LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A Saturday afternoon structure fire destroyed one home and damaged another in Clearlake.
The fire in the 16200 block of 32nd Avenue near Wilkinson Avenue was first reported at about 4:45 p.m. Saturday.
The first units on the scene found a fully involved single-wide mobile home with other structures threatened. Shortly afterward, two vehicles were reported to be on fire, according to radio traffic.
Minutes later, firefighters at the scene reported that a nearby home also was catching fire.
Lake County Fire Chief Willie Sapeta told Lake County News that the fire initially was in the single-wide mobile home, which had a small shed next to it and was within about 15 feet of a stick-built home.
He said the fire passed from the trailer to the shed, and then to the other home.
Sapeta said firefighters’ ability to respond was hampered by downed power lines on 32nd Avenue and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition going off in the mobile home and the adjacent shed.
Shortly after 5 p.m., Sapeta reported over the radio that they had shaky containment on the fire, but resources would remain on scene for several more hours as they worked to completely put out the fire and conducted overhaul.
In addition to Lake County Fire, Northshore Fire and South Lake Fire sent resources, with Kelseyville Fire called but later canceled, Sapeta said.
He said four engines, three water tenders, a rescue unit, two medic units and a company officer were part of the response.
During the incident, a fire hydrant’s valve failed and shut down the water, so firefighters lost all water supply, which Sapeta said caused him to have to call for two more water tenders.
He said he sent firefighters to other hydrants to check the water system due to concerns that a water main had broken, but the issue was only with the one hydrant nearest the scene.
Sapeta said the trailer was a complete loss, with about 40 percent of the stick-built structure damaged. Three cars also were burned, as were tires and debris.
He said a father and daughter who lived in the trailer were not home when the fire occurred. They were concerned their black lab had died in the fire, but later the dog walked up, unharmed, Sapeta said.
A woman who lived in the house next door and who is related to the trailer’s residents was able to get out of the home safely with her dogs, Sapeta 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.
Antarctic ozone hole, Oct. 10, 2017: Purple and blue represent areas of low ozone concentrations in the atmosphere; yellow and red are areas of higher concentrations. Carbon tetrachloride, which was once used in applications such as dry cleaning and as a fire-extinguishing agent, was regulated in 1987 under the Montreal Protocol along with other chlorofluorocarbons that destroy ozone and contribute to the ozone hole over Antarctica. Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. On Sept. 16, 1987, policymakers and scientists from around the world gathered at the International Civil Aviation Organization’s headquarters in Montreal, preparing to take action on the day’s most urgent topic: Depletion of the Earth’s protective ozone layer.
Two years before, researchers from the British Antarctic Survey had stunned the world with the first paper demonstrating that atmospheric ozone levels over Antarctica were dropping at an astonishing rate during the southern hemisphere spring.
Shortly after the British paper, NASA showed images from its Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer, or TOMS, that not only confirmed the falling ozone levels, but also showed the extent was broader than anyone realized. The “ozone hole,” as the severely depleted region was dubbed, was the size of the entire Antarctic continent.
Some scientists had warned since the 1970’s that chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) posed a threat to the ozone layer, but no one knew for sure what was causing the ozone hole to develop. The discovery lent urgency to the discussion: How could the world repair the ozone layer before it was too late?
Ozone – a chemical made of three oxygen atoms – is mostly found in a layer about 8-30 miles above Earth’s surface, in the stratosphere. It absorbs harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the Sun, shielding plants, animals and humans from damage ranging from crop death to skin cancer.
“If there were no ozone layer, the Sun would sterilize Earth’s surface,” said Paul Newman, chief scientist for Earth Sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
On September 16, 1987, Newman was a young atmospheric scientist at Goddard, analyzing data coming back from the Antarctic Airborne Ozone Expedition or AAOE – where another NASA scientist, Susan Strahan, stood with her colleagues looking at a bulletin board in Punta Arenas, Chile.
Strahan analyzed atmospheric chemistry data from the sleek, long-winged ER-2 plane flying into the Antarctic polar vortex to measure ozone and chemicals that could react with it.
That day’s data would yield the famous “smoking gun plot”: The data showing that as a chemical called chlorine monoxide increased in the Antarctic stratosphere, ozone decreased. Chlorine monoxide was known to be present in the atmosphere, but had previously been observed only at lower concentrations than the AAOE team measured — these levels came from a complex set of chemical reactions occurring in the Antarctic following the breakdown of CFCs by UV radiation in the stratosphere.
The data disproved other theories and gave scientists evidence that CFCs were causing the ozone hole.
Strahan and her colleagues’ data would not be published until later, but by the end of that day in 1987, twenty-seven nations agreed to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer: “Perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date,” said former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2003.
The Montreal Protocol created a timetable for controlling production and consumption of CFCs. Over the next few years, the science of ozone depletion was more firmly established, manufacturers introduced replacement chemicals that were safer for the environment, and the Montreal Protocol was strengthened several times to stop wide-scale production and use of CFCs and related molecules.
The long journey toward recovery had begun.
Today, Newman and Strahan are leaders in atmospheric science and both sit at NASA Goddard: Newman as chief scientist for Earth Sciences and co-chair of the Scientific Assessment Panel, or SAP, to the Montreal Protocol, Strahan as a principal scientist for the Universities Space Research Association. And today, they both keep an eye on Earth’s atmosphere, continuing NASA’s long-running research and monitoring efforts on stratospheric ozone (which go back to the 1970s) into the future.
