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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – April is forecast to get off to a rainy start, as a series of weather systems are expected to bring more precipitation to the region after a sunny and warm weekend.

The National Weather Service said a cold front from Monday through Tuesday will bring rain to Lake County and other parts of Northern California before conditions clear on Wednesday.

The system impacting the area on Monday and Tuesday is expected to bring only small amounts of rain as well as the possibility of thunderstorms, based on the forecast.

Forecasters said another system is due to arrive on Thursday, again bringing light showers.

Late Friday, a Pacific front is forecast to approach Northern California. The National Weather Service said that system will bring widespread rain and snow to the higher elevations across the region.

More showers are expected on Saturday and Sunday, based on the local forecast.

The Lake County forecast also anticipates winds with gusts above 20 miles per hour on Monday and Tuesday.

Temperatures will range from the high 40s to low 50s during the daytime through early next week, while nighttime temperatures will range from the low to high 40s.

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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NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Due to forecast storms in the Feather River basin, the California Department of Water Resources has taken steps to prepare for use of the main Oroville Dam spillway.

DWR anticipates use of the spillway for the first time since it has been reconstructed on Tuesday, April 2.

“DWR has restored full functionality to the Oroville main spillway and is operating the reservoir to ensure public safety of those downstream,” said DWR State Water Project Deputy Director Joel Ledesma. “The Oroville main spillway was designed and constructed using 21st century engineering practices and under the oversight and guidance from state and federal regulators and independent experts.”

Officials said the Oroville Reservoir level was at 853 feet. The anticipated main spillway releases are expected to be between 10,000 cubic-feet per second, or cfs, and 20,000 cfs. The
anticipated total releases to the Feather River will be up to 30,000 cfs from Oroville facilities and other natural inflows.

DWR may increase releases to the Feather River again later this week to between 40,000 and 60,000 cfs to prepare for forecasted inflows.

The main spillway and the emergency spillway are reconstructed and able to handle flows as needed to manage reservoir levels and provide flood protection for the surrounding communities. Public safety and flood protection are DWR’s top priority in operational decisions regarding Oroville reservoir.

Oro Dam Boulevard East will be open to pedestrian and vehicle traffic unless flows from the main spillway exceed 30,000 cfs. If spillway flows exceed 30,000 cfs, the road will be closed to ensure public safety.

DWR has followed its standard process of notifying regulatory agencies, local maintaining agencies, local law enforcement and local elected officials regarding the anticipated use.
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Weapons and drug paraphernalia seized by the Clearlake Police Department during a traffic stop on Friday, March 29, 2019. Photo courtesy of the Clearlake Police Department.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A Clearlake man was arrested Friday after a police officer found him in possession of a loaded gun and drugs during a traffic stop.

Kevin Daniel Berentis, 37, was taken into custody shortly before 2 a.m. on Friday, according to Lake County Jail booking records and a report from the Clearlake Police Department.

Officer Mauricio Barreto conducted the stop, finding Berentis in possession of a .22-caliber rifle in the back seat of his pickup and had a loaded 9 millimeter handgun concealed on his person, police said.

The agency said Berentis also was found to be in possession of suspected methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.

Berentis was booked into the Lake County Jail for several firearms related charges including concealed weapon on his person and in his vehicle, carrying a loaded firearm, possession of a firearm and ammunition by a prohibited person along with drug related charges, police said.

Jail records indicated Berentis remained in custody on Sunday, with bail set at $50,000.

He’s tentatively scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday, based on his booking record.

Kevin Daniel Berentis, 37, of Clearlake, Calif., was arrested on Friday, March 29, 2019, following a traffic stop. Lake County Jail photo.
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LAKEPORT, Calif. – This week the Board of Supervisors will consider appointing a County Administrative Office staffer as interim deputy registrar of voters and discuss several hemp- and cannabis-related items.

The board will meet beginning at 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 2, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.

The meeting can be watched live on Channel 8 and online at https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx. Accompanying board documents, the agenda and archived board meeting videos also are available at that link.

In an item placed on the consent agenda, and therefore not expected to be considered separately or discussed, County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson will ask the board to appoint one of her staffers, administrative analyst Marcy Harrison, as interim deputy registrar of voters, retroactive to March 6.

Huchingson’s report to the board said that Harrison was reassigned to support the Registrar of Voters Office – “under administrative direction” – after the initial recruitment for a new registrar failed.

“Marcy has thrived in this special assignment, and I am therefore requesting your Board’s approval to appoint her Interim Deputy Registrar of Voters,” Huchingson wrote. “As you are very probably aware, Marcy has served the County of Lake with quality and distinction for nearly 15 years, including stints in the office of the County Clerk and Special Districts, both of which provided experiences well analogous to Elections functions. Her experience under our distinguished Auditor-Controller, Cathy Saderlund, has likewise translated well to many practical business functions of that office.”

Huchingson said Harrison “has already meaningfully supported the developing Elections team, and this interim assignment will recognize her quality work, already in progress.”

The report said there is expected to be no budget impact.

The county’s longtime registrar, Diane Fridley, retired in December, and her deputy, Maria Valadez, was appointed interim registrar. That followed Huchingson’s unsuccessful request to the board to change the educational requirements for the registrar’s job, which would have excluded Valadez from being hired to run the department.

Valadez left in February to take a job in Mendocino County, which left the county with only part-time elections office staffers without the necessary experience to fill the two top positions, as Lake County News has reported.

A second recruitment to fill the registrar’s job closed on Sunday.

