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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Clearlake Police Department said it has found a child who went missing early Sunday morning.

Willie Brown Jr., 10, was found at Austin Park later on Sunday morning, said Police Chief Andrew White.

The child was reported missing after he had last been seen at 12:30 a.m. leaving the Lamplighter Motel.

Police put out an alert shortly before 1:45 a.m.

By around 9 a.m., the child had been located, White reported.
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Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to help end the shortage of baby formula. AP Photo/David J. Phillip

U.S. President Joe Biden on May 18, 2022, announced he is invoking the Defense Production Act to help end the shortage of baby formula stressing out parents nationwide.

He said he will direct suppliers of baby formula ingredients to prioritize delivery to formula manufacturers and control their distribution as necessary.

You might well wonder what babies going without formula has to do with defense production, which calls to mind big warships and weapons systems. While using the Defense Production Act to force companies to make baby formula would certainly be a novel use of the act, it would hardly be the first time the postwar law has been used beyond its originally intended purpose to support national defense.

And in fact, the law is used a lot more frequently than you might think. But as a business professor who studies strategies to maximize efficient allocation of resources, I believe when presidents invoke the act it’s often more about political theater – showing the public you’re doing something – than addressing the problem in the most effective way.

Sweeping authority

The Defense Production Act was passed in 1950 and modeled on the War Powers acts of 1941 and 1942.

The War Powers acts gave the president sweeping authority to control domestic manufacturing. For example, it helped the U.S. increase production of warplanes from 2,500 a year to over 300,000 by the end of the war.

In 1950, America faced war in Korea, and Congress feared that growing postwar demand for consumer goods would crowd out defense production needed to face China and the Soviet Union, which both backed North Korea in the conflict. There were also concerns about inflation during that postwar period.

The Defense Production Act gave the president – who later delegated this authority to Cabinet officials like the secretary of defense – broad powers to force manufacturers to make goods and supply services to support the national defense, as well as to set wages and prices and even ration consumer goods.

“We cannot get all the military supplies we need now from expanded production alone,” President Harry Truman told Americans in a radio address after signing the act into law. “This expansion cannot take place fast enough. Therefore, to the extent necessary, workers and plants will have to stop making some civilian goods and begin turning out military equipment.”

The original law focused on “shaping U.S. military preparedness and capabilities,” which limited the scope of the president’s authority.

Routinely invoked

Although the Defense Production Act makes news only when the president dramatically invokes it, the government uses the law – or just the threat of using it – routinely to force private companies to prioritize government orders. The Department of Defense, for example, uses it to make an estimated 300,000 contracts with private companies a year.

Congress has to reauthorize the act every several years and has amended it frequently to expand or limit its scope. Over time, this has significantly broadened the definition of national defense to include supporting “domestic preparedness, response, and recovery from hazards, terrorist attacks, and other national emergencies.”

The Department of Homeland Security invoked it about 400 times in 2019, mostly to help prepare for and respond to hurricanes and other natural disasters, such as by providing resources to house and feed survivors. And Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, for example, both used it to divert electricity and natural gas to California during the 2000-2001 energy crisis.

The act has also been used extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic. President Donald Trump used it to prioritize the allocation of medical resources, prevent hoarding of personal protective equipment and require General Motors to build ventilators. He also ordered beef, pork and poultry processing facilities to stay open during the lockdowns to ensure a supply of protein for the American population.

Biden, for his part, has also already used the act a number of times, mainly to fight the pandemic. For example, in March 2021, he invoked it to speed up vaccine production by ensuring extra facilities were up to snuff, as well as to expedite the production of critical materials, equipment, machinery and supplies. In March 2022, he issued a directive to increase the supply of materials for large-capacity batteries that are used mainly in civilian electric vehicles.

Biden’s use of the Defense Production Act to address the baby formula problem illustrates a limitation of it. It can be used to set priorities for ingredients and manufacturing capacity, but it’s not a magic wand. A president can’t by decree make capacity that doesn’t exist instantly appear. And it isn’t clear how much it will do to quickly end the formula shortage – given the main problem is manufacturing issues that closed production at a key plant, not just a shortage of ingredients.

The act is widely used and has been widely useful, but it is no substitute for advance planning and preparedness.The Conversation

Erik Gordon, Professor of Business, University of Michigan

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

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Before the pandemic, an intergenerational tea party wouldn’t have seemed a risky proposition. fotostorm/E+ via Getty Images

“How risky is being indoors with our 10-year-old granddaughter without masks? We have plans to have birthday tea together. Are we safe?”

That question, from a woman named Debby in California, is just one of hundreds I’ve received from concerned people who are worried about COVID-19. I’m an epidemiologist and one of the women behind Dear Pandemic, a science communication project that has delivered practical pandemic advice on social media since the beginning of the pandemic.

How risky is swim team? How risky is it to go to my orthodontist appointment? How risky is going to the grocery store with a mask on if no one else is wearing one and my father is an organ transplant recipient? How risky is it to have a wedding with 200 people, indoors, and the reception hall has a vaulted ceiling? And on and on.

These questions are hard to answer, and even when we try, the answers are unsatisfying.

So in early April 2022, when Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical advisor, told Americans that from here on out, each of us is going to have to do our own personal risk assessment, I put my head down on my desk.

Individualized risk assessment is not a reasonable ask, even for someone who does risk assessment for a living, let alone for the rest of us. It’s impossible to evaluate our own risk for any given situation, and the impossibility of the task can make us feel like giving up entirely. So instead of doing that, I suggest focusing on risk reduction. Reframing in this way brings us back to the realm of what we can control and to the tried and true evidence-based strategies: wearing masks, getting vaccinated and boosted, avoiding indoor crowds and improving ventilation.

A cascade of unknowable variables

In my experience, nonscientists and epidemiologists use the word “risk” to mean different things. To most people, risk means a quality – something like danger or vulnerability.

When epidemiologists and other scientists use the word risk, though, we’re talking about a math problem. Risk is the probability of a particular outcome, in a particular population at a particular time. To give a simple example, the chances that a coin flip will be heads is 1 in 2.

As public health researchers, we often offer risk information in this format: The probability that an unvaccinated person will die of COVID-19 if they catch it is about 1 in 200. As many as 1 in 8 people with COVID-19 will have symptoms persisting for weeks or months after recovering.

white-haired man in jacket and tie seated at mic with 'Dr. Fauci' on name plate
Anthony Fauci wore a mask in advance of Senate testimony. Shawn Thew/AFP via Getty Images

To embark on your personal risk assessment, as Fauci casually suggested, you first have to decide what outcome you’re talking about. People often aren’t very specific when they consider risk in a qualitative sense; they tend to lump a lot of different risks together. But risk is not a general concept. It’s always the risk of a specific outcome.

Let’s think about Debby. First, there’s the risk that she will be exposed to COVID-19 during tea; this depends on her granddaughter. Where does she live? How many kids at her school have COVID-19 this week? Will she take a rapid test before she comes over? These factors all influence the granddaughter’s risk of exposing Debby to COVID-19, but I don’t know any of them and likely neither does Debby. Given the lack of systematic testing, I have no idea how many people in my own community have COVID-19 right now. At this point, our best guess at community rates is literally in the toilet – monitoring sewage for the coronavirus.