CFCs: Danger at high altitudes
CFCs were not always the villain in this story. Invented for use as refrigerants in the 1920’s, CFCs represented a technological breakthrough: They were versatile, but more importantly, they were neither toxic nor flammable. Older refrigeration chemicals were lethal if leaked; CFCs did not harm human health or react with other chemicals in the lower atmosphere.
The problem is that while CFCs are inert at the surface, the story changes in the stratosphere.
“CFCs are emitted at the surface. We make a fridge, and the compound leaks out,” said Strahan. “The emissions start in the troposphere (the atmospheric layer closest to Earth’s surface) and work their way up to the stratosphere.”
Once CFCs diffuse above the protection of the ozone layer, UV radiation breaks them apart, releasing highly reactive chlorine atoms. At first, these react with other chemicals to create hydrochloric acid and chlorine nitrate – called “reservoir gases,” Strahan said, because they typically store chlorine in stable molecules.
But the polar regions support chemical reactions that could not happen anywhere else on Earth. The intense cold of polar winters allows the formation of thin clouds, despite low atmospheric moisture. And the polar vortex winds encircle the Antarctic region, trapping the chemicals within its boundary.
Hydrochloric acid and chlorine nitrate react on the surfaces of these the thin cloud particles to free the reactive chlorine once again, and when the Sun returns in the spring, the UV radiation initiates the catalytic chlorine-ozone reactions that destroy the ozone layer. One chlorine atom can destroy thousands of ozone molecules – and with millions of tons of CFCs pumped into the atmosphere from the 1920’s through the early 1990’s, the Antarctic polar region bore the brunt of the damage.
“If we had done nothing, if the Montreal Protocol had not been signed, by this time things would have been quite disastrous,” said Newman. “Ozone levels would be way down; UV levels would be way up. Because of increased UV radiation at the surface, we would have had global crop losses, people would sunburn faster and skin cancer would be going up. Food prices would shoot up; the poor people of the world would have greatly suffered.”
Comparison of projected 2065 global ozone levels with and without Montreal Protocol reductions.
First steps to recovery
Today, 33 years later, the ozone hole is showing its first signs of recovery. Strahan and her colleague Anne Douglass published one of the first studies in 2018 confirming that atmospheric chlorine levels are falling in step with reduced ozone depletion over Antarctica – proof that the Montreal Protocol is working.
These first hopeful signs represent a global success story: Policymakers, scientists and companies around the world joined forces to find a solution to an urgent problem. Much of the data that empowered these decisions came from NASA scientists and instruments.
Ongoing ground- and space-based monitoring of ozone and other trace gases, by NASA and other institutions, will help inform development of environmental policies designed to make sure levels continue trending in a positive direction even in the midst of other changes, such as Earth’s warming climate.
“If you don’t know how much ozone is up there, you don’t know if it’s getting better or worse,” said Strahan. “If it does change, was it natural variability or was it caused by humans? Having a long data record of ozone and other gases directly related to its chemistry is really important.”
Today, NASA monitors ozone from space using the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and Ozone Monitoring Instrument aboard its Aura spacecraft, and the MLS also measures trace gases containing chlorine.
Strahan and Douglass’ 2018 study used MLS measurements of hydrochloric acid, a form that chlorine takes after destroying ozone, to calculate total stratospheric inorganic chlorine above Antarctica.
Inorganic chlorine compounds like hydrochloric acid have no carbon molecules, which allows researchers to differentiate between them and chlorine still tied up in CFCs.
Additionally, the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III measures ozone and trace gases from its vantage point aboard the International Space Station, and the NASA-NOAA Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite aboard the Suomi-NPP satellite measures both total column ozone and ozone profiles.
These instruments had precursors on earlier NASA satellites, and they – along with space, air and ground measurements from partner organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and global partners – will help scientists keep track of the ozone hole’s recovery.
“When it comes to a clear sign the ozone hole is going away, it could still be a couple decades before we can look up and say it’s smaller every single year than it was in the early 2000s,” Strahan said. “Most years since then, it’s been a bit smaller, but occasionally we’ll have a really cold year and a big hole again. We’re going to have that kind of variability going forward, but once we get to 2040 or so, there will be so much less chlorine that the holes will be smaller even in cold years. It will be a long, bumpy road, but we’re headed in the right direction. We just need to be patient and keep up the good work.”
Jessica Merzdorf works for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. – In alignment with current federal, state and local guidance for social distancing and to ensure health and safety of its visitors, employees and local communities, the Mendocino National Forest is closing off-highway vehicle trails to the public effective Friday, April 17.
Forest Order No. 08-20-03, which enacts the closure, will be in effect until April 30. The order is available on the forest website.
These off-highway vehicle trails are drawing increasingly heavy traffic and large groups of people creating circumstances where social distancing is not possible.
Additionally, users travel through and stop in communities adjacent to the forest before accessing riding areas which could potentially contribute to exposure risks to local residents.
“We realize how important the Mendocino National Forest is to the public, but to protect our visitors, employees and local communities, we must take steps to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 infection,” said Mendocino National Forest Supervisor Ann Carlson.
This closure is an interim measure. The Mendocino National Forest will continue to evaluate the emerging circumstances around COVID-19 and follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control as well as state and local health departments to ensure that the safety of employees and visitors remains the top priority.