Also on the agenda, in an untimed item, the board will discuss industrial hemp cultivation status in the county of Lake.

The supervisors also will consider a possible limited moratorium relating to the acceptance of pre-applications and applications for commercial cannabis cultivation use permits “to allow for the expeditious processing of applications already submitted and to allow for review of possible changes to the zoning ordinance to more efficiently coordinate the processing of such permits,” according to the agenda.

In an item timed for 1:30 p.m., the board will hold a workshop regarding possible revisions to the Lake County Zoning Ordinance for streamlining the cannabis cultivation permitting process and a discussion concerning the addition of a permitting process for retail and microbusiness.

The full agenda follows.

CONSENT AGENDA

5.1: Appoint Administrative Analyst Marcy Harrison interim deputy registrar of voters, retroactive to March 6, 2019.

5.2: Approve Amendment 1 to the agreement between the county of Lake and Kings View Corp. for MIS Support Services for Fiscal Year 2018-19 in the amount of $73,360 and authorize the board chair to sign the amendment.

5.3: Approve Amendment 2 to the agreement between the county of Lake and Native American Mental Health Services dba North American Mental Health Services for FY 2018-19 in the amount of $300,000 and authorize the board chair to sign the amendment.

5.4: Approve amendment to side letter with the Lake County Deputy Sheriff’s Association to provide deputy sheriffs assigned to patrol the opportunity to be placed on on-call status due to a typographical error in the body of the document.

5.5: Authorize county librarian to close all library branches for staff training on April 27, 2019.

5.6: Approve purchase of office furniture for the Emergency Operations Center from Staples Business Advantage in the amount of $26,081.84 and authorize the sheriff/coroner or his designee to sign the purchase order.

5.7: (a) Approve agreement between the Lake County Sheriff's Office and U.S. Forest Service for FY 19/20 annual operating and financial plan, in the amount of $11,000 for Pillsbury Patrol; and (b) approve agreement between the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Forest Service for FY19/20 annual operating and financial plan, in the amount of $19,000 for controlled substance operations, and authorize the sheriff and the chairman to sign.

5.8: Approve memorandum of understanding and joint exercise of powers agreement between the county of Lake and CalSAWS and authorize the chair to sign all three copies of each agreement.

5.9: Approve waiver of the 900 hour limit for extra help construction inspectors for the Anderson Springs Sewer Project, allowing Mark Dellinger to work up to 960 hours and Ray Porter to work up to 1,000 hours.

TIMED ITEMS

6.2, 9:11 a.m.: (a) Consideration of continuing a proclamation of a local emergency due to an atmospheric river event 2019; and (b) update on the atmospheric river event 2019.

6.3, 9:12 a.m.: Consideration of continuing a proclamation of a local emergency due to the Mendocino Complex fire incident (River and Ranch fires).

6.4, 9:13 a.m.: Consideration of continuing a proclamation of a local emergency due to the Pawnee fire incident.

6.5, 9:14 a.m.: Consideration of continuing a proclamation of a local emergency due to the Sulphur fire incident.

6.6, 9:15 a.m.: Consideration of continuing a proclamation of a local emergency due to Clayton fire.

6.7, 9:16 a.m.: Consideration of continuing a proclamation of a local emergency due to the atmospheric river storm 2017.

6.8, 9:17 a.m.: Consideration of continuing the declaration of a local health emergency and order prohibiting the endangerment of the community through the unsafe removal, transportation, and disposal of fire debris.

6.9, 1:30 p.m.: Workshop regarding possible revisions to the Lake County Zoning Ordinance for streamlining the cannabis cultivation permitting process and a discussion concerning the addition of a permitting process for retail and microbusiness.

UNTIMED ITEMS

7.2: Consideration of resolution of support in support of a landowner seeking to name an unnamed geographical feature located solely within the landowner's private property.

7.3: Consideration of the following appointments: Lucerne Area Town Hall, Maternal Child Adolescent Health Advisory Board, Middletown Area Town Hall and Scotts Valley Community Advisory Council.

7.4: Discussion and consideration of industrial hemp cultivation status in the county of Lake.

7.5: Discussion and consideration of a possible limited moratorium relating to the acceptance of pre-applications and applications for commercial cannabis cultivation use permits to allow for the expeditious processing of applications already submitted and to allow for review of possible changes to the zoning ordinance to more efficiently coordinate the processing of such permits.

7.6: Town hall presentation Community Visioning 2028 on Health and Wellness by Denise Pomeroy, Health Services director.

CLOSED SESSION

8.1: Public employee evaluations title: Water Resources director.

8.2: Employee disciplinary appeal (EDA 19-01) Pursuant to Gov. Code sec. 54957.

8.3: Employee Disciplinary Appeal (EDA 19-02) Pursuant to Gov. Code sec. 54957.

8.4: Conference with legal counsel: Existing litigation pursuant to Gov. Code sec. 54956.9(d)(1): Rattanavong v. County of Lake, et al.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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Alice Darrow of Kelseyville, Calif., at her 100th birthday party on Saturday, March 16, 2019, in Clearlake, Calif. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – One of Lake County’s cherished residents, a World War II Navy nurse who has been a stalwart supporter of Pearl Harbor survivors, is celebrating her 100th birthday this month.

If you’ve ever been to a Pearl Harbor commemoration or one of the associated events, it’s likely that you’ve met Alice Darrow.

Darrow, with a smile that never seems to stop and sparkling blue eyes, has been a fixture at the events for years. Beyond that, she’s known as a great friend and neighbor, a woman long committed to helping others and a devoted member of her church.

