is aged, or a tomato is ripened in the sun, it becomes L-glutamate, which creates the taste sensation that is umami. The more concentrated the flavor (think slow-smoked meats, dried tomatoes, caramelization from roasting vegetables, or reduced stocks), the more intense the umami flavor.

While cooking typically brings out umami flavor, some foods, like corn and peas, are packed with umami when fresh.

Humans have long enjoyed the benefits of umami. More than 3,000 years ago, Greeks and Romans boosted the flavor of their food by using a fermented condiment made from anchovies (much like we use ketchup), and soy sauce has long been used to enhance food in Japan.

Auguste Escoffier, the famed French chef of the late 1800s who changed the course of cuisine, perfected the use of umami in the veal stock he created. He was known to say that a savory fifth taste was the secret to his success.

Many researchers now believe that humans developed a taste for umami because it signals the presence of protein, just as a sweet taste alerts us to needed calories and bitter or sour can warn us of possible toxins. Interestingly, human breast milk is high in umami.

The reason we crave things like cheeseburgers with ketchup or pizza with cheese is because of the umami flavor bomb that the combined ingredients create. Layering on other umami-rich foods like caramelized onions, grilled mushrooms or smoked meats like bacon creates even more flavor intensity.

If you’re an advocate of plant-based cooking like me, utilizing umami-rich foods like tomatoes, eggplant, mushrooms, caramelized onions, roasted winter squashes or nuts adds a satisfying “meaty” quality to foods.

And yes, if you recognized a similarity in the name, monosodium glutamate (MSG) is the chemical basis for umami flavor. Once the flavor source was isolated, Professor Ikeda marketed it as a product named Ajinomoto, which means “essence of flavor” in Japanese.

Today’s recipe is an appetizer packed full of umami that comes from mushrooms and shaved parmesan cheese. The use of dried mushrooms is optional; however, I recommend using them to kick up the level of umami flavor.

Mushroom Medley on Garlic Toasts

If you have access to wild mushrooms, use them in this dish. Otherwise, purchase a variety of fresh mushrooms at your local market, such as button, shiitake, cremini and baby portabella.

3 pounds mixed fresh mushrooms, cleaned and stemmed
3 ounces dried mushrooms (optional)
¼ cup olive oil
3 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
¼ cup vegetable broth or white wine
2 tablespoons brandy
2 tablespoons sweet butter or olive oil
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
3 sprigs fresh thyme
¼ cup chopped flat leaf parsley
Toasted baguette slices rubbed with fresh garlic
Shaved parmesan cheese, about 1 ¼ ounces

Heat oven to 450 degrees F.

Slice fresh mushrooms ¼ inch thick.

Soak dried mushrooms, if using, in a bowl of hot water until tender, about 10 minutes. Rinse and squeeze to dry.

Heat a 12-inch ovenproof skillet until very hot. Add olive oil and fresh mushrooms. Cook, stirring frequently, over high heat until mushrooms release their liquid, about 10 minutes.

Add the shallots, garlic, and rehydrated mushrooms, if using, and cook until liquid has evaporated.

Add broth or wine, brandy, butter or olive oil, salt, pepper, and the sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme.

Transfer skillet to the oven and roast, stirring twice, for 30 minutes. Stir in chopped parsley.

Serve warm on the garlic toasts and garnish with shaved Parmesan cheese.

Recipe by Esther Oertel.

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. She lives in Middletown.
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Emmy Award-winning documentarian Beverly Lindsay-Johnson is the director/producer of the new film on Soul/Rhythm & Blues legend Billy Stewart.

Stewart, to the uninitiated, was the ebullient, rotund, piano-playing crooner from Washington, D.C., whose highly original style of singing has not been replicated before or since. One writer described Stewart’s vocal stylings as the R&B equivalent of scat singing.

His take on two songs in particular; Gershwin’s “Summertime,” and “Secret Love,” made famous by Doris Day, altered the auditory receptors of American musical taste. William Larry Stewart rose to prominence through his association with Rock & Roll Daddy Bo Diddley. When Diddley rolled through D.C., the young Stewart’s piano playing amazed him so much, he hired him on the spot, spirited him away to Chicago, where Stewart signed a recording contract with Chess Records. It was 1956. Billy Stewart was still a teenager. Daddy Diddley played guitar on one of Billy’s first recordings, “Billy’s Blues.”

Six years would elapse before the hits began piling up. In 1962, the self-penned composition, “Reap What You Sow,” cracked the top 20 R&B chart. A second original piece, “Strange Feeling,” settled at No. 25 on the R&B chart. By 1965, Stewart was stretching into full flow with the two Top R&B 10 hits, “I Do Love You,” and “Sitting In The Park.” Those two songs both crossed over to the Top 40 Pop charts.