From left to right, Jeff Warrenburg, Marty Diesman and Gary Deas at the Hope Harbor warming center in Lakeport, California on Wednesday, April 15, 2020. Courtesy photo. LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Rotary has donated $1,000 to support the Hope Harbor warming center, which is now acting as a COVID-19 shelter for the homeless.
Lakeport Rotary President Jeff Warrenburg and Treasurer Marty Diesman presented a $1,000 check to Gary Deas, Hope Harbor’s operations manager, on Wednesday.
The warming center is located in the former Record-Bee offices at 2150 S. Main St. in Lakeport.
In late March, the center opened up on a 24/7 basis and was allowed to expand its population after receiving an emergency funding allocation from the state, as Lake County News has reported. The goal is to remain open through April.
The center is serving more than 35 individuals, who can stay inside the building or in their vehicles in the parking lot. There also is room for campers, and a shower trailer and portable toilets are available.
Dinners are being sponsored by residents who pay for food from local restaurants as well as those who bring food. Lunch and breakfast are being supplied by the Clear Lake Gleaners, Lakeport Senior Center and other donors.
“The Lakeport Rotary is pleased to assist in this valuable resource for those in our community who are facing very challenging times,” said Jeff Warrenburg.
The Lakeport Rotary Club meets every Wednesday at noon via Zoom conference/video calls.
Those interested in more information about the Lakeport Rotary Club can contact Warrenburg at 925-381-0359.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Results from recent testing conducted at all of the sewer treatment plants operated by Lake County Special Districts have revealed the presence of the virus that causes COVID-19.
Special Districts reported the testing results on Friday.
Last month, Special Districts began participating in a project to look for evidence of SARS-CoV-2 – the name given by the World Health Organization to the novel coronavirus which causes COVID-19 – at the treatment plants it operates, as Lake County News has reported.
The firm Biobot, based in Somerville, Massachusetts, is conducting the surveillance testing for Special Districts as part of its COVID-19 response program.
A wastewater epidemiology firm with a mission of transforming wastewater infrastructure into public health observatories, Biobot launched its pro bono program to map COVID-19 across the U.S. in collaboration with researchers at MIT, Harvard and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Special Districts said the goal is to track the virus’ intensity and spread across the country and provide public health agencies with data in responding to the pandemic.
Beginning on March 26, the tests began on a weekly basis at Special Districts’ sewage treatment plants. Results were available three to five days after each round of testing.
The agency said the first four samples taken on March 26 did not detect the virus; neither did the next round of samples taken on April 1.
However, samples taken on April 8 detected the presence of SARS-CoV-2 at all four treatment plants, Special Districts reported.
Three days earlier, on April 5, Lake County’s first COVID-19 case was confirmed and, since then, testing has confirmed five other cases.
“The presence of COVID-19 in all four treatment plants does suggest we may have community transmission,” Special Districts reported.
Lake County Public Health Officer Gary Pace said in a Friday statement that the test results of the untreated sewage confirmed suspicions from recent contact investigations that there have been some undetected infections in the county over the last month.
He also noted, “Recent evidence, including the raw sewage testing, does suggest it is probable community transmission of the coronavirus has occurred in Lake County,” explaining that it hadn’t been previously identified due to a lack of adequate testing.
So far, just over 300 tests have been conducted, and Pace said his agency is working hard to get more supplies and laboratory access, and the state is promising some changes in the coming weeks.
“Since there have been limitations in testing access, many people with mild illness in the community haven’t been able to be tested. However, it is reassuring we have not seen a rise in serious illness or hospitalizations,” Pace said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that while SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in the feces of some patients diagnosed with COVID-19, the amount of virus released from the body in stool, how long the virus is shed and whether the virus in stool is infectious are not known.
While it also isn’t known if there is risk for transmission from the feces of an infected person, the CDC said it’s expected to be low based on data from previous outbreaks of related coronaviruses, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS.
The CDC said that, based on data so far, the risk of SARS-CoV-2 being transmitted through sewage systems “is thought to be low.” While transmission of the virus through sewage may be possible, there is no evidence that has occurred.
County officials said Special Districts staff working in the treatment plants wear appropriate protective equipment to keep them safe.
Firms and universities researching sewage
Biobot told Lake County News they are working to reach as many communities as possible through their COVID-19 response program.
“Unfortunately, we cannot share which communities are involved at this time,” the company said.
While there are asymptomatic patients who are still infectious or patients with mild symptoms who are not captured in the limited testing data, sewage data is able to capture the whole population, so such samples enable public health interventions to match and better understand the actual infected population, the company said.
Besides using the sewage data to understand the scope of the outbreak independent from patient testing or hospital reporting, Biobot said a better understanding of scope offers more information for officials trying to determine public health interventions.
The company said the work could also help anticipate hospital capacity and readiness and give an early warning for the reemergence of the novel coronavirus if it has a seasonal cycle – like many are projecting that it does.
Besides Biobot and its partners, other organizations – particularly several universities – are working on wastewater testing to track COVID-19.
Researchers at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom said last month they are working on a new, quicker test to detect SARS-CoV-2 in the wastewater of communities infected with the virus.
The rapid test kits offer paper-based devices that could be used on-site at wastewater treatment plants to trace sources and determine whether there are potential COVID-19 carriers in local areas, the university said.
“If COVID-19 can be monitored in a community at an early stage through wastewater-based epidemiology, effective intervention can be taken as early as possible to restrict the movements of that local population, working to minimize the pathogen spread and threat to public health,” said Dr. Zhugen Yang, lecturer in sensor technology at Cranfield Water Science Institute.