Born in Paso Robles on March 16, 1919, Alice Beck attended King City Elementary School and graduated from Hamilton City High School before she went on to Chico State, where she received her nursing degree.

She later enlisted in the Navy, and was stationed at Mare Island. It was there that the young Navy nurse met her future husband, Dean Darrow, in 1942 when he came in for heart surgery, a rare procedure at that time.

During the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7, 1941, Dean Darrow, then a 23-year-old fire controlman, was aboard the USS West Virginia when it was torpedoed. As the ship listed to its port side, he was thrown into the water, where he had to swim under a burning layer of oil.

As he was being pulled from the water and into a boat by a group of rescuers, the Japanese planes began strafing the water's surface. Unbeknownst to him, as he was being pulled into a rescue boat, he was hit in the back by a bullet from one of the Japanese guns.

Alice and Dean Darrow. Courtesy image.

A series of fainting spells led to doctors discovering, months later, that a bullet was lodged in Dean Darrow heart.

Alice Darrow tells the story of her husband’s surgery and how, shortly before it occurred, he elicited from her a promise to go on liberty if he made it out.

Thinking it wasn’t likely he would survive, she agreed.

And he made it, they went out on liberty, and would be married several months later after they both were honorably discharged from the Navy.

Together, they raised four children, and had homes in Pleasant Hill and Kelseyville. Their family now includes 10 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

Alice Darrow likes to say that she was able to fill the hole in her husband’s heart with her love.

And Dean Darrow – who died not long before the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack – liked to say that the best thing he got out of the Navy was his nurse.

Alice Darrow still has that bullet, and she’s brought it with her to every Pearl Harbor commemoration, carefully pulling it from her pocket and holding it up to show everyone. It’s more than an inch long with its silver finish showing deep scrapes and dents.

But she doesn’t take it everywhere; she admitted to not bringing it with her to a birthday party held in her honor in Clearlake on March 16.

A month of honors

The honors directed toward Alice Darrow this month began on March 5, when Supervisor Rob Brown presented her with a proclamation, on behalf of the entire Board of Supervisors, on the occasion of her 100th birthday.

Brown called her an “amazing woman,” adding, “I’m so proud to have her as a friend, and not just on Facebook.”

The proclamation recounted her education, her Navy service, her marriage to Dean Darrow and their family, and her active support of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. As a “sweetheart” – a wife or widow of a survivor – she’s been a longtime member of the group.

Brown concluded by handing her the proclamation, giving her a hug and a kiss, and asking her if she would like to say anything.

“I’m blessed to be living in such a wonderful county. Everybody's been so good to me and I really have enjoyed my life up here,” she said.

Then, on March 14, Congressman Mike Thompson read into the House record a proclamation similarly honoring Alice Darrow.

On March 16, friends and family gathered to wish her a happy birthday at a special event held at the American Legion Hall in Clearlake.

More than 60 friends and family members were there; some of those who came to celebrate her traveled from as far away as Pennsylvania.

Alice Darrow holds the bullet taken from her husband’s heart in 1942, months after he struck him during the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941. Darrow is shown at a Pearl Harbor commemoration event in 2016. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.

“Thank you everybody for coming,” she said.

She blew out the candles on the cake with the help of a child. “OK, go,” she said, before the boy helped her snuff out the burning candles.

“I love you all,” she told the group.

The next day, Darrow and family members including her daughter and granddaughter were in the pews at her church, Kelseyville Presbyterian.

During the service, at her request, her granddaughter Mattie Greathouse, a professional musician and music teacher, performed special music on the flute.

After the service, her church family held another celebration to mark her birthday.

Darrow, who has been a frequent traveler over the years, isn’t slowing down.

She’s planning to move to the Bay Area to live with her daughter.

And in April, she and members of her family will be heading to England for a new adventure. She said she’s never been there, and with her youthful outlook, curiosity and energy, there’s no better time than now to go.

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.
Alice Darrow and Bill Slater, the last of the Pearl Harbor survivors to make Lake County, Calif., his home, at the 75th anniversary commemoration of the attack on December 7, 2016, in Lakeport, Calif. Slater died the following year. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.
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A meteor impact 66 million years ago generated a tsunami-like wave in an inland sea that killed and buried fish, mammals, insects and a dinosaur, the first victims of a cataclysm that led to Earth’s last mass extinction. The death scene from within an hour of the impact has been excavated at an unprecedented fossil site in North Dakota. Graphics courtesy of Robert DePalma.

BERKELEY, Calif. – The beginning of the end started with violent shaking that raised giant waves in the waters of an inland sea in what is now North Dakota.

Then, tiny glass beads began to fall like birdshot from the heavens. The rain of glass was so heavy it may have set fire to much of the vegetation on land. In the water, fish struggled to breathe as the beads clogged their gills.

The heaving sea turned into a 30-foot wall of water when it reached the mouth of a river, tossing hundreds, if not thousands, of fresh-water fish – sturgeon and paddlefish – onto a sand bar and temporarily reversing the flow of the river.

Stranded by the receding water, the fish were pelted by glass beads up to 5 millimeters in diameter, some burying themselves inches deep in the mud.

The torrent of rocks, like fine sand, and small glass beads continued for another 10 to 20 minutes before a second large wave inundated the shore and covered the fish with gravel, sand and fine sediment, sealing them from the world for 66 million years.

This unique, fossilized graveyard – fish stacked one atop another and mixed in with burned tree trunks, conifer branches, dead mammals, mosasaur bones, insects, the partial carcass of a Triceratops, marine microorganisms called dinoflagellates and snail-like marine cephalopods called ammonites – was unearthed by paleontologist Robert DePalma over the past six years in the Hell Creek Formation, not far from Bowman, North Dakota.

