LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Sheriff’s Office is conducting a search for a missing Rohnert Park man whose vehicle was found in Clearlake on Saturday.

Fernando Ruben-Minon, 34, was last seen in Rohnert Park on Feb. 9, and then was spotted three days later in Clearlake Oaks, the sheriff’s office reported.

Ruben-Minon suffers from some medical issues and is considered at-risk, officials said.

Authorities said his vehicle was located near Highway 53 and Ogulin Canyon in Clearlake on Saturday. It may have been there for several days.

A search currently is under way by the Lake County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue team in that area, with authorities asking people to keep clear of the area.

Ruben-Minon is described as a being 5 feet 10 inches tall and 170 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair.

If you have seen Fernando Ruben-Minon or have information as to his location, please contact the Lake County Sheriff's Office Dispatch at 707-263-2690.

NORTH COAST, Calif. – Beavers are burly.

Second only to the Australian capybara for being the largest rodent on the planet, male beavers can weigh in at over 70 pounds. (A few have even been cited at over 100 pounds!)

Although some people consider them a pest species that causes temporary flooding of areas adjacent area to their home, the ever-active North American Beavers (Castor canadensis) have actually been proven over and over again to be a boon to humankind in many ways.

In the last two or three years, projects and studies have been conducted throughout several Western states that conclusively prove that the beavers are actually 80 percent more effective (and less costly) at repairing and improving degraded stream systems than humans. And part of the reason for that is because the beavers instinctively know where the best places are to build their dams and lodges.

Although the beavers’ mechanism for finding suitable places to build their homes isn’t entirely understood by scientists (who tried to emulate the beavers’ efforts and were not very successful at producing the same beneficial results), it’s believed that a variety of factors are figured into the beavers’ mental calculations: the time of year, access to running water, the right kinds of trees, and vegetative food sources.

The beavers build their dams and lodges out of mud and the branches, sticks and twigs of trees they can harvest locally.

Although some people complain about this practice – because the downing of trees can be visually unpleasant – the beavers’ tree-cutting activities actually have a long-term benefit to both the felled trees and the surrounding environment.

Beavers don’t kill the trees they harvest. Rather, they cut the trees down with their sharp incisor teeth to just above ground-level, leaving the root system entirely intact.

In wildlife habitat restoration and management done by humans, this exact same process is call “coppicing.”

The majority of coppiced trees don’t die; they instead grow new healthier shoots from the severed stump, providing for long-term regrowth and reforestation.

This is part of the reason why beavers are considered to be a “keystone species” in the environment: their creation of new growth and water pathways and ponds actually increases the biodiversity in the areas in which they live.

Studies have proven that where beaver dams are allowed to exist naturally, waterfowl and fish populations increase, and become healthier and more diverse.

In Washington state, for example, studies proved that beavers – which do not eat fish – were a benefit to local trout and salmon populations, increasing smolt production from about 15 individuals per range to 1,170 fish.

A similar effect on waterfowl diversity was seen in Wyoming, where it was shown that waterways where beavers were present resulted in a 75 percent increase in the number and diversity of ducks.

Other benefits afforded by beavers and their construction sites include:

· An increase in the variety of vegetation which enhances bird habitat.

· The removal of toxins from local waterways by filtering out sediments, phosphates, and heavy nitrogen concentrations.

· A reduction in soil erosion (which can decrease flood dangers for people in surrounding areas).

· Helping to reestablish and increase riparian habitat which also aids in the interception of runoff, increasing soil nutrients, and providing habitat for a wide variety of plants and trees. Increased plant life has the added benefit of improving air quality as trees and plants naturally remove toxin form the air.

· Because the dams slow down the flow of water near them they help to recharged spent aquifers (raising the level of water stored underground for use during drought conditions).

So the big, burly beavers can actually be a boon to humankind. Working alongside humans they provide a natural workforce that has a documented history of improving air and water quality, growing underground water storage areas for future use, increasing biodiversity, and benefitting local populations of fish and waterfowl.

Mary K. Hanson is a Certified California Naturalist, author and nature photographer. She will be co-teaching a naturalist course for the public through Tuleyome in early 2018. Tuleyome is a501(c)(3) nonprofit conservation organization based in Woodland, CA. For more information visit www.tuleyome.org .