Similarly, a research team from the University of Michigan and Stanford University has received a rapid response grant from the National Science Foundation that they’re using to study how the novel coronavirus behaves and moves through the environment, with a focus on wastewater detection.
Researchers said the work could provide a clearer picture of how broadly the disease is spreading because it could pick up evidence of upticks in more mild cases or those that bring no symptoms at all.
“For epidemiologists interested in the prevalence and incidence of COVID-19, our methodology offers an estimate that does not rely on testing every individual, nor is it as prone to measurement bias,” said Nasa Sinnott-Armstrong, a doctoral student at Stanford working on the project. “We could identify areas with rapidly increasing cases as a warning system to the health care system. Finally, these numbers can help epidemiologists model the trajectory of the pandemic with far less testing burden on our health care system.”
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.
Unprecedented observations of a nova outburst in 2018 by a trio of satellites, including two NASA missions, have captured the first direct evidence that most of the explosion’s visible light arose from shock waves — abrupt changes of pressure and temperature formed in the explosion debris.
A nova is a sudden, short-lived brightening of an otherwise inconspicuous star. It occurs when a stream of hydrogen from a companion star flows onto the surface of a white dwarf, a compact stellar cinder not much larger than Earth.
NASA’s Fermi and NuSTAR space telescopes, together with the Canadian BRITE-Toronto satellite and several ground-based facilities, studied the nova.
“Thanks to an especially bright nova and a lucky break, we were able to gather the best-ever visible and gamma-ray observations of a nova to date,” said Elias Aydi, an astronomer at Michigan State University in East Lansing who led an international team from 40 institutions. “The exceptional quality of our data allowed us to distinguish simultaneous flares in both optical and gamma-ray light, which provides smoking-gun evidence that shock waves play a major role in powering some stellar explosions.”
The 2018 outburst originated from a star system later dubbed V906 Carinae, which lies about 13,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina. Over time – perhaps tens of thousands of years for a so-called classical nova like V906 Carinae – the white dwarf’s deepening hydrogen layer reaches critical temperatures and pressures. It then erupts in a runaway reaction that blows off all of the accumulated material.
Each nova explosion releases a total of 10,000 to 100,000 times the annual energy output of our Sun. Astronomers discover about 10 novae each year in our galaxy.
Fermi detected its first nova in 2010 and has observed 14 to date. Although X-ray and radio studies had shown the presence of shock waves in nova debris in the weeks after the explosions reached peak brightness, the Fermi discovery came as a surprise.
Gamma rays – the highest-energy form of light – require processes that accelerate subatomic particles to extreme energies. When these particles interact with each other and with other matter, they produce gamma rays. But astronomers hadn’t expected novae to be powerful enough to produce the required degree of acceleration.
Because the gamma rays appear at about the same time as the peak in visible light, astronomers concluded that shock waves play a more fundamental role in the explosion and its aftermath.
In 2015, a paper led by Brian Metzger at Columbia University in New York showed how comparing Fermi gamma-ray data with optical observations would allow scientists to learn more about nova shock waves.
In 2017, a study led by Kwon-Lok Li at Michigan State found that the overall gamma-ray and visible emissions rose and fell in step in a nova known as V5856 Sagittarii. This implied shock waves produced more of the eruption’s light than the white dwarf itself.
The new observations from V906 Carinae, presented in a paper led by Aydi and published on Monday, April 13, in Nature Astronomy, spectacularly confirm this conclusion.
On March 20, 2018, the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae, a set of two dozen robotic telescopes distributed around the globe and operated by Ohio State University, discovered the nova. By month’s end, V906 Carinae was dimly visible to the naked eye.
Fortuitously, a satellite called BRITE-Toronto was already studying the nova’s patch of sky. This miniature spacecraft is one of five 7.9-inch (20 centimeter) cubic nanosatellites comprising the Bright Target Explorer (BRITE) Constellation. Operated by a consortium of universities from Canada, Austria and Poland, the BRITE satellites study the structure and evolution of bright stars and observe how they interact with their environments.
BRITE-Toronto was monitoring a red giant star called HD 92063, whose image overlapped the nova’s location. The satellite observed the star for 16 minutes out of every 98-minute orbit, returning about 600 measurements each day and capturing the nova’s changing brightness in unparalleled detail.
“BRITE-Toronto revealed eight brief flares that fired up around the time the nova reached its peak, each one nearly doubling the nova’s brightness,” said Kirill Sokolovsky at Michigan State. “We’ve seen hints of this behavior in ground-based measurements, but never so clearly. Usually we monitor novae from the ground with many fewer observations and often with large gaps, which has the effect of hiding short-term changes.”
Fermi, on the other hand, almost missed the show. Normally its Large Area Telescope maps gamma rays across the entire sky every three hours. But when the nova appeared, the Fermi team was busy troubleshooting the spacecraft’s first hardware problem in nearly 10 years of orbital operations — a drive on one of its solar panels stopped moving in one direction. Fermi returned to work just in time to catch the nova’s last three flares.
In fact, V906 Carinae was at least twice as bright at billion-electron-volt, or GeV, energies as any other nova Fermi has observed. For comparison, the energy of visible light ranges from about 2 to 3 electron volts.
“When we compare the Fermi and BRITE data, we see flares in both at about the same time, so they must share the same source – shock waves in the fast-moving debris,” said Koji Mukai, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “When we look more closely, there is an indication that the flares in gamma rays may lead the flares in the visible. The natural interpretation is that the gamma-ray flares drove the optical changes.”