The evidence confirms a suspicion that nagged at DePalma in his first digging season during the summer of 2013 – that this was a killing field laid down soon after the asteroid impact that eventually led to the extinction of all ground-dwelling dinosaurs. The impact at the end of the Cretaceous Period, the so-called K-T boundary, exterminated 75 percent of life on Earth.

"This is the first mass death assemblage of large organisms anyone has found associated with the K-T boundary," said DePalma, curator of paleontology at the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History in Florida and a doctoral student at the University of Kansas. "At no other K-T boundary section on Earth can you find such a collection consisting of a large number of species representing different ages of organisms and different stages of life, all of which died at the same time, on the same day."

In a paper to appear this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he and his American and European colleagues, including two University of California, Berkeley, geologists, describe the site, dubbed Tanis, and the evidence connecting it with the asteroid or comet strike off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago.

That impact created a huge crater, called Chicxulub, in the ocean floor and sent vaporized rock and cubic miles of asteroid dust into the atmosphere. The cloud eventually enveloped Earth, setting the stage for Earth’s last mass extinction.

"It's like a museum of the end of the Cretaceous in a layer a meter-and-a-half thick," said Mark Richards, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of earth and planetary science who is now provost and professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington.

Richards and Walter Alvarez, a UC Berkeley Professor of the Graduate School who 40 years ago first hypothesized that a comet or asteroid impact caused the mass extinction, were called in by DePalma and Dutch scientist Jan Smit to consult on the rain of glass beads and the tsunami-like waves that buried and preserved the fish. The beads, called tektites, formed in the atmosphere from rock melted by the impact.

Tsunami vs. seiche

Richards and Alvarez determined that the fish could not have been stranded and then buried by a typical tsunami, a single wave that would have reached this previously unknown arm of the Western Interior Seaway no less than 10 to 12 hours after the impact 3,000 kilometers away, if it didn’t peter out before then. Their reasoning: The tektites would have rained down within 45 minutes to an hour of the impact, unable to create mudholes if the seabed had not already been exposed.

Instead, they argue, seismic waves likely arrived within 10 minutes of the impact from what would have been the equivalent of a magnitude 10 or 11 earthquake, creating a seiche (pronounced saysh), a standing wave, in the inland sea that is similar to water sloshing in a bathtub during an earthquake.

Though large earthquakes often generate seiches in enclosed bodies of water, they're seldom noticed, Richards said. The 2011 Tohoku quake in Japan, a magnitude 9.0, created six-foot-high seiches 30 minutes later in a Norwegian fjord 8,000 kilometers away.

"The seismic waves start arising within nine to 10 minutes of the impact, so they had a chance to get the water sloshing before all the spherules (small spheres) had fallen out of the sky," Richards said. "These spherules coming in cratered the surface, making funnels – you can see the deformed layers in what used to be soft mud – and then rubble covered the spherules. No one has seen these funnels before."

The tektites would have come in on a ballistic trajectory from space, reaching terminal velocities of between 100 and 200 miles per hour, according to Alvarez, who estimated their travel time decades ago.

"You can imagine standing there being pelted by these glass spherules. They could have killed you," Richards said. Many believe that the rain of debris was so intense that the energy ignited wildfires over the entire American continent, if not around the world.

"Tsunamis from the Chicxulub impact are certainly well-documented, but no one knew how far something like that would go into an inland sea," DePalma said. "When Mark came aboard, he discovered a remarkable artifact – that the incoming seismic waves from the impact site would have arrived at just about the same time as the atmospheric travel time of the ejecta. That was our big breakthrough."

At least two huge seiches inundated the land, perhaps 20 minutes apart, leaving six feet of deposits covering the fossils. Overlaying this is a layer of clay rich in iridium, a metal rare on Earth, but common in asteroids and comets. This layer is known as the K-T, or K-Pg boundary, marking the end of the Cretaceous Period and the beginning of the Tertiary Period, or Paleogene.

Iridium

In 1979, Alvarez and his father, Nobelist Luis Alvarez of UC Berkeley, were the first to recognize the significance of iridium that is found in 66 million-year-old rock layers around the world. They proposed that a comet or asteroid impact was responsible for both the iridium at the K-T boundary and the mass extinction.

The impact would have melted the bedrock under the seafloor and pulverized the asteroid, sending dust and melted rock into the stratosphere, where winds would have carried them around the planet and blotted out the sun for months, if not years. Debris would have rained down from the sky: not only tektites, but also rock debris from the continental crust, including shocked quartz, whose crystal structure was deformed by the impact.

The iridium-rich dust from the pulverized meteor would have been the last to fall out of the atmosphere after the impact, capping off the Cretaceous.

"When we proposed the impact hypothesis to explain the great extinction, it was based just on finding an anomalous concentration of iridium – the fingerprint of an asteroid or comet," said Alvarez. "Since then, the evidence has gradually built up. But it never crossed my mind that we would find a deathbed like this."

Key confirmation of the meteor hypothesis was the discovery of a buried impact crater, Chicxulub, in the Caribbean and off the coast of the Yucatan in Mexico, that was dated to exactly the age of the extinction. Shocked quartz and glass spherules were also found in K-Pg layers worldwide. The new discovery at Tanis is the first time the debris produced in the impact was found along with animals killed in the immediate aftermath of the impact.