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Dozens of local schoolchildren returning from a field trip on Friday afternoon escaped serious injury when the charter bus in which they were riding was clipped by a vehicle that had first been involved in another collision.

The incident, first reported just before 1:30 p.m., occurred at Olympic Drive and Highway 53 in Clearlake, according to Lake County Fire Chief Willie Sapeta.

The initial reports from the Clearlake Police Department said the crash involved three vehicles, with police closing the road in the area for a short period of time.

The Konocti Unified School District reported on its Facebook page that the charter bus – carrying sixth graders from Burns Valley School who were returning from science camp – was involved in “a minor accident.”

Sapeta said the primary collision involved a near head-on involving two other vehicles, one of which continued on and clipped the charter bus, which was carrying about 42 Burns Valley School students, staff and chaperones.

Numerous Lake County Fire units, along with Cal Fire and Northshore Fire, responded, Sapeta said.

When firefighters arrived, “The kids were screaming and upset due to the dynamics of the accident,” Sapeta said.

An air ambulance responded to the scene to transport an individual reported to be the driver of one of the first two vehicles. Three others from that primary crash were taken by ground ambulance to St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake, according to Sapeta.

Sapeta said four of the children on the bus had complaints of neck and back pain, as well as anxiety, and were taken to the hospital for evaluation.

A firefighter got on the bus with the staff and remaining children – which included several students chaperones from Lower Lake High School – to talk to them and calm them down, Sapeta said, explaining that they had to keep the children on the bus at that point.

The charter bus itself had little damage and could still be driven. Sapeta said the firefighter rode on the bus with the staff and children, followed by an engine, Sapeta himself and the California Highway Patrol.

Radio reports indicated Sapeta and the group moved to Burns Valley School between 2:30 and 2:45 p.m.

Ahead of the children arriving back at Burns Valley School, Sapeta said a fire district representative and staffers from Lake Elementary and Burns Valley Elementary were at the school to meet with parents and inform them of the crash.

Sapeta said firefighters met with each of the families who came to pick up their children, explaining the situation and then giving them a list of things to watch for over the next 24 hours regarding physical and psychological issues that the children may experience in response to the crash.

He said paramedics were available to evaluate children medically if parents had additional concerns. He said no other children ended up being transported from the school.

Shortly after 3 p.m., after officials followed the careful process of working with the families and having them sign for their children, all of the children had been turned over to their parents, Sapeta said.

Sapeta praised the work of the different agencies involved, and gave special recognition to the high school chaperones for how they handled the situation. “They did an amazing job.”

Information on the other vehicles and individuals involved in the crash wasn’t immediately available late Friday afternoon from authorities.

Contacted by Lake County News just after 4 p.m., the Clearlake Police Department said it had no additional information on the crash at that time.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Acting Administrator Robert Blaney of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Region IX office announced that SBA will close its Disaster Loan Outreach Centers in Lakeport on Tuesday, April 4, at 5:30 p.m.

Also closing that day are centers in Maxwell, Quincy and Susanville.

“SBA opened these centers to provide personalized assistance to California businesses and residents who were affected by the severe storms and flooding that occurred Feb. 1 to 25, 2017. Until the centers close, SBA customer service representatives will continue to be available to meet with businesses and residents to answer their questions, explain SBA’s disaster loan program and close their approved disaster loans,” said Blaney.

Businesses and residents can meet with SBA representatives on Monday, April 3, and Tuesday, April 4, from 9 am. to 5:30 p.m. at the center, located at the WorkforceLake Building, 55 First St., Suite 114 in Lakeport. No appointment is necessary.

SBA’s disaster declaration makes assistance available in Alameda, Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Merced, Modoc, Monterey, Napa, Plumas, San Benito, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Yolo and Yuba counties in California; and Washoe County in Nevada.

Businesses of all sizes and private nonprofit organizations may borrow up to $2 million to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory and other business assets.

SBA can also lend additional funds to homeowners and businesses to help with the cost of improvements to protect, prevent or minimize the same type of disaster damage from occurring in the future.