The team also observed the eruption’s final flare using NASA’s NuSTAR space telescope, which is only the second time the spacecraft has detected X-rays during a nova’s optical and gamma-ray emission.
The nova’s GeV gamma-ray output far exceeded the NuSTAR X-ray emission, likely because the nova ejecta absorbed most of the X-rays. High-energy light from the shock waves was repeatedly absorbed and reradiated at lower energies within the nova debris, ultimately only escaping at visible wavelengths.
Putting all of the observations together, Aydi and his colleagues describe what they think happened when V906 Carinae erupted. During the outburst’s first few days, the orbital motion of the stars swept a thick debris cloud made of multiple shells of gas into a doughnut shape that appeared roughly edge-on from our perspective.
The cloud expanded outward at less than about 1.3 million mph (2.2 million kph), comparable to the average speed of the solar wind flowing out from the Sun.
Next, an outflow moving about twice as fast slammed into denser structures within the doughnut, creating shock waves that emitted gamma rays and visible light, including the first four optical flares.
Finally, about 20 days after the explosion, an even faster outflow crashed into all of the slower debris at around 5.6 million mph (9 million kph). This collision created new shock waves and another round of gamma-ray and optical flares. The nova outflows likely arose from residual nuclear fusion reactions on the white dwarf’s surface.
Astronomers have proposed shock waves as a way to explain the power radiated by various kinds of short-lived events, such as stellar mergers, supernovae – the much bigger blasts associated with the destruction of stars – and tidal disruption events, where black holes shred passing stars.
The BRITE, Fermi and NuSTAR observations of V906 Carinae provide a dramatic record of such a process. Further studies of nearby novae will serve as laboratories for better understanding the roles shock waves play in other more powerful and more distant events.
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Fermi was developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.
NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NuSTAR was developed in partnership with the Danish Technical University and the Italian Space Agency, or ASI.
The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Virginia. NuSTAR's mission operations center is at the University of California Berkeley, and the official data archive is at NASA's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center. ASI provides the mission's ground station and a mirror archive. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
Francis Reddy works for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Clearlake Animal Control has six dogs waiting to be adopted this week.
While the shelter has moved most of its dogs into foster, potential adopters can make appointments to meet and adopt available dogs.
The following dogs are ready for adoption or foster.
“Buddy.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Buddy’
“Buddy” is a male spaniel mix with a black and white coat.
He is dog No. 3667.
“Freckles.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Freckles’
“Freckles” is a female Australian Cattle Dog mix with a short red and white coat.
She has been spayed.
She is dog No. 3668.
“Mitch.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Mitch’
“Mitch” is a male American Staffordshire Terrier with a short brindle and white coat.
He is dog No. 3733.
“Princess.” Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News. ‘Princess’
“Princess” is a female German Shepherd with a black and tan coat.
She has been spayed.
Princess is young and energetic. She previously lived around a smaller dog and has been around the office cat. She will benefit from training and attention.
She is dog No. 3669.
“Tyson.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Tyson’
“Tyson” is a male American Staffordshire Terrier with a short gray and white coat.
He has been neutered.
He is dog No. 1863.
“Woodrow.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control. ‘Woodrow’
“Woodrow” is a male Staffordshire Bull Terrier with a black and white coat.
He is dog No. 3281.
Clearlake Animal Control’s shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53, off Airport Road.
Hours of operation are noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. The shelter is closed Sundays, Mondays and major holidays; the shelter offers appointments on the days it’s closed to accommodate people.
Call the Clearlake Animal Control shelter at 707-273-9440, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to inquire about adoptions.
Visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or at the city’s website.
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.
Michael Cox has been named the new superintendent for the Middletown Unified School District in Middletown, California. Courtesy photo. MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Unified School District Board of Trustees has named Michael Cox as the next superintendent of schools starting July 1.
Cox currently is the principal of the Alternative Education Center located in Silver Valley Unified School District.
The board is excited to welcome Cox to Middletown Unified. They said he brings with him leadership skills that foster a spirit of teamwork and we feel he will integrate well into our exceptional staff.
The selection is the result of an intensive search conducted with the Middletown Board of Trustees that produced many qualified applicants from diverse geographic and professional backgrounds.
“We are extraordinarily pleased with the outcome of this search process. In the end, Michael Cox proved himself the best fit to carry forward the vision of the district. His track record of driving academic excellence, along with his passion for working with students and families, demonstrates his capability to succeed in this new role,” the board said in a statement.
Cox completed the Master of Arts in educational administration from Brandman University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Utah State University.
He has pursued professional development opportunities including the Association of California School Administrators certificates in personnel and business, and most recently he was accepted and completed the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team Chief Business Official mentorship program.
“I am honored to have been chosen for this position,” said Cox. “I am grateful to serve in this capacity. I will work collaboratively, with an emphasis on teamwork and a ‘students first’ mindset, to continue moving the district in a positive direction and improving the educational outcomes for all of our students.”
NORTH COAST, Calif. – On Friday Mendocino County’s health officer reported the fifth case of COVID-19 in Mendocino County, which she said was confirmed in a state prison inmate who was released there.
Dr. Noemi Doohan said the patient is a male between the ages of 19 and 34 years old, who although he’s tested positive is not showing symptoms.
The man is in isolation at home with a relative in the Ukiah Valley with active public health monitoring since Thursday, Doohan said.