"And now we have this magnificent and completely unexpected site that Robert DePalma is excavating in North Dakota, which is so rich in detailed information about what happened as a result of the impact," Alvarez said. "For me, it is very exciting and gratifying!"

Tektites

Jan Smit, a retired professor of sedimentary geology from Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam in The Netherlands who is considered the world expert on tektites from the impact, joined DePalma to analyze and date the tektites from the Tanis site. Many were found in near perfect condition embedded in amber, which at the time was pliable pine pitch.

"I went to the site in 2015 and, in front of my eyes, he (DePalma) uncovered a charred log or tree trunk about four meters long which was covered in amber, which acted as sort of an aerogel and caught the tektites when they were coming down," Smit said. "It was a major discovery, because the resin, the amber, covered the tektites completely, and they are the most unaltered tektites I have seen so far, not 1 percent of alteration. We dated them, and they came out to be exactly from the K-T boundary."

The tektites in the fishes’ gills are also a first.

"Paddlefish swim through the water with their mouths open, gaping, and in this net, they catch tiny particles, food particles, in their gill rakers, and then they swallow, like a whale shark or a baleen whale," Smit said. "They also caught tektites. That by itself is an amazing fact. That means that the first direct victims of the impact are these accumulations of fishes."

Smit also noted that the buried body of a Triceratops and a duck-billed hadrosaur proves beyond a doubt that dinosaurs were still alive at the time of the impact.

"We have an amazing array of discoveries which will prove in the future to be even more valuable," Smit said. "We have fantastic deposits that need to be studied from all different viewpoints. And I think we can unravel the sequence of incoming ejecta from the Chicxulub impact in great detail, which we would never have been able to do with all the other deposits around the Gulf of Mexico."

"So far, we have gone 40 years before something like this turned up that may very well be unique," Smit said. "So, we have to be very careful with that place, how we dig it up and learn from it. This is a great gift at the end of my career. Walter sees it as the same."

Co-authors with DePalma, Smit, Richards and Alvarez are David Burnham of the University of Kansas, Klaudia Kuiper of Vrije Universiteit, Phillip Manning of Manchester University in the United Kingdom, Anton Oleinik of Florida Atlantic University, Peter Larson of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in South Dakota, Florentin Maurrasse of Florida International University, Johan Vellekoop of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and Loren Gurche of the Palm Beach Museum of Natural History.

Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport City Council this week will consider a staff recommendation to approve an urgency ordinance regarding wireless communication facilities in order to meet new federal guidelines.

The council will hold a reception beginning at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, April 2, at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St., for City Council Members, Lakeport Police volunteers, and members of the various city committees and commissions before the meeting begins at 6 p.m.

During the meeting Mayor Tim Barnes will present a proclamation declaring April 7 to 13 as National Volunteer Week in the city and will honor Lakeport Police volunteers.

The mayor also will read a proclamation honoring city committee and commission members.

Under council business, Community Development Director Kevin Ingram will present a proposed urgency ordinance adding chapter 17.41 of title 17 of the Lakeport Municipal Code establishing regulations for wireless communication facilities.

Ingram’s report for the meeting explains that the city does not have a specific ordinance regulating wireless telecommunications facilities. “As a result, the City’s ability to regulate the location and aesthetics of these facilities is limited to the extent permitted under federal and state law. Specifically, recent changes in the law by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding fifth generation (5G) networks take effect on April 15, 2019 and purportedly require the City to publish its regulations – including by ordinance – prior to that date for those regulations to be effective.”

To ensure the city meets that new federal deadline, Ingram said staff is recommending the council immediately adopt the urgency ordinance, which requires a four-fifths vote, with staff to follow up with a nonurgency ordinance after the Lakeport Planning Commission has an opportunity to further study the issue and make any recommendations it may have at a future date.

On the consent agenda – items considered noncontroversial and usually accepted as a slate on one vote – are ordinances; minutes of the regular council meeting on March 19 and the
special meeting on March 22; the March 28 warrant register; confirmation of the continuing existence of a local emergency for the Mendocino Complex Fire; confirmation of the continuing existence of a local emergency for the February 2019 storms; approval of the the side letter agreement for the City of Lakeport Police Officers Association amending shift differential pay and adding supervisor trainee premium pay; acceptance of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018; and adoption of the proposed resolution to reaffirm the necessity of AB 1600 development impact fees.

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.

040219 Lakeport City Council agenda packet by LakeCoNews on Scribd

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Polypores or bracket fungi growing on a tree. Photo by Kathleen Scavone.


“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” – Rachel Carson

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – After a fall or winter storm it's safe to say that mushroom bodies or fungi of all description begin to push up from the land down under.

All that is needed is adequate moisture and then some life-giving sunshine, and viola! They appear as if by magic.

Since mushroom species typically thrive in certain habitats you are likely to see boletes, russulas and chanterelles under or near oak species, while oyster mushrooms prefer maples and alders near creeks.

While walking about an environment which includes mushrooms maturing under madrones and manzanitas, you are witnessing a mycorrhizal fungi that forms a unique partnership with those particular trees.

Some fungi form only under Douglas firs, while many other species are not so fickle and are found in a myriad of other places.

Although we can't always see them, mushrooms are present at all times, sheltered under the soil, or concealed beneath a tree's bark. Some, like bracket fungi are highly visible, and form ladders, ascending a dead tree trunk, while others play hide-and-seek with leaf matter in the woods.

Mushrooms are one of nature's necessary scavengers, breaking down and decomposing fallen leaf, tree and other forest matter, and thrive with their symbiotic relationships to plants and other mushrooms.