If I assume that Debby’s granddaughter does have COVID-19 on the appointed day, I can start thinking about Debby’s downstream risks: whether she’ll get COVID-19 from her granddaughter; the chances that she’ll be hospitalized and that she’ll die; and the probability that she’ll have long COVID. I can also consider the risk that Debby will catch COVID-19 and then give it to others, perpetuating an outbreak. If she gets sick, the whole hierarchy of risks comes into play for everyone Debby sees after she is infected.

Finally, there are competing risks. If Debby decides to skip the party, there may be risks to her own or her granddaughter’s mental health or their relationship. Many skipped celebrations in many families could negatively affect the economy. People could lose business; they could lose their jobs.

Each of these probabilities is influenced by a cascade of fickle conditions. Some of the factors that shape risks are in your control. For example, I decided to get vaccinated and boosted. Therefore, I’m less likely to end up in the hospital and to die if I get COVID-19. But some risks are not in your control – age, other health conditions, gender, race and the behavior of the people all around you. And many, many of the risk factors are simply unknowns. We’ll never be able to accurately evaluate the whole volatile landscape of risk for a particular situation and come up with a number.

Taking charge of what you can

There will never be a situation where I can say to Debby: The risk is 1 in 20. And even if I could, I’m not sure it would be helpful. Most people have a very hard time understanding probabilities they encounter every day, such as the chance that it will rain.

The statistical risk of a particular outcome doesn’t address Debby’s underlying question: Are we safe?

Nothing is entirely safe. If you want my professional opinion on whether it’s safe to walk down the sidewalk, I will have to say no. Bad things happen. I know someone who tore a tendon in her hand while putting a fitted sheet on a bed last week.

It’s much more practical to ask: What can I do to reduce the risk?

young girl shows off her 'I got my COVID-19 vaccine' sticker
Getting vaccinated is one important way to cut your risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19. Zou Zheng/Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images

Focusing on actions that reduce risk frees us from obsessing over unanswerable questions with useless answers so we can focus on what is within our control. I will never know precisely how risky Debby’s tea is, but I do know how to make the risks smaller.

I suspect the question folks are really asking is: How can I manage the risks? I like this question better because it has an answer: You should do what you can. If it’s reasonable to wear a mask, wear one. Yes, even if it isn’t required. If it’s reasonable to do an at-home antigen test before you see your vulnerable grandparents, do that. Get vaccinated and boosted. Tell your friends and family that you did, and why. Choose outdoor gatherings. Open a window.

Constantly assessing and reassessing risks has given many people decision fatigue. I feel that too. But you don’t need to recalibrate risks of everything, every day, for every variant, because the strategies to reduce risk remain the same. Reducing risk – even if it’s just a little bit – is better than doing nothing.The Conversation

Malia Jones, Scientist in Health Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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

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Dear Lady of the Lake,

We have a retirement home right on the lake and now that the water is warmer, we are seeing lots of growth of water weeds, and my grandchildren don’t like to swim as the weeds tickle their ankles. What are these plants and what should we tell our grandkids?

Thanks,

- The Johnsons


Dear Johnsons,

Thank you for writing this very timely question! It’s now officially spring and lake users might start to see more abundant plant life within the lake from now on through summer. You may not know it, but writing about aquatic plants is one of my very favorite things. In fact, I love aquatic plants so much that for my graduate research in 2011, I moved all the way to Michigan from California just so I could study a project that was all about aquatic plants. I learned so much during that experience, and I brought back that knowledge and aquatic plant appreciation here with me to my work and play in Clear Lake.

If you want to know more, and see some of these plants up close, you have an opportunity to visit with me while I talk about aquatic plants this coming Wednesday, May 25, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m at the Anderson Marsh Invasive Weed Tour hosted by the Lake County Department of Agriculture. You can find out more here in the notice published by the Lake County News. I will be discussing some of the most commonly found aquatic plants in Clear Lake, and talk about management of these species.

First, you may notice that I don’t call them “water weeds” but “aquatic plants”. A definition of a “weed” is simply a plant growing where it is not wanted. So someone’s plants are someone else’s weeds, and that is totally fine. I love and appreciate almost all aquatic plants, and so that is the umbrella term I use for all of them. My goal with the column today is to convince you, and maybe even your grandchildren, that you might even consider referring to them as aquatic plants and not “water weeds” too.

First, let’s go through some basic ecology and biology of aquatic plants, then we will become familiar with some of the most common species you might encounter in the lake. In part 2, I will discuss a few more of the present, but less common species found in the lake, and other water bodies in the County, and also in part 2 I will cover management of these species.

Aquatic plant ecology

Aquatic plants are widely distributed throughout the continental US. This means that the exact same species of native aquatic plant can be found here, can also be native and found in a pond in Delaware, or a reservoir in Texas, for example. Most species of aquatic plants are generalists, meaning they tolerate and grow, and look exactly the same, in many different types of conditions, like temperatures, flows, and water chemistry.

Aquatic plants are also called macrophytes, meaning they are plants that can be seen with the naked eye, no microscope needed. “Macro” means large, and “phyte” means plant in Greek (i.e. greek affix). Together, macrophyte, means large plants.

Within the macrophytes, there are sub categories like chlorophytes, which are green algaes large enough to be seen with the naked eye, in contrast to the floating, cellular algae, that requires a microscope to be seen. Another category, like bryophyte, includes mosses and liverworts and epiphytes means those plants that grow on other plants.

To keep things simple, I will maintain the term aquatic plants, since that term is inclusive of all these categories when we are talking about plants that grow in and around the lake.

The next way to distinguish aquatic plants is where they grow, which also conveniently describes how they grow. There are four major categories of aquatic plant growth types, emergent, submersed, floating-leaf, and free-floating.

Emergent plants are rooted in water with tissue that grows above the water line. Submersed plants are rooted in the sediment and grow entirely under the surface of the water, however submersed plants can grow along the surface and some have flowering potions that do sit above the waterline. Floating-leaf plants are rooted in the sediment and grow leaves that sit above the water line, think of the classic water lily example for this growth type. Free-floating plant species have roots, but are not rooted in the sediment and live entirely on the surface of the water or are free floating in the water column under the surface of the water, but are not rooted.

Aquatic plants have different growth types including emergent, floating-leaf, free-floating, and submersed. The variety of growth types creates a unique habitat that provides many benefits to the aquatic and shore zone ecosystem.

Now for some basics. Aquatic plants, like terrestrial, or plants that grow on land, consume carbon dioxide to grow, and exhale, or respire oxygen. The carbon the plants take in is converted into biomass, plant tissue, or cellulose, which creates the structure of the plant that we can see growing in the water. The oxygen the plant respires during photosynthesis is released into the water column, where it’s consumed by other living things like insects and fish.

Therefore, aquatic plants, no matter how annoying they are to us air-breathers, are vital to the biological demands of organisms that live and breathe under the water surface.
Some aquatic plants, like emergent and floating-leaved species, release oxygen both into the water and into the air, and are contributing directly to the oxygen terrestrial organisms need, including humans!

Aquatic plants, like most plants, need specific conditions to sprout, grow, reproduce, and die. Usually these are cues from the environment like the amount of daylight hours and water temperature minimums. The conditions needed vary between species too, some starting to grow earlier in the season when it's cooler and shorter days and some reaching maximum growth when it’s hottest during the summer and the daylight hours are the longest.