Like the previous four cases, Doohan said this case is related to an exposure outside of Mendocino County and does not appear to indicate that community spread has occurred inside our county.
Mendocino County’s first four COVID-19 patients have fully recovered and are sheltering in place, according to Doohan’s report.
Doohan said the patient was released from a state correctional facility by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or CDCR, and was transported, untested, from that facility to Mendocino County in order to stay with a relative.
The individual has not shown symptoms and was directed by CDCR to self-isolate until the COVID-19 testing was done, Doohan said.
Doohan said Mendocino County Public Health was made aware of the man’s presence in the county on Thursday morning, as soon as Sheriff Matt Kendall became aware.
The man was evaluated at a local primary care clinic within hours, and Public Health transported the COVID-19 test sample to the Public Health lab in Santa Rosa promptly, resulting in a positive test result within 24 hours, she said.
“The primary care clinic responded to this urgent need in an exemplary matter, and took proper precautions including using personal protective equipment while evaluating the individual,” Doohan’s statement on the case explained.
“It can be easy to let our guard down as sheltering in place seems to drag on, but this case is proof that we still need our county’s shelter-in-place order to protect us while we gain precious time to prepare for the threat of COVID-19 community spread arriving in the near future like it has in Sonoma County,” said Doohan. “Sheltering in place is not optional. We must continue to shelter in place while practicing social distancing, and wear face coverings while out in public for essential activities.”
Anyone in Mendocino County who is tested for COVID-19 must remain in isolation until further directed by their clinician who ordered the test under the blanket isolation and quarantine orders released by Dr. Doohan on April 8.
He survived the last great plague in London and the city’s Great Fire. He was imprisoned and persecuted for his religious and political views. There was no happy ending for the journalist Daniel Defoe, author of “A Journal of a Plague Year.” When he died in 1731, he was mired in debt and hiding from his creditors.
Yet Defoe, born in 1660, left behind a work of fiction that is one of the most widely published books in history and – other than the Bible – the most translated book in the world. Like many great works of fiction, it speaks across centuries, especially now as we face the COVID-19 pandemic.
The book is “Robinson Crusoe,” written by Defoe and first published in 1719. Crusoe is an Englishman who leaves his comfortable life, goes to sea, gets captured by pirates and sold into slavery. Later, he emerges from a shipwreck the sole survivor. He sustains himself alone on a tropical island for 28 years, relying on grit, imagination and the few things he salvaged from the ship. His tale offers lessons for us all.
As a physician and scholar, I have taught Defoe’s novel many times to my students at Indiana University. I believe it is one of the best books to read as we endure the uncertainty and isolation due to COVID-19, because it invites us to reflect on existential issues at the core of a pandemic.
For those hunkered down in the midst of a pandemic, one of Robinson Crusoe’s lessons is understanding the folly of worldly goods. Crusoe finds gold but realizes it is of no value to him, not even worth “taking off of the ground.” In his former life, money had become a “drug.” Now, marooned on an island, he learns what is truly necessary and rewarding in life.
Like Crusoe’s shipwreck, sheltering in place during COVID-19 interrupts long-established habits and rhythms of life. With this interruption comes a chance to examine our lives. What is genuinely necessary in life? And what things turn out to be little more than distractions? For example, where on such a spectrum would we situate the pursuit of wealth or caring well for loved ones?
Making do with very little
Crusoe quickly learns to be open to discovery. When he first arrives on the island, he finds it barren, inhospitable and threatening, like a prison. Over time, he comes to recognize it as home. As he explores the island and learns to live in harmony with it, it protects and sustains him. The island emerges as an unending source of wonder that at first he couldn’t see.
As my family and I have sheltered in place, we have shared a similar experience. We are taking more walks and lingering longer at the dinner table. Now that we are not rushing as much from one thing to another, we’ve discovered what it means to be in one place and simply savor being together.
Necessity, the mother of invention
Alone on an island, Crusoe can’t rely on anyone but himself to provide the things he needs. On the day of his shipwreck, he is naked, hungry and homeless. He laments that, “considered by his own nature,” man is “one of the most miserable creatures of the world.” Out of necessity, he figures out how to make the things he needs.
A pandemic renews opportunities for necessity to give birth to invention. Just as Crusoe finds within himself a resourcefulness he didn’t know he had, confinement can reveal new ways of living and creating. Even simple things such as cooking, reading, handcraft, writing and conversation may turn out to have more to offer than we supposed.
A wasted life and forgiveness
One of the greatest challenges Crusoe faces is unburdening himself of the guilt he bears for his misspent life. It had been devoted to getting rich and dominating other people – at the time of his shipwreck, he had been on a voyage to secure slaves for his plantation. But on the island, he begins to see the beauty in simple things. For example, he finds trees indescribably beautiful, a beauty so profound that it is “scarce credible.”
Something similar can transpire in the lives of the homebound. Frustration and disappointment can fade, to be replaced by new and unexpected sources of fulfillment. It may be something that we experience, such as a bird singing in the morning, but it can also be of our own doing. The tools lie at our fingertips – mail, phone and social media provide all we need to reach out to others with a kind word or helping hand.
Gratitude for what we have
One of the most profound transformations that Crusoe experiences is spiritual. Alone, he begins to meditate on the Bible he recovered from the shipwreck, reading Scripture three times per day. He attributes his newfound ability to “look on the bright side of my condition” to this habit, which gives him “such secret comforts that I cannot express them.”