For small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, small businesses engaged in aquaculture and most private nonprofit organizations of any size, SBA offers Economic Injury Disaster Loans to help meet working capital needs caused by the disaster. Economic injury assistance is available regardless of whether the business suffered any property damage.

Disaster loans up to $200,000 are available to homeowners to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate. Homeowners and renters are eligible for up to $40,000 to repair or replace damaged or destroyed personal property.

Interest rates can be as low as 3.15 percent for businesses, 2.5 percent for private nonprofit organizations and 1.875 percent for homeowners and renters with terms up to 30 years. Loan amounts and terms are set by SBA and are based on each applicant’s financial condition.

Applicants may apply online using SBA’s secure Web site at https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela .

Disaster loan information and application forms are also available from SBA’s Customer Service Center by calling 800-659-2955 or emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Individuals who are deaf or hard‑of‑hearing may call 800-877-8339.

For more disaster assistance information or to download applications, visit https://www.sba.gov/disaster . Completed applications should be mailed to U.S. Small Business Administration, Processing and Disbursement Center, 14925 Kingsport Road, Fort Worth, TX  76155.

The filing deadline to return applications for property damage is May 19, 2017. The deadline to return economic injury applications is Dec. 20, 2017.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County District Attorney’s Perjury Investigation Unit has made another arrest, this time of a woman who falsely claimed she had been the victim of an assault.

On Wednesday members of the unit arrested Danee Kristine Patterson, 23, for two felony counts of perjury, one felony count of filing a false affidavit to the court and one misdemeanor count of making a false police report, District Attorney Don Anderson reported.

Anderson said the case came to the Perjury Investigation Unit as a result of a false report being made to the Clearlake Police Department by Patterson.

He said Patterson had reported that her employer, with whom she denied having any romantic relationship, had assaulted her.

An investigation by the Clearlake Police Department concluded she was in fact having a romantic relationship with her employer and that the assault never occurred. Anderson said Patterson admitted to the police that she had made up the story to gain advantage in a pending custody battle over their child.

In an application to obtain a restraining order and custody of their child, Patterson had filed with the court an affidavit alleging the assault by her employer, Anderson said.

Afterward, on May 12, 2016, despite admitting to the police the assault never happened, she testified in the family law trial that she never had a romantic relationship with her employer and that her employer had assaulted her, according to Anderson.

In a separate civil proceeding in on March 17, Anderson said Patterson again testified that she did not have a romantic relationship with her employer and that the employer had assaulted her.

During that court hearing an investigator with the District Attorney's Perjury Unit was in court monitoring the testimony, Anderson said.

Anderson said Patterson faces a maximum seven-year sentence for her perjured testimony if convicted.

Anderson established the Perjury Investigative Unit in June in an attempt to curb false testimony in criminal, civil and family law courts.

It’s believed to be the only district attorney’s office in the United States to establish a perjury unit with the specific intent to prosecute perjury cases.

The Lake County District Attorney’s Perjury Investigation Unit has been recognized for its work by agencies throughout the country including the American Bar Association and the California District Attorney's Association.

On April 1, 2017, comet 41P will pass closer than it normally does to Earth, giving observers with binoculars or a telescope a special viewing opportunity.

Comet hunters in the Northern Hemisphere should look for it Saturday night near the constellations Draco and Ursa Major, which the Big Dipper is part of.

The comet is expected to have good viewing opportunities through April 3 due to being very close to Earth.

Whether a comet will put on a good show for observers is notoriously difficult to predict, but 41P has a history of outbursts, and put on quite a display in 1973.

If the comet experiences similar outbursts this time, there’s a chance it could become bright enough to see with the naked eye. The comet is expected to reach perihelion, or its closest approach to the sun, on April 12.

Officially named 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák to honor its three discoverers, the comet is being playfully called the April Fool’s Day comet on this pass.

Discovery credit goes first to Horace Tuttle, who spotted the comet in 1858.

According to the Cometography website, 41P was recognized at the time as a periodic comet – one that orbits the sun – but astronomers initially were uncertain how long the comet needed to make the trip. The comet was rediscovered in 1907 by Michael Giacobini but not immediately linked to the object seen in 1858.