The biggest hit of his career was a retooling of the classic tune by George Gershwin, “Summertime.” It was released in 1966 on an album recorded in the wake of his 1965 hits and titled Unbelievable. “Summertime reached #10 on the Pop charts and No. 7 R&B.

His cover of “Secret Love” also fared well, landing at No. 11 on the R&B charts and No. 29 Pop. As a niche performer Billy Stewart is also a favored music component of Latinx Lowrider culture to this day.

Fat Boy screenings have been few in number and limited to the Washington, D.C. market, the hometown of Billy Stewart. It is slated for its (Bay Area) West Coast premiere on PBS affiliate KQED on Thursday, Feb. 18, at 11 p.m. It repeats on Friday, Feb. 19, at 5 a.m. and again on Wednesday, Feb. 24, at 3 p.m.

The filmmaker Beverly Lindsay-Johnson, in the wake of her success of Fat Boy, has been named director of the African American Music Association and took office on Jan. 4.

Hard work and dedication were the earmarks of her arduous climb. Lake County News asked about her dual proclivity for music and film.

“I’ve always been a music person as well as a TV and movie watcher,” she said. “I watched all the black and white stuff as a little girl. At 8, 9 and 10 years old, I was watching movies I knew I shouldn’t have been watching and asking myself, why is it this way?

“There were also books that I tried to read although I wasn’t supposed to be reading them. Then, when I found the movie that came from the book, I would try to see if the questions I had when I was reading the book, were answered. “

Lindsay-Johnson grew up in the Bronx, New York. Her father was an up-and-coming Doo-Wop singer, Bill Lindsay who sang with the popular Doo-Wop groups, the Cadillacs, and the Crickets. The young Beverly attended rehearsals and heard whispered conversations about Billie Holiday. She saw her dad cry when he learned of the death of Frankie Lymon of the group, The Teenagers.

Upon graduation from high school in New York, Lindsay-Johnson pursued a degree in legal secretary science and worked in that field until she decided that she didn’t like lawyers. She launched into television production classes at Hunter College in New York.

By a seeming stroke of divine appointment, the soon-to-be aspiring filmmaker landed a job at the Howard University Dental School which enabled her to start taking classes at the School of Communication.

She eventually secured a job at WHUT, Howard University Television, as a secretary. For six years she absorbed all she could about television production.

Though she told her employer her heart was in production and pitched him the same idea three times before he finally told her, “OK, you can do it.” The resulting documentary was entitled, “Swing, Bop, and Hand Dance.”

Lindsay-Johnson says the film “is a study of the phenomenon of urban partner dancing across the U.S. and its importance to African-American culture through its descendant, the Lindy Hop. People who do these urban partner dances don’t look at Lindy Hop, Jitterbug and Swing as descendants of their dance, but it is.”

“Swing, Bop, and Hand Dance” was made while Lindsay-Johnson worked as a secretary during the day. Consequently, all the shooting was done at night.

“When I produced that documentary, I was told that I needed to find something in it that would interest someone in say, Boise, Idaho. That was the whole connection with the Lindy Hop because though everybody might not know DC Hand Dancing, or Chicago Step or Philly Bop, or Norfolk Swing. But they know the Lindy Hop. The Lindy Hop dance craze gripped the whole nation from the 1930s to the 1950s,” she said.

“It was my first documentary, and nobody was saying no to me. Everyone was saying, ‘Yes, we’ll help you.’ When I finished it, my peers at the TV station didn’t believe I did it. They were like, You mean to tell me she did this? As it turned out, it was my first Emmy nomination.

“What challenged me to do my second documentary was the fact that I realized I had no ownership in the first documentary. I had the title of producer/director but no ownership at all. I vowed that it would never happen again,” she said.

Lindsay-Johnson’s next documentary was about the D.C. teen dance show known as “Teenarama.” It was the first African-American TV dance show, preceding Soul Train by a good eight years, running from 1963 to 1970, which was the year Soul Train started.

Unfortunately, no original footage of the show remained. Resourcefully, Lindsay-Johnson’s production team auditioned and trained teenaged dancers from today to execute the Boogaloo, Monkey, Twist, Jerk, Cha Cha, Bop and Hand Dance. The film’s effective historical reach garnered an Emmy for Lindsay-Johnson in 2006.

While researching “Teenarama,” Lindsay-Johnson was invited to work on a project that involved two popular Washington, D.C. entertainers: Billy Stewart and Van McCoy. A few years later the filmmaker sought out a grant program with assistance from the African-American Music Association.

Lindsay-Johnson’s resourcefulness again surfaced when she recognized that the known video archives for Billy Stewart were painfully thin.