By the time Crusoe is rescued after nearly three decades, he is a new man. He has formed the deepest friendship of his life with Friday, a man he rescued from death. He has learned the most profound lesson that “all our discontents about what we want spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.”
Enforced quiet and separation because of coronavirus can reacquaint some of us with the value of peace, while solitude can whet our appetites for the joys of true fellowship. Just as the shipwrecked Crusoe is reborn, so trying times can clarify for us the true bounties of our lives.
A pandemic can seem like the end, but it can also serve as a beginning. We are, in a way, cut adrift. Yet a new and ultimately more fertile landfall lies ahead, at least for those of us who are not sick, broke or homeless. If we heed Defoe’s inspiration, these unprecedented challenges can transform us into wiser and more caring human beings.
New Unemployment Insurance claim data released this week by the California Employment Development Department illustrates the historic nature of the current demand for unemployment benefits in California with a total of 660,966 UI claims processed last week, creating a four-week total of 2.7 million claims processed.
That’s at least 2.3 million more than the highest one-month total since January 2010, when 375,735 unemployment insurance claims were processed.
Over the four-week period between March 15 and April 11, the EDD has paid out over $975 million in unemployment benefits to Californians in need.
On Sunday, April 12, the EDD also began automatically adding an extra $600 in federal funds to each week of regular benefits a worker is eligible to receive. This is one of the first UI provisions of the federal CARES Act.
“These are historic times at the EDD, dramatically impacting our families, friends, neighbors and communities,” said EDD Director Sharon Hilliard. “Employees are rallying from throughout other EDD programs and state government to help us process this record claim load and get money into the hands of those in need just as quickly as possible. For most Californians, that continues to be about three weeks after applying for benefits.”
New additional UI call center
Beginning on Monday, April 20, EDD will launch a secondary call center line, so that Californians are able to call-in between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., seven days a week.
A total of 1,340 state employees have been redirected to increase staffing at the call center, and assist Californians with their UI claims as hours of operation are increased. Additional staff will be added in the short-term.
Status on other federal CARES Act unemployment provisions
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, program: As announced by Gov. Newsom, the EDD is working around the clock with state partners to build the new Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for launch in two weeks.
This new program will provide unemployment benefits for those that typically don’t qualify for regular state UI benefits, including business owners, the self-employed and independent contractors. There are new FAQs available through the EDD’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance webpage and we encourage impacted workers to monitor this page for more information as details and instructions become available.
Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, or PEUC: The third UI provision of the CARES Act is a new 13-week extension of unemployment benefits for those who run out of their regular UI benefits paid. The federal government will be paying for these additional benefits and just recently provided EDD the necessary guidelines to implement this extension. The EDD will be working to get this extension operational just as soon as possible. Workers are encouraged to monitor EDD’s website for continuing updates.
Latest responses for questions from unemployed Californians
I used a third-party vendor to file my claim, will this expedite my claim?
No, The EDD is not affiliated in any way with any other third-party vendors offering help with submitting UI applications for benefits. We encourage everyone impacted by COVID-19 to seek assistance directly on the EDD COVID-19 webpage through your computer or mobile phone and utilize the various online resources we have for the fastest processing possible.
What is the best method to submit a UI claim?
Using the EDD’s UI Online system is the best option for fastest processing due to the fact that we’ve been able to adjust usual eligibility requirements helping us process large volumes of claims automatically through the system. Using paper forms should be considered a last resort since EDD cannot auto process these forms, which can slow down the payment of benefits.
I need help, are services available in multiple languages?
UI Online is available in English and Spanish and there are a variety of video tutorials in five different languages to help people use the system. Customer service representatives are available in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin and Vietnamese.
How soon could I receive benefits?
Please visit our Step-by-Step chart to inform claimants of what to expect after they submit a UI application in order to continually receive benefit payments.
Will I be eligible for unemployment benefits if I answer no to the question about looking for work?
Given the unique economic situation and lack of available work created by COVID19, the EDD has been able to adjust our usual eligibility requirements. You will not be penalized if you answer “no” to the question about looking for work and will be paid benefits for that week if you meet all other eligibility requirements.
Can I still qualify for benefits if my EDD notice shows that I have $0 in benefits available?
Generally, a mailed notice showing a $0 benefit award available may mean that we have no wage records reported by an employer to support an unemployment claim, or we need to verify your identity for the reported wages that belong to you.
Employers, not workers, pay for unemployment benefits through a contribution paid on behalf of each employee.
Visit the EDD FAQs for more information about how to proceed in this situation, and for other helpful information being continually updated as details become available.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Clearlake City Council on Thursday approved a memorandum of understanding in which it will assist with funding a facility meant to help transition people out of homelessness.
The agreement between the city, Adventist Health Clear Lake and Hope Rising Lake County will see the city contributing $500,000 in bond funds for the Hope Center, a planned 20-bed transitional facility to be located on a property purchased by Adventist Health at 3400 Emerson Drive.
Councilman Phil Harris, who ultimately made the motion to approve the memorandum of understanding, said the many organizations working together on the project are “sewing together a quilt that we will use to wrap around these people and provide some restoration to their lives that they would not have other otherwise.”
City Hall remains closed due to the COVID-19 countywide shelter in place order, but community members were able to participate virtually. Only council members and staff were present in the chamber, with Councilman Dirk Slooten and supporters for the Hope Center project attending via Zoom.
The discussion took place in the video above beginning at the 15:24 mark.