Generally, aquatic plants will start to grow from the sediments in spring, when the frost days are few and far between, and the lake temperatures are getting warmer. Then as the summer goes on, and the water temperature increases, the plants will grow rapidly, sometimes up to four inches a day for as long as the space allows them to grow.

In late spring or summer, aquatic plants will flower, and some will seed, or fruit. In fall, when the water temperature decreases and the sunlight hours decrease, aquatic plants, just like terrestrial garden plants and trees, will go through senescence, plant aging sometimes called die-back. During this process, the plant tissues change color from greens to browns and reds, from chlorophyll degradation, the same process that causes fall deciduous trees to change to their remarkable autumn-scape colors of brown, yellow, orange, and red.

Aquatic plant biology: Reproductive strategies

While many aquatic plants flower, wind and insect pollination is the least used method of reproduction for aquatic plants. Not to be deterred, aquatic plants still expend the energy and biomass to produce flowers in hopes that some genetic recombination and seed production will result in new genetic materials eventually sprouting into a new plant. Even aquatic plants are looking for love!

However, most aquatic plants reproduce asexually, or by reproduction that does not require the fusion of gametes or change in number of chromosomes. The only way plants can sexually reproduce is if pollen from one plant merges in the ovule of a different plant, genetically, and the genetic composition of the newly created offspring has different genetics (chromosomes) then either of the parents. But this process rarely occurs in aquatic plants.

In aquatic plants, it would not surprise you to know that many of the plant biomass in any given area is clonal, meaning the genetics are exactly the same among the entire area, meaning one plant gave rise to the entire “population” although it’s not technically a population since it’s all considered the same individual.

Think of this like grass that grows in a dirt field, if given food and water, that grass will continue to spread, along runners or roots, and could soon grow throughout the entire field, and even if patches split or die, the genetic material is all the same and the tissue is all derived from the same individual. This is exactly what happens with aquatic plants, although they can grow asexually from a variety of ways.

The main way aquatic plants spread, or grow, is from fragmentation, or propagation of propagules. Naturally, without motorboats or people stirring up the water, aquatic plants would grow tall in the water column and fragments could break off in a strong wind or if an animal is moving around in the water -think of a deer, moose, or large waterfowl moving around and chopping up the plant material.

Fragments of the aquatic plant, even as small as 1-2 inches long, will float away on the water, and using sunlight and nutrients within the water column as food, the fragment will begin to grow itself, eventually growing long enough that it can reach the bottom sediment and anchor in with roots.

This fragmentation growth strategy can make it very difficult to manage invasive populations of aquatic plants, as any activity or manual removal effort ends up fragmenting the plant and causing more plants to spread to new areas and re-grow. This is why managers of Clear Lake currently do not allow large scale mechanical harvesters on the lake, as they would just “chop up” and fragment all the plants growing and the fragmented growth would end up being exponential and unsustainable to manage.

Boat motors and props can, and do, cause fragmentation, but this is why the County of Lake conducts strategically placed herbicide treatments throughout target areas in Clear lake that are high-use areas for boats, to prevent their motors from causing exponential growth from fragments they disperse just boating around the lake. These target areas are perpendicular to the shore at boat ramp / launch areas, heavy-use marinas, and access points, and parallel to the shore in high-density use areas, along parks, beaches, and public access shorelines.

In addition to fragmentation, most aquatic plants utilize other asexual methods of reproduction. Aquatic plants can sprout from turions, or winter buds, that were grown in the summer and fall the year previous, and fell off the plant into the sediment to stay cozy until spring conditions triggered their regrowth.

Other plants produce tubers, like small potatoes, that also grow from the sediment when conditions are favorable. Some plants grow from rhizomes that are fibrous, very root-like, that remain in the lake sediment, again until environmental and weather conditions are most favorable to sprout.

Perhaps you can see how the variety of reproductive strategies utilized by aquatic plants can make management difficult. Management efforts or treatments might remove top green growth, but sometimes the sediments can harbor turions, tubers, or rhizomes for many years, waiting until optimal opportunities are in their favor to sprout, grow, and reproduce more for future years.

Common aquatic plants found in Clear Lake

In part 1 of Amazing Aquatic Plants, I will review five of the most common aquatic plants that you will find in Clear Lake, in the future part 2 I will discuss some of the less common aquatic plants, and some management strategies for them.

In this column I will not be discussing invasive Hydrilla, as there has not been a detection of Hydrilla in Clear Lake since 2019, and it is heavily monitored and managed by the State of California Department of Food and Agriculture. If you want more information about Hydrilla, I will refer you to this amazing factsheet on the county of Lake Water Resources Aquatic Plant webpage.

Potamogeton crispus (curly-leaf pondweed)

This is the most common aquatic plant growing in Clear Lake at this time of year. This plant sprouts from turions in the sediment, and it's usually the first one growing in the late winter, or early spring and usually the first species to senesce and die-back in July, or early-mid summer.

Curly-leaf pondweed is very unique looking, if you were to pull it out of the water and look closely at its leaves, they are curly, or rather, wavy like lasagna noodles. That’s because the edges of the leaves are toothed, and the serrated edges cause the leaves to undulate their shape, instead of being flat and even.

Curly-leaf is generally considered an invasive species throughout the entire United States, as it does not historically originate from North America and was suspected to be brought over for fish farm habitat in the midwest and southern US in the early 1900s. Curly-leaf is native to the entire Eurasian region down to Australia.

While curly-leaf is noxious, and many consider it an extremely nuisance invasive plant, in some ecosystems it has naturalized, and is just a member of the community and hasn’t caused a environmental, economical, or health hazard - which is the definition of an invasive species by the US EPA.

One of its most invasive plant traits is that it can grow very fast, very quickly in the early spring, sometimes up to five meters from the bottom of a water body to the surface. When it gets to the surface, it can easily shade out natives trying to sprout later in the season, and it can grow in such big clumps that it restricts boating, paddling, and disrupts fishing and other water-recreation activities. However, it does die back in the mid-summer, allowing other natives, and invasives, to take its place.

The unique growth characteristics of curly-leaf, including the early sprouting and dropping of plentiful turions by mid-summer, make it a difficult species to manage, and while we see it in abundance in Clear Lake, we also see it growing alongside other native and beneficial aquatic plants.

Potamogeton crispus (Curly-leaf pondweed) is very common in Clear Lake in early spring through mid-summer and can be distinguished by its toothed-edge leaves and wavy-leaf appearance. Photos: A. DePalma-Dow 2010.

Sago pondweed (Stukenia pectinata) is the preferred plant of choice for grebes when constructing nests. Grebes will make these nests in quiet coves, bays, or among tules beds, but wind events or high boat wakes can dislodge them, and they can be seen floating out into the middle of the lake where the eggs fall, leaving the loney floating sago mats to wander the waves. Photo: Water Resources Department 2019.

Stuckenia pectinata (Sago pondweed)

Although called a “pondweed”, Sago pondweed is not actually within the same genus as the true pondweeds (Potamogeton spp.). Sago is a very unique and beneficial aquatic plant, even though it’s the number one nuisance species in Clear Lake; it’s notorious for clogging boat props, growing to the surface in stringy, tangled mats, and accumulated on beaches in smelly piles.