“Through one of his cousins, I found out that his father had shot a lot of family footage on a 16 mm Kodak camera back in the 60s,” reflected Lindsay-Johnson. The family archive became the backbone of the documentary.

Skillfully woven in are interviews with many stars of R&B and Doo-Wop who witnessed the artistry of Stewart; Anthony Gourdine of Little Anthony and The Imperials, Herb Fame, of Peaches & Herb, Mitty Collier (“I Had A Talk With My Man Last Night”), The Bay Area’s Own – Queen of the West Coast Blues Sugar Pie DeSanto, (DeSanto wrote a song for Billy Stewart during her seven-year tenure with Chess), Grace Ruffin of the Jewells, Music Journalist Mike Boone, and Emanuel Raheim of the Disco/R&B group GQ.

The resulting marriage of the filmmaker’s vision of the preservation of yet another epoch of Black expression is richly deserving of the international acclaim PBS is affording this documentary.

Check it out. You should be home when it airs.

Editor’s note: In a previous version of this story, Beverly Lindsay-Johnson’s father’s name was incorrect. It is Bill Lindsay. We regret the error.

T. Watts is a music journalist who lives in Lake County, California.


The production crew with E. Raheim LeBlanc. Photo by Jiko Ozimba.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lakeport Planning Commission will honor one of its former members and consider its goals and those for the city’s planning department when it gathers this week.

The commission will meet via webinar beginning at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10.

The agenda is available here.

To speak on an agenda item, access the meeting remotely here; the meeting ID is 986 6166 5155.

Comments can be submitted by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. To give the City Clerk adequate time to print out comments for consideration at the meeting, please submit written comments prior to 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 10.

Please indicate in the email subject line "for public comment" and list the item number of the agenda item that is the topic of the comment. Comments that read to the council will be subject to the three minute time limitation (approximately 350 words). Written comments that are only to be provided to the council and not read at the meeting will be distributed to the council prior to the meeting.

On the agenda is a presentation to Ken Wicks Jr., who served for several years on the commission. His term ended in December.

Also on Tuesday, Community Development Director Jenni Byers will have a discussion with the commission regarding the Planning Department and planning commission’s goals and work program.

Planning division goals include update the housing element, the general plan’s safety and conservation elements, submittal of Community Development Block Grant applications, completion of the Citywide General Plan Amendment and Zone Change inconsistency mapping review started in 2017, implementation of the Lakeport Lakefront Revitalization Plan recommendations, completion of a general plan annual progress report and right-of-way improvements, among other items on a lengthy list in her report.

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.
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A volunteer looks for waterbirds at Point Reyes National Seashore in California during the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count. Kerry W/Flickr, CC BY

The rapid spread of COVID-19 in 2020 disrupted field research and environmental monitoring efforts worldwide. Travel restrictions and social distancing forced scientists to cancel studies or pause their work for months. These limits measurably reduced the accuracy of weather forecasts and created data gaps on issues ranging from bird migration to civil rights in U.S. public schools.

Our work relies on this kind of information to track seasonal events in nature and understand how climate change is affecting them. We also recruit and train citizens for community science – projects that involve amateur or volunteer scientists in scientific research, also known as citizen science. This often involves collecting observations of phenomena such as plants and animals, daily rainfall totals, water quality or asteroids.

Participation in many community science programs has skyrocketed during COVID-19 lockdowns, with some programs reporting record numbers of contributors. We believe these efforts can help to offset data losses from the shutdown of formal monitoring activities.

Nature’s Notebook is a community-based science project that invites participants to track seasonal changes in plants and animals.

Why is uninterrupted monitoring important?

Regular, long-term tracking of phenomena such as plant and animal abundance, composition and activity is critical for understanding change. It enables researchers to see the impacts of natural disturbance events, such as wildfires, and human activities, such as construction and development. Long-term studies offer insights into patterns and processes that can’t be derived from shorter studies, and help experts make better predictions about the future.

Interruptions in monitoring make it harder to accurately assess changes. If those disruptions coincide with extreme events, such as a major hurricane, experts miss opportunities to understand the full impacts of those events.

Man holding plastic bottles stands in stream.
A researcher takes water samples at the Coweeta Long-Term Ecological Research site in North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains. U.S. LTER

The U.S. has several long-term ecological monitoring programs, including the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), the Long Term Ecological Research Network and federal inventory and monitoring programs. Many state and local government agencies carry out similar activities. The pandemic has significantly disrupted all of these programs.

Reasons to engage the public in science

Community science is a strong complement to formal research. By engaging willing volunteers, community programs yield much more data and cover larger areas than professional scientists can achieve on their own.

We help manage two popular biodiversity-themed community science programs in the U.S.: eButterfly, a program for tracking butterfly sightings, and Nature’s Notebook, a program for tracking seasonal activity in plants and animals. Scientists have used data contributed by participants in these programs to verify information collected by satellites, determine the conditions associated with flowering in different species of plants, and predict how climate change will shift plant species’ ranges in the future.