Later, the astronomer Andrew Crommelin determined that the two observations had been of the same object and predicted that the comet would return in 1928 and 1934, according to the Cometography entry for the comet. However, the object was not seen then and was considered lost. In 1951, L’ubor Kresák discovered it again and tied it to the earlier observations.

A member of the Jupiter family of comets, 41P makes a trip around the sun every 5.4 years, coming relatively close to Earth on some of those trips.

On this approach, the comet will pass our planet at a distance of about 13 million miles (0.14 astronomical units), or about 55 times the distance from Earth to the moon. This is the comet’s closest approach to Earth in more than 50 years and perhaps more than a century.

For scientists, 41P’s visit is an opportunity to fill in details about the comet’s composition, coma and nucleus.

“An important aspect of Jupiter-family comets is that fewer of them have been studied, especially in terms of the composition of ices in their nuclei, compared with comets from the Oort cloud,” said Michael DiSanti of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He and his team will be observing 41P on April 1 using NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii.

Astronomers will try to determine characteristics such as how quickly 41P’s nucleus rotates, which provides clues about how structurally sound the nucleus is, and whether any changes can be documented in the coma and tail. Observers also will look for outbursts, which are an indication of how active a comet is.

By cataloging the subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, differences among comets, researchers can construct a family tree and trace the history of how and where these objects formed as the solar system was taking shape.

“Comets are remnants from the early solar system,” said DiSanti. “Each comet that comes into the neighborhood of Earth gives us a chance to add to our understanding of the events that led to the formation of our own planet.”

Elizabeth Zubritsky is with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Donations to assist Lake County flood survivors are currently being collected through a collaborative effort between North Coast Opportunities and Mendo Lake Credit Union, representatives for the two entities announced.

The Lake County Flood Relief fund has been established to help Lake County residents severely impacted by recent rains and flooding, with many families displaced by extreme conditions.

Donations may be made on either NCO or MLCU’s Web sites, and fund applications for affected families and individuals are available online.

Additionally, anyone wishing to donate to the flood relief fund can go in person to any MLCU branch, or send a check to MLCU made out to NCO with “Lake County Flood” in the notes field.

“Both MLCU and NCO recognize the need to help our local residents who have been hard hit by this year’s wet weather. Much like we did following the devastation from fires in the south county nearly two years ago, we join NCO in wanting to help our community members,” said Jamey Gill, MLCU director of Marketing and Community Outreach. “MLCU is all about people helping people, and our mission is to support the economic wellbeing of the communities we serve.”

Among those affected by flooding in the Lakeport area were more than 200 residents, according to Kevin Ingram, City of Lakeport public information officer.

Of those 200, 175 are from the Will-O-Point Resort where 41 homes were “red-tagged.” Residents will not likely be able to return to their homes for at least two to three months, he said.

“The flooding aggravated the already constrained utilities at the mobile home park, most notably sewer,” Ingram explained. “Occupancy of the homes located within Will-O-Point will remain prohibited until repair work on the utilities is completed by the owner. This repair work is further aggravated by the continued elevated level of Clear Lake as the property owner is not even able to begin to analyze needed repairs until additional groundwater levels at the park recede further.”

Ingram characterized the majority of the families affected as low and very low income earners.

The biggest need for the families is rental assistance for temporary housing and deposit assistance for relocation, said Ingram. Families lost clothing and food due to the flooding situation, as well as having to leave their homes for an extended amount of time. Additionally, when families return to their Will-O-Point homes, they may find that some minor repairs will be necessary.

NCO and MLCU’s representatives pointed out that 100 percent of funds collected will go straight to those affected; no portion of the donations will go toward administrative overhead. Donations are tax deductible.

For more information on how to donate or how to apply for funds, visit either NCO or MLCU’s Web sites or contact NCO Executive Assistant Elizabeth Archer at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-467-3210.

NCO is the Community Action Agency for Lake and Mendocino counties, and part of its mission is to serve those in need during emergency situations. The fund was officially set up by NCO as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization.

Mendo Lake Credit Union is a member-owned financial cooperative and has been serving members’ financial needs since 1959. MLCU branches are located in Lakeport, Clearlake, Fort Bragg and Ukiah.