The growth features that make Sago such a nuisance to us humans, make it one of the most amazing of all the amazing aquatic plants. Sago is a native aquatic plant, not just to Clear Lake, but to the entire north american continent. It can be found in waters up to 2 meters deep and will grow up to the surface and across. While other submersed aquatic plants seem to be hindered by Clear Lake’s green, cloudy and turbid waters in the hot of summer, Sago will be the last remaining stronghold even in these conditions.

Sago has many, long, slender leaves that grow in a fan shape at the surface of the water, so that it can attain sunlight to conduct photosynthesis, even if the water is cloudy or filled with algae. If Sago can’t recruit nutrients from the water column, it has nutrient reserves in its many, numerous tubers it grows consistently throughout the year - one study found that a single plant can grow up to 36,000 tubers in one season!

Sago is the plant I most commonly hear referred to as “seaweed” or “ seagrass” when people are describing the aquatic plants they encounter in the lake, and it’s the number one culprit when a motor or jet ski intake is clogged.

However, the benefits of Sago pondweed are enormous. For example, if you like bird watching on the lake, you should be extremely grateful for Sago pondweed. Sago pondweed is a top food source for waterfowl, in addition to its leaves, its fruits, called nutlets, and the tubers it produces, are prime snacks for many water birds. The branchy underwater growth of Sago creates prime habitat, refuge, and food source for juvenile and adult fish, in shallow and deepers waters, and in some artificial ponds and wetlands, Sago has purposely been planted to create duck habitat.

Lastly, you might have seen the grebes nests in the summer, sometimes they are in the tules along the shoreline, among the shallows of Rodman Slough, or rarely, floating in the middle of the lake after being dislodged by wind or boat wakes. Grebes use Sago to make their nests, as the long, slender stalks and leaves fit together and create cozy, floating mats.

Lemna minor (Duckweed)

Duckweed is a free-floating aquatic plant that has hanging roots and floats along the surface of the water. The leaves are bright green and small, mostly less than half a cm in length. The surface of the leaves are smooth and so are the edges of the leaves. Usually individual duckweed leaves clump into groups of 2-3 leaves, but entire areas of calm, quiet waters can become overgrowth with duckweed.

This species is the one most commonly confused with algae or cyanobacteria, as the leaves are so small and it coats the surface of the water, however unlike algae or cyanobacteria, duckweed provides value to the aquatic community.

Duckweed is a nutritious food source for ducks and geese, sometimes providing up to 90% of the dietary needs of these waterfowl. You could say that to the ducks, duckweed is not aptly or appropriately named, as I doubt they would consider it a weed. Additionally, it’s a food staple for fish and muskrats. Probably most importantly, duckweed creates a safe, cool refuge for juvenile fish and invertebrates and mats of duckweed can also prevent mosquito habitat from forming.

Duckweed has also been shown to remediate heavy metals and other contaminants from water it’s growing in, and it’s even commonly used in wastewater treatment as it can remove large amounts of nutrients from the water column and can be systematically skimmed and safely disposed of in large scale treatment scenarios.

Lake and water-users however, can find duckweed annoying and inconvenient, as it can get on everything; your fishing gear, your gloves, your motor, your anchor, your float tube, and you will find it on your ankles and toes after wading. It’s basically harmless for people, but its small size and free-floating behavior make it easily transferable to our stuff and ourselves once we venture into the water.

Duckweed doesn’t have many treatment options, and I discourage from applying chemical treatment as it’s a beneficial, native plant. Some folks that want to maintain their pond or channel have had some luck with manually skimming or scooping it out with pool scoops, but as you can imagine it’s hard to keep up with it’s growth habit and it can be hard to dispose of, although it’s great in the composter.

Sometimes keeping the water moving with an aerator or water mover mounted to your dock can help keep it out of the vicinity, as duckweed prefers slow, stagnant, calm waters like those found in bays, coves, and channels.


Free-floating duckweed (Lemna minor) seen here growing in a jar alongside some young, emergent tule. Duckweed, like it’s name suggests, is a favorite of ducks and geese. You can often find duckweed in slow moving, calm waters like coves, bays, and channels of Clear Lake. P: A. DePalma-Dow.

Azolla filiculoides (Pacific Mosquito Fern)

So this is one species that isn’t really an aquatic plant, it’s technically a water fern, but it’s very common in Clear Lake, especially in calm areas like channels, coves and the Clear Lake keys. It can be found growing among duckweed, and it too can be a nuisance when wading or paddling through floating mats.

Azolla is free floating and up close, leaves are small, less than 5mm, scale like, and looking at it closely, Azolla has an almost velvet texture. In the summer when it's really sunny, the leaves can turn reddish or almost purple.

Unlike the other aquatic plants mentioned in this column, Azolla reproduces by spores instead of fragments, seeds, or tubers or rhizomes. While Azolla can clog motors, and intake pipes, it can be a food source for fish or waterfowl, and it does provide cool, safe habitat for juvenile fish and invertebrates.

Azolla can be skimmed or harvested for compost or fertilizer, but it's thick mats shade out other plants and it can promote conditions conducive to algae and cyanobacteria.

Pacific mosquito fern (Azolla filiculoides) is very common in quiet channels, bays, coves, and inlets of Clear Lake. This water-fern, although naturalized, can be a nuisance, but get its name from its dense growth habit is suspected to prevent mosquito larva from emerging. Photo: A. De Palma-Dow, Clear Lake Keys 2022.

Invasive Creeping Water Primrose (Ludwigia peploides)

Creeping yellow water primrose is one of Clear Lake's most annoying and nuisance shoreline, emergent aquatic plants. This plant has a creeping character, like its namesake, sprouting on the shoreline and growing out over the water surface on long,strong spreading rhizomes. Creeping water primrose is bright green, with bright yellow flowers in July through September.

This plant is so unique and very complicated to manage, that I wrote an entire column dedicated to it last season. You can find that here in my August 22, 2021 column titled: “Peeved about Primrose.” 

Just a little bit about management

Part II of this piece will go into more depth about management and mitigation of aquatic plants, but in general you should know that invasive plant management science is a broad and burgeoning field, as new species and newly observed characteristics are constantly adding to the knowledge and field of research. Every system and ecosystem responds differently to the introduced invasive species and potential treatments and implemented management. Sometimes, a treatment shown to be highly effective in the lab setting is less than successful in the field in real-life applications. That makes management difficult, especially when the options are all very expensive, such as herbicide chemicals or labor intensive manual removal.

However, the goal of any aquatic plant management program is to attain balance. How can we retain enough of the plants to provide the benefits we enjoy (i.e. plentiful fishing, clean water, prolific bird watching, sediment reduction, and nutrient cycling) while also being able to enjoy the water for recreation. Clear Lake is a very old, natural lake, and her natural state is to be full of a vibrant, healthy aquatic plant ecosystem of many different species that inhabit all the different growth zones and types.

For private properties and homeowners that live along Clear Lake shoreline and connected channels and canals, there are management options through the Clear Lake Integrated Aquatic Plant Management Program. With the right permits and instructions, you can manually remove aquatic plants from your individual beach or swim area, or you can hire a professional licensed herbicide applicator to safely and effectively treat the aquatic area within your parcel.

There is also a local diver company that can manually pull submerged species from the water by hand. This last option is the most effective for smaller shoreline properties and for certain species.