Mushrooms quietly go about the business of breaking down matter then recycling nutrients back into the ecosystem.

According to Dr. Dennis E. Desjardin, author and professor of mycology at San Francisco State University as well as scientific advisor to the Mycological Society of San Francisco, "In technical terms, mushrooms are the charismatic sexual reproductive structures of fungal individuals whose main body (fine, cobweb-like filaments called hyphae) is well hidden in the soil or amongst leaves and rotting wood. The primary role of the mushroom is reproduction- abundant spore production and effective spore dispersal- and its shape reflects this function."

Fungi are veritable living paradoxes, containing the strength to push up through the soil, while at the same time being comprised of such delicate tissue. Some fungi, like the puffball, are beautifully spherical, white wonders, while others, like Western jack-o’-lantern mushrooms (Omphalotus olivascens) are bioluminescent and glow in the dark!

Mushrooms vary in structure: Most have gills – those delicate, plate-like structures that fan out beneath a mushroom like pages in a book.

Gilled mushrooms are usually described within five main groups that include tiny gilled mushrooms ( less than two inches in height), veiled fungi with free gills (their gills are not attached to the stalk, or a very small portion of the gills are attached), veiled mushrooms (those which grow with attached gills), fungi with free gills ( they do not contain any attached gills, instead the gills are all free from the stalk), and mushrooms with attached gills (the gills grow to the stalks).

Mushrooms are comprised of roots, a base, stalk, gills, ring and a cap.

Given that mushroom identification is challenging, it is best to leave it to the experts to determine the edible varieties.

The study of mushrooms, or mycology, is growing quickly with the advent of DNA sequencing data, and the experts are adding newfound information to mushroom field guides annually.

The edible mushrooms that you often find in the supermarket are quite nutritious, containing protein, carbs, both B and D vitamins, as well as phosphorus and zinc.

Culturally, the intense knowledge of edible and poisonous mushrooms has been studied, and has been important throughout history: for food, medicine and spiritual purposes.

The silent, strong and mysterious mushroom has also been used for fire-building tinder, decoration and in the production of leather-like clothing.

Mushrooms are used to create dyes as well. For example puffballs create a red dye, meadow mushrooms are known for their yellow-green dyes, while the chanterelle mushroom creates a yellow dye.

Kathleen Scavone is a writer and retired teacher. She lives in Middletown, Calif.


Turkey tail can be found on stumps throughout the year. Photo by Kathleen Scavone.
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NASA research shows that Jakobshavn Glacier, which has been Greenland's fastest-flowing and fastest-thinning glacier for the last 20 years, has made an unexpected about-face.

Jakobshavn is now flowing more slowly, thickening, and advancing toward the ocean instead of retreating farther inland. The glacier is still adding to global sea level rise – it continues to lose more ice to the ocean than it gains from snow accumulation – but at a slower rate.

The researchers conclude that the slowdown of this glacier, known in the Greenlandic language as Sermeq Kujalleq, occurred because an ocean current that brings water to the glacier's ocean face grew much cooler in 2016. Water temperatures in the vicinity of the glacier are now colder than they have been since the mid-1980s.

In a study published in Nature Geoscience, Ala Khazendar of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and colleagues report the change in Jakobshavn's behavior and trace the source of the cooler water to the North Atlantic Ocean more than 600 miles (966 kilometers) south of the glacier.

The research is based on data from NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland, or OMG, mission and other observations.

The scientists were so shocked to find the change, Khazendar said: "At first we didn't believe it. We had pretty much assumed that Jakobshavn would just keep going on as it had over the last 20 years."

However, the OMG mission has recorded cold water near Jakobshavn for three years in a row.

The researchers suspect the cold water was set in motion by a climate pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation, or NAO, which causes the northern Atlantic Ocean to switch slowly between warm and cold every five to 20 years.

The climate pattern settled into a new phase recently, cooling the Atlantic in general. This change was accompanied by some extra cooling in 2016 of the waters along Greenland's southwest coast, which flowed up the west coast, eventually reaching Jakobshavn.

When the climate pattern flips again, Jakobshavn will most likely start accelerating and thinning again.

Josh Willis of JPL, the principal investigator of OMG, explained, "Jakobshavn is getting a temporary break from this climate pattern. But in the long run, the oceans are warming. And seeing the oceans have such a huge impact on the glaciers is bad news for Greenland's ice sheet."

Water temperature and weather

Jakobshavn, located on Greenland's west coast, drains about 7 percent of the island's ice sheet. Because of its size and importance to sea level rise, scientists from NASA and other institutions have been observing it for many years.

Researchers hypothesized that the rapid retreat of the glacier began with the early 2000s loss of the glacier's ice shelf – a floating extension of the glacier that slows its flow. When ice shelves disintegrate, glaciers often speed up in response.

Jakobshavn has been accelerating each year since losing its ice shelf, and its front (where the ice reaches the ocean) has been retreating. It lost so much ice between 2003 and 2016 that its thickness, top to bottom, shrank by 500 feet (152 meters).

The research team combined earlier data on ocean temperature with data from the OMG mission, which has measured ocean temperature and salinity around the entire island for the last three summers. They found that in 2016, water in Jakobshavn's fjord cooled to temperatures not seen since the 1980s.

"Tracing the origin of the cold waters in front of Jakobshavn was a challenge," explained Ian Fenty of JPL, a co-author of the study. "There are enough observations to see the cooling but not really enough to figure out where it came from."