Before the discussion began on the agreement on Thursday evening, Councilman Russ Perdock, who works for Adventist Health Clear Lake and has been involved in its programs to address homelessness, recused himself from the discussion and left the council chambers.
In January, Allison Panella, Hope Rising’s executive director, and Shannon Kimbell-Auth, Adventist Health’s manager for community integration, asked the council to consider contributing $500,000 toward the facility, as Lake County News has reported.
In his report on the item, City Manager Alan Flora said the source of the funds would be the city’s Series B bond funding, bonds sold by the former Clearlake Redevelopment Agency to support low- and moderate-income housing.
Flora said the draft agreement was largely on the existing agreement Adventist Health Clear Lake has with Partnership HealthPlan – which awarded $1.3 million for the project – and includes a commitment for operating the Hope Center for a minimum of 15 years.
Hope Rising – the official name of which is Hope Is Rising Lake County – states on its website that its mission is “to mobilize and inspire community partnerships and actions that support individual, collective and community health and wellness.”
On its website, the organization reported that it “serves as a neutral convener to bring together leaders in our county to identify issues, develop innovative solutions, and implement agreed-upon actions with accountability and measurable outcomes.”
Hope Rising said it acts to raise, manage and disburse funds; a search of California Attorney General’s Office charity database shows the organization has been listed as a public benefit entity since 2019, although its registration does not appear final.
The agreement Flora presented set out several conditions, including:
– A commitment to operate the Hope Center for a minimum of 15 years from the date of occupancy, with the center to be operated consistent with the Local Innovation Grant on Housing MOU between Adventist Health and Partnership HealthPlan. – If the MOU is terminated prior to 15 years from the date of occupancy, Adventist Health Clear Lake will ensure the Hope Center facility continues to be used for housing and support of the homeless and at-risk population in the Clearlake area and will not turn the property into an Adventist Health clinic or facility that solely benefits Adventist Health Clear Lake. – Hope Is Rising Lake County and Adventist Health Clear Lake agree to show preference to homeless residents of Clearlake who are ready and willing to accept the Hope Center housing agreement. – The city of Clearlake will not be an owner or have any role in the operation of the Hope Center, with Adventist Health Clear Lake and Hope Rising to take all responsibility for operations.
The council received letters of support for the project from Congressman Mike Thompson, Lake County Social Services Director Crystal Markytan and Lake County Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors also approved a letter offering its support for the project.
A collaborative approach to addressing homelessness
Shelly Trumbo, Adventist Health’s vice president of community integration and Hope Rising’s interim executive director at its inception, spoke to the council about the successful outcomes from Adventist Health’s Project Restoration.
A peer-reviewed process found that collaborative approach used in Project Restoration – and planned for use at the Hope Center – was associated with a 44-percent reduction in hospital utilization, an 83-percent reduction in community response system usage and a 71-percent reduction in costs to the population, she said.
Trumbo said a large group of organizations has recognized Lake County’s work in these areas, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Association for Community Health Improvement and the Commonwealth Foundation.
Lake County Behavioral Health Services Administrator Todd Metcalf said his agency is contributing $200,000 toward the Hope Center.
“This is huge for our county,” said Metcalf, adding he’s committed to making it work, which is why he’s fronting the money.
Metcalf said the “housing first” model is key to getting people experiencing homelessness back on their feet.
He said mental health, substance abuse and homelessness are Lake County’s top three needs.
“This is an exciting time,” Metcalf added.
Kimbell-Auth said the same collaboration involved in the Hope Center was able to quickly transform a small warming center in Lakeport into an around-the-clock COVID-19 shelter for the homeless in the course of three days. She said the same group is working on getting housing in hotels for the homeless in Clearlake starting next week.
She said the project is changing the community, and what they will see from the Hope Center is far more than they can imagine.
“I’m excited. I’m thrilled. I’m honored, and I’m truly in awe of the opportunity,” David Santos, Adventist Health Clear Lake’s president and chief executive officer, told the council.
He said it’s taken four years to get to this point, adding that the city’s contribution will make or break the project.
Vice Mayor Dirk Slooten supported the project, saying the city has a “moral obligation” to address the homeless issue. “I really think we need to do this.”
Harris said Clear Lake is plagued by numerous issues. “The homeless population is definitely one of the biggest issues we face, and they are real people with real needs.”
Comparing the project to a quilt, he said he believed it’s God’s work, it was important for the council to move forward with it and he wanted to make the motion to approve it.
Councilwoman Joyce Overton agreed with Slooten that the city has an obligation to do something. “Our community will benefit from it.”
Slooten added that the greater risk is not participating and that it will help people to become productive citizens.
“There’s no negative on this one. So let’s do this,” he said, noting he wanted to second Harris’ motion.
Mayor Russ Cremer also offered his support for the project and the city’s proposed financial contribution from the former redevelopment agency bonds. He said of the funding, “It’s specifically for low- and moderate-income housing. It fits the model. It’s a great use for it.”
Cremer asked for the motion and Harris offered it, with Slooten seconding and the council approving it 4-0.
When Perdock returned to the chambers, he thanked the council members for their action.
In other action on Thursday, the council approved a $180,000 contract with R&R Construction for the Animal Control Facility Improvement Project, adopted an emergency ordinance establishing a 45-day moratorium on industrial hemp cultivation in the city, established an industrial hemp cultivation ad hoc committee, adopting a list of approved projects for submission to California Transportation Committee for SB1 funding and held the first reading of an ordinance for the commercial cannabis regulatory permit suspension/revocation and appeal process.
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.