There are pros and cons to every treatment option, but for an effective removal that can last, and for persistent invasive species, sometimes utilizing both chemical or manual treatments for several years consecutively in a row is the best option, as this will help to remove the seedbank and any remaining fragments or roots.

However, as we have learned in this column, plants can float in on fragments from anywhere else in the lake, so a majority of them are here to stay, so maybe instead of fighting them, we should learn to love all there is about amazing aquatic plants!

- Sincerely, Lady of the Lake

References for this column included two books.

“Through the Looking Glass: A field Guide to Aquatic Plants” Published by the Wisconsin Lakes Partnership, University of Wisconsin Extension. 2001. DNR Publication #FH-207-97. https://www3.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/UWEXLakes/Pages/resources/bookstore/TTLG.aspx

“Aquatic and Riparian Weeds of the West” By JM DiTomaso and EA Healy. Published by the University of California Agriculture and Natural REsources. Publication #3421. 2003. https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/Details.aspx?itemNo=3421

Angela De Palma-Dow is a limnologist (limnology = study of fresh inland waters) who lives and works in Lake County. Born in Northern California, she has a Master of Science from Michigan State University. She is a Certified Lake Manager from the North American Lake Management Society, or NALMS, and she is the current president/chair of the California chapter of the Society for Freshwater Science. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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NASA, ESA, and JAXA have created a tri-agency dashboard that combines their resources, technical knowledge and expertise to strengthen our global understanding of the changing environment and its economic effects. Credits: NASA.

Continuing the collaboration that produced the COVID-19 Earth Observing Dashboard in 2020, NASA and its international partners in Europe and Japan have combined the collective scientific power of their Earth-observing satellite data in expanding the online resource to document a broad array of planet-wide changes in the environment and human society.

The expanded dashboard from NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, includes six new focus areas — atmosphere, agriculture, biomass, water and ocean, cryosphere, and the economy — that allow users to drill down into data-driven stories and interactively explore relevant data sets.

“At NASA, accessibility to data is a top priority,” said Karen St. Germain, NASA Earth Science Division director. “With our partners at ESA and JAXA, this is another important step to getting the latest information to the public about our changing planet, in an accessible and convenient way, which can inform decisions and planning for communities around the world.”

The dashboard provides an easy-to-use resource for the public scientists, decision-makers, and people who may not be familiar with satellite or Earth observation data. It offers a precise, objective, and comprehensive view of our planet.

Using accurate remote sensing observations, the dashboard shows the changes occurring in Earth’s air, land, and water and their effects on human activities. Users can explore countries and regions around the world to see how the indicators in specific locations change over time.

The agencies collaborated to identify the most relevant satellite data streams and adapted existing computing infrastructure to share data from across the agencies and produce relevant indicators and stories.

“International collaboration between our space agencies is key,” said Simonetta Cheli, director of Earth Observation Programs at ESA. “Our advanced Earth-observing satellite data provided by ESA, NASA and JAXA are used every day to benefit society at large and advance our knowledge of our home planet. After the success of the Earth Observing Dashboard, I am delighted to see how our resources and technical knowledge can be expanded and used to further our understanding of global environmental changes and other societal challenges impacting our planet.”

The atmosphere focus area demonstrates ways in which air pollution and climate change contribute to the biggest environmental challenges of our time.

In the agriculture focus area, users can explore satellite data that provides insights into agricultural production, crop conditions, and food supply.

The biomass focus area features a story describing how trees and plants remove substantial amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere each year.

In the cryosphere focus area, a story on the effects of global temperature rise on the extent of sea ice allows the reader to interact with a geographic visualization of a JAXA sea ice data set.

The water and ocean area focuses on Earth’s largest natural resource and enables users to discover a view of the ocean that is as rich and complex as that of land.

The economy focus area provides access to data sets that show how Earth's social and economic systems are connected to the environment.

In addition to the curated stories and data set offered in each of the focus areas, the Earth Observing Dashboard provides direct access to a data set exploration tool, which allows users to interactively explore the different indicators in detail.

"Following the collaboration with NASA and ESA on COVID-19, we expanded this dashboard to widely provide the stories on global issues about the environment and climate change to the world in the trilateral collaboration,” said Koji Terada, JAXA vice president and director general for the Space Technology Directorate I. “From the perspective of contributing to the understanding of the Earth's environment and systems and enhancing the values of Earth observation data, we at JAXA will continue to work on updating this dashboard.”

Last year, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced a concept for NASA’s Earth Information Center, which is an opportunity for the agency to leverage its data and modeling capabilities to work with trusted government and community partners with long-standing engagement in communities most affected by climate change. The expanded Earth Observing Dashboard complements planning that is underway for the Earth Information Center.

NASA, ESA and JAXA will continue to enhance the dashboard as new data become available.

Visit the Earth Observing Dashboard at https://www.eodashboard.org.
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CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control is making efforts to get new homes for the nine adoptable dogs in its care.

The City of Clearlake Animal Association also is seeking fosters for the animals waiting to be adopted.

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 and schedule a visit to the shelter.

Visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or on the city’s website.

The following dogs are available for adoption.

“Chai.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control.

‘Chai’

“Chai” is a female Alaskan husky mix with a gray and white coat.

She has been spayed.

She is dog No. 49279552.

“Captain.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control.

‘Captain’

“Captain” is a male border collie mix with a black, white and blue coat.

He is dog No. 49623709.

“Big Phil.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control.

‘Big Phil’

“Big Phil” is a 13-year-old male American pit bull terrier mix with a blue coat.

He is dog No. 49951647.

“Andy.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control.

‘Andy’

“Andy” is a male American pit bull mix with a short gray and white coat.

He is dog No. 48995415.

“Bear.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control.

‘Bear’

“Bear” is a male Labrador retriever-American pit bull mix with a short charcoal and fawn coat.

He has been neutered.

“Colt.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control.
“Colt.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control.

‘Colt’

“Colt” is a male Rhodesian Ridgeback mix with a short rust and black coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 49812106.

“Fritz.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control.

‘Fritz’

“Fritz” is a male Australian shepherd mix with a black and white coat.

He is dog No. 49278179.

“Snowball.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control.

‘Snowball’

“Snowball” is a male American Staffordshire mix terrier with a white coat.

He has been neutered.

He is dog No. 49159168.

“Terry.” Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control.

‘Terry’

“Terry” is a handsome male shepherd mix with a short brindle coat.

He gets along with other dogs, including small ones, and is discovering that he enjoys toys. He also likes water, playing fetch and keep away.

Staff said he is now getting some training to help him build confidence.

He is dog No. 48443693.

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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Willie Brown Jr. Courtesy photo.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Clearlake Police Department said early Sunday that it is trying to locate a missing juvenile.

Willie Brown Jr., age 10, was last seen at the Lamplighter Motel in Clearlake at 12:30 a.m. Sunday, the agency reported.

The child left in an unknown direction, possibly on foot, police said.

Police said he may be wearing a black hoodie and shorts.

He has a history of medical issues and may not be wearing a medical bracelet.

If he’s found, please contact the Clearlake Police Department at 707-994-8251.




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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Following an emotional Friday morning hearing, a judge sentenced a Lucerne woman to state prison for a January drunken driving vehicle crash that claimed the life of her friend.