Using an ocean model called Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, or ECCO, to help fill in the gaps, the team traced the cool water upstream (toward the south) to a current that carries water around the southern tip of Greenland and northward along its west coast. In 2016, the water in this current cooled by more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius).

Although the last few winters were relatively mild in Greenland itself, they were much colder and windier than usual over the North Atlantic Ocean. The cold weather coincided with the switch in the NAO climate pattern.

Under the influence of this change, the Atlantic Ocean near Greenland cooled by about 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) between 2013 and 2016. These generally cooler conditions set the stage for the rapid cooling of the ocean current in southwest Greenland in early 2016. The cooler waters arrived near Jakobshavn that summer, at the same time that Jakobshavn slowed dramatically.

The team suspects that both the widespread Atlantic cooling and the dramatic cooling of the waters that reached the glacier were driven by the shift in the NAO. If so, the cooling is temporary and warm waters will return when the NAO shifts to a warm phase once again.

Wider implications

The warming climate has increased the risk of melting for all land ice worldwide, but many factors can speed or slow the rate of ice loss.

"For example," Khazendar said, "the shape of the bed under a glacier is very important, but it is not destiny. We've shown that ocean temperatures can be just as important."

Tom Wagner, NASA Headquarters program scientist for the cryosphere, who was not involved in the study, said, "The OMG mission deployed new technologies that allowed us to observe a natural experiment, much as we would do in a laboratory, where variations in ocean temperatures were used to control the flow of a glacier. Their findings – especially about how quickly the ice responds – will be important to projecting sea level rise in both the near and distant future."

The paper on the new research in Nature Geoscience is titled "Jakobshavn's 20 Years of Acceleration and Thinning Interrupted by Regional Ocean Cooling." Besides JPL, co-authors are at Remote Sensing Solutions in Barnstable, Massachusetts, and the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Carol Rasmussen is a member of NASA's Earth Science News Team.
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Lake County Office of Education staff members plant a pinwheel garden last year to bring awareness to child abuse prevention. From back to front: Shawn and Darsy Swatosh, Nancy Hudson, Carly Swatosh and Michelle Greb. Courtesy photo.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

It’s an annual observance in the United States dedicated to raising awareness and preventing child abuse, and helps to create community conversations about the effects of child abuse prevention efforts.

The Lake County Children’s Council, under the direction of Ana Santana from the Lake County Office of Education, works diligently year-round to prevent child abuse.

“When people hear “Child Abuse Prevention Month” they often focus on the phrase “child abuse,” said Santana. “It would be terrific if they could focus on the word ‘prevention’ and really understand what prevention might look like.”

Child abuse prevention is about strengthening families, which can be as simple as a kind word to a harried mother, an offering of help, or parenting classes to help parents break the cycle of abuse, according to Santana.

Santana added, “We need to focus on building resiliency with our children, parents and families. We want the conversation to be about how to make things better, not just why things are bad. That’s why the Children’s Council goal statement is ‘Child abuse prevention through the transformation of Lake County into a trauma-informed, resilience focused community.’"

The Children’s Council, along with numerous partner agencies, have events planned all over Lake County in the month of April to celebrate Child Abuse Prevention.

“These events provide an opportunity to raise awareness about the work being done in the family strengthening field, provide outreach to families, and most importantly, celebrate Lake County’s kids, who we work to keep safe and healthy every day,” Santana said.

The popular Children’s Advocacy Walk & Festival will take place on Saturday, April 13, at Library Park in Lakeport.

The First 5 Express, a bilingual children’s activity center, will be at Library Park on April 13 and at the Clearlake Oaks Senior Center on Sunday, April 14.

There will also be art contests, pinwheel gardens, flag ceremonies, and proclamations made by the county and both cities throughout the month of April.

For a complete listing of all events, visit www.lakecoe.org/ChildAbusePrevention.

For more information on the Lake County Children’s Council, visit www.lakecoe.org/Childrens_Council.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control’s kennels are filled with dogs this week waiting for new homes.

Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Akbash, bluetick coonhound, Chihuahua, Great Pyrenees, pit bull, shepherd, Staffordshire bull terrier and terrier.

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

If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.

The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).

This female Chihuahua-terrier mix is in kennel No. 3b, ID No. 11936. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Chihuahua-terrier mix

This female Chihuahua-terrier mix has a short brown and white coat.

She already has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 3b, ID No. 11936.

This female Chihuahua is in kennel No. 6, ID No. 11942. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Female Chihuahua

This female Chihuahua has a short fawn and white coat.

She already has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 6, ID No. 11942.

“Jaelyn” is a female Chihuahua in kennel No. 9, ID No. 11861. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Jaelyn’

“Jaelyn” is a female Chihuahua with a short tan coat.

She already has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 9, ID No. 11861.

“JessJess” is a male Chihuahua in kennel No. 9, ID No. 11862. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘JessJess’

“JessJess” is a male Chihuahua with a short tan coat.

He’s already been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 9, ID No. 11862.

“Rio” is a male bluetick coonhound-shepherd mix in kennel No. 11, ID No. 11947. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Rio’

“Rio” is a male bluetick coonhound-shepherd mix with a short tricolor coat.

He already has been neutered.

He’s in kennel No. 11, ID No. 11947.

“Sarra” is a female Akbash in kennel No. 12, ID No. 11855. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Sarra’

“Sarra” is a female Akbash with a medium-length white coat and green eyes.

Shelter staff said she should go to a home with no cats, small dogs or livestock.

She’s in kennel No. 12, ID No. 11855.

“Baylee” is a female pit bull terrier in kennel No. 14, ID No. 11892. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Baylee’

“Baylee” is a female pit bull terrier has a short brindle and white coat.