Observations contributed to other community science programs have helped to document new insect species, discover exoplanets and even find cures for rare diseases. Globally, millions of people participate in thousands of projects, resulting in data valued at more than US$1 billion annually.

 

Community science programs also benefit participants. Joining a community science program can make people more science-literate and help pull back the curtain on how scientific work is done. It also deepens their sense of place and increases their understanding and appreciation for the plants and animals they monitor. We have frequently heard from our participants that making observations has enabled them to see and experience much more in places they know well, and to enjoy those places all the more.

Community science to the rescue

As offices and schools closed in the spring of 2020, many Americans turned to community science programs in search of stimulating and meaningful activities for children and adults alike. And despite COVID-19 restrictions, volunteer data collectors have persisted through the pandemic.

In a recent analysis of activity in biodiversity-themed community science programs during COVID-19 lockdowns, we found that participation generally held steady or increased in the spring of 2020. Two popular programs, iNaturalist and eBird, both grew. Participation in Nature’s Notebook and eButterfly declined slightly, though volunteers still logged many critical observations. What’s more, community science volunteers in these programs and others have kept at it even as lockdowns have relaxed.

Plant ecologist Chad Washburn explains how the Naples Botanical Garden in Florida uses citizen science research to study plant distribution, flowering times and range.


How good is community data?

One common question about community science projects is whether data collected by volunteers is reliable. This is a valid concern, since many program participants are not formally trained as scientists.

Organizations that run community science programs typically go to great lengths to ensure data quality. To avoid recording erroneous observations, project leaders provide extensive training and support materials. They also construct data entry apps so that volunteers can’t mistakenly input dates in the future, and flag inconsistent reports for review. Several biodiversity-themed programs, including iNaturalist, eBird and eButterfly, engage expert reviewers to evaluate and verify reports.

According to a 2018 review by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, on average, volunteer contributors yield reliable data points about 75% of the time. For some programs, such as Nature’s Notebook and eBird, accuracy is over 90%.

SciStarter is a database that volunteers can use to find community science opportunities across the U.S. throughout the year.


How to get involved

Your observations can help fill critical gaps that COVID-19 closures have created. Contributions to iNaturalist, eBird, eButterfly or Nature’s Notebook are welcome any time of the year, but spring is an ideal time to contribute observations to biodiversity-themed programs to help document plant and animal response to changing seasonal conditions. For example, participants in Nature’s Notebook will help document whether springtime plant and animal activity is early amid the ongoing effects of climate change.

The 2021 City Nature Challenge, an effort using iNaturalist to document urban biodiversity in brief, focused events, will run in late April and early May in cities worldwide. Another event, Global Big Day – a single day focused on celebrating and recording birds worldwide – is scheduled for May 8. Even if you’ve never thought of yourself as a scientist, you can help scientists collect data that expand our understanding of the Earth and how it works.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]The Conversation

Theresa Crimmins, Director, USA National Phenology Network, University of Arizona; Erin Posthumus, Outreach Coordinator and Liaison to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, University of Arizona, and Kathleen Prudic, Assistant Professor of Citizen and Data Science, University of Arizona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – On Monday, Feb. 8, Supervisors Bruno Sabatier and Eddie Crandell, representatives from the county of Lake, cities of Clearlake and Lakeport, and other business community stakeholders will again convene the Lake County Small Business COVID-19 Recovery Team.

The meeting will begin at 1 p.m.

To participate in Monday’s meeting, join Zoom at this link. The meeting ID is 989 0155 5727, the passcode is 450800. The meeting also can be joined by one tap mobile: +16699006833,,98901555727#,,,,*450800# US (San Jose).

Positioning Lake County businesses to take advantage of COVID-19 relief funding opportunities has been a matter of significant community priority, as well as taking proactive steps to advocate for further support for local businesses, when gaps or inequities are identified.

Monday’s agenda will include discussion of the federal stimulus package, and consideration/approval of a letter to the state to advocate for the unique needs of Lake County’s small businesses.

Feb. 8 at 6 p.m. is also the deadline to apply for the second round of the California Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grant Program, which offers grants of up to $25,000 for eligible businesses with annual revenues of $2.5 million or less.

Information and on-demand webinars are available at https://careliefgrant.com.

For more information and resources on federal and state relief opportunities available, visit https://www.sba.gov/page/coronavirus-covid-19-small-business-guidance-loan-resources and
https://business.ca.gov/coronavirus-2019/.

The Rural Relief Small Business Grant Program, a partnership between LISC and Lowes, is currently between funding rounds, but you can get information and sign up for updates on future opportunities here.

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