Judge Shanda Harry passed sentence on 31-year-old Patricia Martha Murphy, who was convicted after pleading out to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated for the death of Justin Dale, 30, of Lucerne.

Harry accepted Lake County Probation’s recommendation and sentenced Murphy to an upper term of 10 years in prison, with 240 days of credit that includes time already served since her arrest on Jan. 16.

Murphy had a prior 2021 conviction for an alcohol-driving related offense otherwise known as a “wet reckless.” It is not technically a DUI conviction, but has the same effect, said Deputy District Attorney Danny Flesch.

The prior conviction involved Murphy driving under the influence and flipping her vehicle. She was found to have cocaine in her pocket at the time of that crash.

During testimony on Friday, the defense maintained that Murphy’s childhood — marked by an alcoholic mother who turned a blind eye to her boyfriend’s sexual abuse of her two youngest daughters and an alcoholic father who physically abused her, at one point threatening her with a butcher knife when was a teenager — were factors that drove her to use alcohol.

On the day of the wreck, Murphy and Dale had decided to make a visit to friends in Fort Bragg where they spent time watching the sunset on the beach and then in Willits on Jan. 16 and were returning home when the crash occurred shortly before midnight.

During their visits with friends, Murphy admitted that they had been drinking. At the time of the crash, she had a box of empty alcohol bottles in the back seat of her 2012 Volkswagen that she tried to put in the trunk afterward.

In tearful testimony given during the hearing, Murphy — wearing a black and white jail jumpsuit and handcuffed at the waist — recounted being upset that they couldn’t stop and see a friend in Upper Lake so she decided to keep driving.

She said she made a loop through Lucerne and was about to turn back and go home. Dale was asleep in the passenger seat, not wearing a seat belt.

“I reached for something in my car,” Murphy said. “When I reached for it I turned the wheel a little bit. Two seconds later I heard a big crash and I looked up and it was too late.”

The California Highway Patrol report said Murphy drove into the rear of a parked Ram 550 work truck on westbound Highway 20 east of Lake Street in Lucerne.

The CHP arrested Murphy at the scene and she’s remained in custody since.

Family gives impact statements

The Friday hearing included several victim impact statements from Dale’s close friends and family.

Flesch read a text message from Evan Dills, Dale’s friend and employer. “He was the best kind of friend I could ever have asked for,” with a heart of gold, and a smile and laugh that could change the atmosphere in a room, Dills said.

“Everybody that knew him loved him,” and he always had a smile on his face, even when doing hard work, said Dills. “Justin was a true asset to the community.”

He said Murphy made a selfish decision that resulted in Dale’s life being taken away.

Justin Dale’s mother, Amy Dale, spoke of the “unbearable” loss of her only son, who had a kind heart and loved to help people.

She said he helped care for his elderly grandfather and had told his mother that someday he would take care of her and his father. “That will never happen now that he has died.”

Amy Dale said her son loved children and wanted to have a family someday. She was grieving not just his loss but the grandchildren she had hoped to have.

“Patricia, you had very little regard for my son’s life when you got behind the wheel while you were intoxicated. My son is dead because you decided you didn’t want to stay home,” she said.

Amy Dale asked the court to give Murphy the maximum 10-year sentence, not out of vengeance but so she would have time to reflect on how precious life is and to turn her life around to be a good mother to her young daughter.

“You shouldn't have gotten behind the wheel while intoxicated. You hurt us so much. It’s a pain in my heart that’s unbearable,” Amy Dale said.

Also speaking was Justin Dale's uncle, Matthew Kendall, the sheriff of Mendocino County. On this day, Kendall was in civilian clothes, his voice breaking with emotion as he recounted that his nephew was a good man and someone who was an important part of his tight-knit family.

“The decisions that we make when we are young sometimes haunt us,” Kendall said.

He said his nephew had a heart of gold and loved to work. “He was a big portion of our lives and he always will be.”

Kendall said people have to own their mistakes before they can get through them. “We’re at a time now when a lot of folks aren’t owning their mistakes and therefore are repeating them.”

Based on his beliefs, Kendall said he has to forgive. “The only way that can occur is for the person responsible for this to be held accountable, and trust me, I've seen plenty of this in over 30 years.”

Over the objection of defense attorney Sterling Thayer, Judge Harry allowed Flesch to enter into the record an August 2021 Facebook post from Murphy in which she mocked the court system over her wet reckless conviction in July 2021.

She wrote that after almost three years of fighting in court she finally got her driver’s license back, and it only cost her $143, rather than the usual $10,000. She also maintained that she didn’t have a DUI conviction. “Take that, shady ass court system,” she wrote.

Flesch said Murphy also is associated with a known biker gang called the Winos. At his request, the court played an 18-second audio portion of a jail phone call in which she said she and a friend would routinely drive drunk but that she was the least drunk.

Thayer called Murphy’s sister, Ingrid Kerr, to the stand. Kerr testified about their abusive childhood and the sexual abuse her two younger sisters endured due to their mother’s neglect.

Kerr said the result is that they’ve turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism, a “numbing agent” that she herself has stopped using in recent years.

During her time on the stand, which followed her sister’s, Murphy referred to Justin Dale as “Gimli,” a dwarf from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” saga. With his short, stout physique and big auburn beard, Dale resembled Gimli, a loyal member of the Fellowship of the Ring.

She recounted inviting him over for biscuits and gravy on the morning of Jan. 16 and making the “random” decision to go to the coast.

Murphy described the crash and how afterward she tried to wake Dale up but couldn’t. Emergency medical personnel told her he died. “Then I lost control and I screamed.”

During questioning, Murphy said, “I went through every dysfunction you can imagine,” recounting the abuse and neglect by her parents.

When asked how she felt about the potential term of 10 years in prison, she said she was scared but that she expected it. “I don’t feel probation is a just response or a likely one.”

She said she hopes to go to a fire camp and become a firefighter, and then hopes to get back on track for a teaching career. She said she never planned to drink again.

Murphy said she didn’t get to say goodbye to Dale, and has lost almost every friend she had because of the fatal wreck. “I have to live without him as well.”

With her hands still cuffed, she unfolded a written statement which she read, telling his family she knows that saying she is sorry is not enough, and that it won’t “ the dark reality brought on by my bad choices.”

“I can’t ever know how I feel,” she said, adding the regret, guilt and pain will weigh on her long after the sentence is over. “He was the only person who cared enough to make sure I was OK.”

She added, “If there was anything I could do to fix this, I would do it without hesitation,” and she said she hoped they could forgive her for her poor choices.

During questioning by Flesch, Murphy admitted she failed to seek counseling after her previous case.

Flesch, who acknowledged her abusive past, said he knew Dale from around town, and that he was a happy go lucky guy. “She gets a second or third or fourth chance. Justin does not.”

Thayer asked for a lesser sentence, explaining that Murphy is willing and able to take responsibility for what she did. “It’s not anything that anybody wanted to intend. She made an incredibly stupid decision. She has to live with the consequences of her decision. She killed her best friend. If that’s not going to change someone’s life, someone's perspective on life, I don’t see what 10 years is going to do.”

Judge Harry said Murphy had taken responsibility and had a ““significantly unpleasant childhood.” However, her recent, previous case that also had involved driving and alcohol counted against her, as she didn’t take the lesson of avoiding driving while intoxicated.