Shelter staff said she is good with other dogs, has lived with cats and chickens, and was raised with children.

She already has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 14, ID No. 11892.

“Maebelle” is a female pit bull terrier in kennel No. 15, ID No. 11893. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Maebelle’

“Maebelle” is a female pit bull terrier with a short brindle and white coat.

Shelter staff said she is good with other dogs, has lived with cats and chickens, and was raised with a small child.

She’s in kennel No. 15, ID No. 11893.

This male Staffordshire Bull Terrier is in kennel No. 17, ID No. 11943. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male Staffordshire Bull Terrier

This male Staffordshire Bull Terrier has a short buff, white and brown coat.

He’s in kennel No. 17, ID No. 11943.

“Bobby Socks” is a female Staffordshire bull terrier-Rhodesian Ridgeback in kennel No. 21, ID No. 11911. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Bobby Socks’

“Bobby Socks” is a female Staffordshire bull terrier-Rhodesian Ridgeback.

She has a short red coat and has already been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 21, ID No. 11911.

This female pit bull terrier-boxer mix is in kennel No. 22, ID No. 11950. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Pit bull terrier

This female pit bull terrier has a short brown and white coat.

She’s in kennel No. 22, ID No. 11950.

This male pit bull terrier is in kennel No. 23, ID No. 11941. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

Male pit bull terrier

This male pit bull terrier has a short black coat.

He’s in kennel No. 23, ID No. 11941.

“Little Foot” is a white male Great Pyrenees is in kennel No. 27, ID No. 11854. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control.

‘Little Foot’

“Little Foot” is a white male Great Pyrenees with a long white coat and gold eyes.

Shelter staff said the right home for him will not have cats, small dogs or livestock.

He’s in kennel No. 27, ID No. 11854.

Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.

Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm.

For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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The area of Hill Road near the Lakeside Heights subdivision in Lakeport, Calif., has seen another winter landslide, necessitating the closure of the road. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – A landslide along Hill Road across from Sutter Lakeside Hospital in the north Lakeport area has once again caused a seasonal road closure, with a fix unlikely to happen this year.

In February the hillside at Lakeside Heights on the section of Hill Road between Lakeshore Boulevard and Sutter Lakeside Hospital once again collapsed during continuing rainstorms, sending mud and dirt across one lane. The lane that had remained open was finally closed earlier this week.

The hillside has caused repeated wintertime road closures since 2013, the year the slide began to destroy homes in the subdivision above.

The county settled a $4.5 million lawsuit with the homeowners in 2017 over the causes of the slide, which originated at the subdivision where homes were first built in the early 1980s, as Lake County News has reported. County officials said the settlement wasn’t an admission of wrongdoing.

In the meantime, the landslide’s impact on the roadway has remained a seasonal issue.

“It continues to move,” Public Works Director Scott De Leon said of the landslide. “It could continue to get worse.”

De Leon said he had hoped the recent break in the rain would stabilize the hillside and allow it to remain open to one lane of traffic.

However, the storms that followed that break led to De Leon’s department closing the road completely from Downing Drive and Lakeshore Boulevard on Monday after the mudslide moved across the remaining lane. Property owners are still allowed to access Lakeside Heights.

Public Works said this week that there is no estimate at this time as to when the roadway will be reopened.

Lakeside Heights subdivision resident Randall Fitzgerald said that when one lane of traffic was still open, people had been driving through the area at high speed. His wife almost had a head-on collision when a truck ignored the one-way sign and almost plowed into her.

Fitzgerald also noted that there were numerous wrong-way drivers, and one day he observed a sheriff’s deputy writing a ticket to someone who had gone the wrong way.

There is a plan for a permanent fix of the road and hillside. “We have a project that we’re in the process of getting designed,” De Leon said.

The county hired Quincy Engineering to be the consulting engineers, with design still under way, he said.

Previously, the county had discussed possible solutions including a gabion wall, which is made up of baskets of rocks that allows for drainage. De Leon said that type of wall was written up for the purposes of getting a preliminary project submitted to the state.

“The design hasn’t really been defined,” De Leon said.

He explained that part of the design process is doing the necessary geotechnical work in order to determine what is the most cost effective solution. A gabion wall could be one solution, but there also can be others.

The county has received state grant funding for the project, De Leon said, explaining that the grant funding is supported in phases.

“Right now we’re in the design phase and once we go to construction then we’ll submit the paperwork for that,” he said.

De Leon said he doesn’t know if the project can be designed and built in this next year’s construction season. Right now, they want to be bidding out projects ready for summer construction, and that project isn’t quite at that point.

“The timing is kinda stacking up against us here,” De Leon said. “We should be bidding something right now and we’re not anywhere near that.”

The availability of contractors and the longer the rains last – the forecast calls for April to start off with still more rain – impact the construction window, with De Leon explaining that everything has to be done by Oct. 15. “By the time you back in the construction time and bidding, the window of time is closing very quickly.”

Meanwhile, up in the Lakeside Heights subdivision, Fitzgerald said he has been wondering about the state grant for the project and what happened to the Quincy Engineering report on constructing the wall.

Fitzgerald said everything on top of the hillside seems stable.

However, the hillside itself, on both the Hill Road and Downing Drive sides, is “obviously slipping and sliding with that big old fallen oak tree now occupying the former north to south lane of Hill Road,” he 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.
A landslide near the Lakeside Heights subdivision in Lakeport, Calif., has once again led to a closure on Hill Road. Photo by Elizabeth Larson/Lake County News.

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