In sentencing Murphy to 10 years in prison, Harry said she hoped Murphy will use the time to deal with her issues so she can be there for her daughter. “She needs a mother who can mother her.”

Harry also granted restitution to Dale’s family but waived all other fines.

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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This collection of 36 images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope features galaxies that are all hosts to both Cepheid variables and supernovae. These two celestial phenomena are both crucial tools used by astronomers to determine astronomical distance, and have been used to refine our measurement of the Hubble constant, the expansion rate of the universe. The galaxies shown in this photo (from top row, left to bottom row, right) are: NGC 7541, NGC 3021, NGC 5643, NGC 3254, NGC 3147, NGC 105, NGC 2608, NGC 3583, NGC 3147, Mrk 1337, NGC 5861, NGC 2525, NGC 1015, UGC 9391, NGC 691, NGC 7678, NGC 2442, NGC 5468, NGC 5917, NGC 4639, NGC 3972, The Antennae Galaxies, NGC 5584, M106, NGC 7250, NGC 3370, NGC 5728, NGC 4424, NGC 1559, NGC 3982, NGC 1448, NGC 4680, M101, NGC 1365, NGC 7329, and NGC 3447. Credits: NASA, ESA, Adam G. Riess (STScI, JHU).

Completing a nearly 30-year marathon, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has calibrated more than 40 "milepost markers" of space and time to help scientists precisely measure the expansion rate of the universe – a quest with a plot twist.

Pursuit of the universe's expansion rate began in the 1920s with measurements by astronomers Edwin P. Hubble and Georges Lemaître.

In 1998, this led to the discovery of "dark energy," a mysterious repulsive force accelerating the universe's expansion. In recent years, thanks to data from Hubble and other telescopes, astronomers found another twist: a discrepancy between the expansion rate as measured in the local universe compared to independent observations from right after the big bang, which predict a different expansion value.

The cause of this discrepancy remains a mystery. But Hubble data, encompassing a variety of cosmic objects that serve as distance markers, support the idea that something weird is going on, possibly involving brand new physics.

"You are getting the most precise measure of the expansion rate for the universe from the gold standard of telescopes and cosmic mile markers," said Nobel Laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Riess leads a scientific collaboration investigating the universe's expansion rate called SH0ES, which stands for Supernova, H0, for the Equation of State of Dark Energy.

“This is what the Hubble Space Telescope was built to do, using the best techniques we know to do it. This is likely Hubble's magnum opus, because it would take another 30 years of Hubble's life to even double this sample size,” Riess said.

Riess's team's paper, to be published in the Special Focus issue of The Astrophysical Journal reports on completing the biggest and likely last major update on the Hubble constant.

The new results more than double the prior sample of cosmic distance markers. His team also reanalyzed all of the prior data, with the whole dataset now including over 1,000 Hubble orbits.

When NASA conceived of a large space telescope in the 1970s, one of the primary justifications for the expense and extraordinary technical effort was to be able to resolve Cepheids, stars that brighten and dim periodically, seen inside our Milky Way and external galaxies.

Cepheids have long been the gold standard of cosmic mile markers since their utility was discovered by astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt in 1912. To calculate much greater distances, astronomers use exploding stars called Type Ia supernovae.

Combined, these objects built a "cosmic distance ladder" across the universe and are essential to measuring the expansion rate of the universe, called the Hubble constant after Edwin Hubble. That value is critical to estimating the age of the universe and provides a basic test of our understanding of the universe.

Starting right after Hubble's launch in 1990, the first set of observations of Cepheid stars to refine the Hubble constant was undertaken by two teams: the HST Key Project led by Wendy Freedman, Robert Kennicutt, Jeremy Mould, and Marc Aaronson, and another by Allan Sandage and collaborators, that used Cepheids as milepost markers to refine the distance measurement to nearby galaxies.

By the early 2000s the teams declared "mission accomplished" by reaching an accuracy of 10 percent for the Hubble constant, 72 plus or minus 8 kilometers per second per megaparsec.

In 2005 and again in 2009, the addition of powerful new cameras onboard the Hubble telescope launched "Generation 2" of the Hubble constant research as teams set out to refine the value to an accuracy of just one percent.

This was inaugurated by the SH0ES program. Several teams of astronomers using Hubble, including SH0ES, have converged on a Hubble constant value of 73 plus or minus 1 kilometer per second per megaparsec. While other approaches have been used to investigate the Hubble constant question, different teams have come up with values close to the same number.

The SH0ES team includes long-time leaders Dr. Wenlong Yuan of Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Lucas Macri of Texas A&M University, Dr. Stefano Casertano of STScI, and Dr. Dan Scolnic of Duke University. The project was designed to bracket the universe by matching the precision of the Hubble constant inferred from studying the cosmic microwave background radiation leftover from the dawn of the universe.

"The Hubble constant is a very special number. It can be used to thread a needle from the past to the present for an end-to-end test of our understanding of the universe. This took a phenomenal amount of detailed work," said Dr. Licia Verde, a cosmologist at ICREA and the ICC-University of Barcelona, speaking about the SH0ES team's work.

The team measured 42 of the supernova milepost markers with Hubble. Because they are seen exploding at a rate of about one per year, Hubble has, for all practical purposes, logged as many supernovae as possible for measuring the universe's expansion. Riess said, "We have a complete sample of all the supernovae accessible to the Hubble telescope seen in the last 40 years." Like the lyrics from the song "Kansas City," from the Broadway musical Oklahoma, Hubble has "gone about as fur as it c'n go!"

Weird physics?

The expansion rate of the universe was predicted to be slower than what Hubble actually sees. By combining the Standard Cosmological Model of the Universe and measurements by the European Space Agency's Planck mission (which observed the relic cosmic microwave background from 13.8 billion years ago), astronomers predict a lower value for the Hubble constant: 67.5 plus or minus 0.5 kilometers per second per megaparsec, compared to the SH0ES team's estimate of 73.

Given the large Hubble sample size, there is only a one-in-a-million chance astronomers are wrong due to an unlucky draw, said Riess, a common threshold for taking a problem seriously in physics.

This finding is untangling what was becoming a nice and tidy picture of the universe's dynamical evolution. Astronomers are at a loss for an explanation of the disconnect between the expansion rate of the local universe versus the primeval universe, but the answer might involve additional physics of the universe.

Such confounding findings have made life more exciting for cosmologists like Riess. Thirty years ago they started out to measure the Hubble constant to benchmark the universe, but now it has become something even more interesting.

“Actually, I don't care what the expansion value is specifically, but I like to use it to learn about the universe,” Riess added.

NASA's new Webb Space Telescope will extend on Hubble's work by showing these cosmic milepost markers at greater distances or sharper resolution than what Hubble can see.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has new dogs and puppies waiting to be adopted this week.

Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Australian cattle dog, Catahoula leopard dog, German shepherd, Labrador retriever, mountain cur, pit bull and wire-haired terrier.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.

Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.

This 1-year-old male Labrador retriever is in kennel No. 13, ID No. LCAC-A-3437. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male Labrador retriever

This 1-year-old male Labrador retriever has a short black coat.

He is in kennel No. 13, ID No. LCAC-A-3437.

This 3-year-old male German shepherd mix is in kennel No. 14, ID No. LCAC-A-3436. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male German shepherd mix

This 3-year-old male German shepherd mix has a short black and tan coat.

He is in kennel No. 14, ID No. LCAC-A-3436.

“Mako” is an American pit bull terrier in kennel No. 16, ID No. LCAC-A-3387. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Mako’

“Mako” is an American pit bull terrier with a short gray and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 16, ID No. LCAC-A-3387.

This young male chocolate Labrador is in kennel No. 17, ID No. LCAC-A-3385. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Chocolate lab mix

This young male chocolate Labrador, who is under a year old, has a short coat.

He is in kennel No. 17, ID No. LCAC-A-3385.

“Willie” is a 1-year-old male pit bull terrier in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-3301. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Willie’

“Willie” is a 1-year-old male pit bull terrier with a short brown and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-3301.

This female German shepherd puppy is in kennel No. 21a, ID No. LCAC-A-3211. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Female German shepherd puppy

This female German shepherd puppy has a short tan and black coat

She is in kennel No. 21a, ID No. LCAC-A-3211.

This 2-year-old male wire-haired terrier is in kennel No. 22, ID No. LCAC-A-3399. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male wire-haired terrier

This 2-year-old male wire-haired terrier has a cream-colored coat.

He is in kennel No. 22, ID No. LCAC-A-3399.

This male German shepherd mix puppy in kennel No. 25a, ID No. LCAC-A-3212. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male German shepherd mix puppy

This male German shepherd mix puppy has a short tan coat.

He is in kennel No. 25a, ID No. LCAC-A-3212.

This male German shepherd mix puppy is in kennel No. 25b, ID No. LCAC-A-3214. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male German shepherd mix puppy

This male German shepherd mix puppy has a short tan coat.

He is in kennel No. 25b, ID No. LCAC-A-3214.

“Dexter” is a 1-year-old male pit bull in kennel No. 27, ID No. LCAC-A-3290. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Dexter’

“Dexter’ is a 1-year-old male pit bull with a short black coat with white markings.

He is in kennel No. 27, ID No. LCAC-A-3290.

This 3-year-old male American Staffordshire terrier is in kennel No. 29, ID No. LCAC-A-3398. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male American Staffordshire terrier

This 3-year-old male American Staffordshire terrier has a short gray coat.

He is reported to be a very friendly dog with a great temperament, good with cats and already neutered.

He is in kennel No. 29, ID No. LCAC-A-3398.

This 1-year-old male black Labrador Retriever is in kennel No. 31, ID No. LCAC-A-3418. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Black lab mix

This 1-year-old male black Labrador Retriever has a short coat.

He is in kennel No. 31, ID No. LCAC-A-3418.

“Rooster” is a 5-year-old male mountain cur in kennel No. 34, ID No. LCAC-A-3384. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Rooster’

“Rooster” is a 5-year-old male mountain cur with a brown brindle coat.

He is in kennel No. 34, ID No. LCAC-A-3384.

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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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — The Middletown Area Town Hall, or MATH, hosted a candidates forum on Thursday, May 12.

The event featured the candidates running for the following seats:

• Middletown Unified School District Governing Board: Bryan Pullman and Charise Reynolds;
• Assessor-recorder: Rich Ford (incumbent) and Hannah Faith Lee;
• Treasurer-tax collector: Paul Flores and Patrick Sullivan;
• District attorney: Anthony Farrington and Susan Krones (incumbent).

The forum can be viewed in the video shown above.
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The Robinson fire, which burned 2.5 acres above Lucerne, California, on Wednesday, May 18, 2022, resulted from a barbecue used by a squatter on private property, according to officials. Photo by John Jensen/Lake County News.

LUCERNE, Calif. — A Lucerne man who was squatting on private property in the paper subdivision area above Lucerne has been arrested for causing a wildland fire on Wednesday afternoon.

Cal Fire said its law enforcement officers arrested Robert John Moore for starting the Robinson fire due to a barbecue.

The fire was first reported at around 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday near Robinson Road and Foothill Drive, as Lake County News has reported.

Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit and Northshore Fire Protection District responded to the incident and were in unified command, according to radio reports.

When firefighters first arrived on scene, the fire was estimated to be approximately one-quarter of an acre and moving uphill, Cal Fire said. Not long afterward, it was reported to be an acre.

Northshore Fire Chief Mike Ciancio said the fire’s movement was very odd. It was a “backing fire,” which he said means that it was backing up the hill and not really progressing forward. He said it also was moving into the wind.

Cal Fire credited quick actions by firefighters — which included personnel and crews along with air resources such as air attack and Copter 104 — with containing the Robinson fire at 2.5 acres with no evacuations needing to be issued.

Ciancio said firefighters got lucky on Wednesday. “Another month and we’d still be fighting that fire,” he said.

Had it been drier and windier and throwing sparks in the wind, “We wouldn’t have been able to catch it” at a small size, Ciancio said.

As it was, on Wednesday winds in the area were close to 6 miles per hour, according to Lake County’s News’ weather tracking equipment.

Cal Fire said its law enforcement officers immediately began an investigation of the origin and cause of the fire, identifying Moore as having been responsible.

The agency said Moore started a fire in a small barbecue surrounded by dry vegetation, which ultimately caused the fire.

“The guy was using a barbecue in 18-inch tall grass. It wasn’t even cleared out,” Ciancio said.

During the incident, it was reported that a man was trapped in the fire area and unable to escape. Shortly afterward, incident command reported that he had reached the individual. Moore appears to have been that same person.

Cal Fire said its law enforcement officers determined Moore had a warrant for his arrest within Lake County. They placed Moore under arrest for the warrant as well as cited him for violation of California Health and Safety Code §13001, causing a fire through careless or negligent action.

Moore was transported by Cal Fire’s officers to the Lake County Jail to be processed, Cal Fire said.

Moore was not in custody in the Lake County Jail on Thursday, according to jail records.

Ciancio said Moore was squatting on the property where the fire began.

There appear to be more squatters in that paper subdivision and Ciancio said he’s reported the fire and the issue with squatters to Community Development Department’s Code Enforcement Division Manager Marcus Beltramo.

Ciancio said he had a good response from Beltramo, who has indicated he will visit the area to investigate the situation.

Over the past few years the hills above Lucerne have seen an influx of illegal dumping, including the abandonment of numerous vehicles, many of them dilapidated motor homes, and squatting.

Just hours before the fire, Beltramo had participated in the regular meeting of the Abandoned Vehicle Abatement Service Authority, which was held at Clearlake City Hall.

Beltramo, who has taken a proactive approach to dealing with the county’s illegal dumping issues, said during the meeting that his staff is seeing more abandoned RVs popping up throughout the county on a weekly basis and it’s starting to create an issue.

In a Thursday statement, Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit Chief Mike Marcucci said it’s important to exercise fire safety due to the severe drought conditions.

In the case of outdoor cooking, Cal Fire said it’s necessary to have a nonflammable 10-foot clearance around the cooking area and make sure there are no flying embers or sparks being produced. A water source and some tools nearby in case a fire starts also are recommended.

“Always remember that safe cooking practices not only help protect you from getting hurt and your property from being damaged, but it also helps protect your community and the people around you,” the statement said.

Cal Fire said it will take aggressive and prompt enforcement actions to prevent fires and hold those responsible for causing them accountable.

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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