LAKEPORT, Calif. – A pilot and his passenger were injured on Saturday when the seaplane they were flying in crashed into Clear Lake.

The Lake County Sheriff's Office said the incident occurred late Saturday morning during the annual Clear Lake Seaplane Splash In, which is taking place this weekend at the old Natural High School property on N. Main St.

Lt. Corey Paulich said the aircraft involved was a Grumman Widgeon seaplane that was reported to have crashed offshore from Via Del Lago.

Lakeport Fire Chief Doug Hutchison said he saw the crash from his house, while he was out in his yard Saturday morning playing fetch with his dog.

Hutchison said he saw the plane come in for a landing on the lake, then there was a rooster tail of water and the sound of the impact.

He said he immediately called Central Dispatch to report the incident, and responded to the scene himself a short time later.

The Sheriff’s Marine Patrol responded to the area, locating the seaplane Seaplane in the water approximately 500 yards offshore, Paulich said.

Getting to the scene just ahead of the Marine Patrol were two Air Force pilots who were attending the event and driving a rented boat, along with Damon Trimble, a local pilot who in years past has been an event organizer and this year was driving a safety boat.

First Lt. Chris Dempsey and his friend Capt. Jared Wahleithner from Travis Air Force Base had flown to the event in Dempsey's plane on Friday and were in a boat nearby helping people to shore from a larger seaplane when the Grumman seaplane crashed.

Trimble and his safety boat also were helping offload the passengers when the incident occurred.

“It happened right behind us,” said Trimble.

Dempsey and Wahleithner said the entire episode happened very fast, with the seaplane looking and sounding normal beforehand.

“He was coming in and it just appeared that his gear was down,” Dempsey said, explaining that a pilot's biggest fear in a seaplane is accidentally leaving down the wheels. “It looked like a normal landing until his wheels touched the water.”

Trimble said the pilot, who was from out of the area, had just fueled up at Lampson Field. When he took off, he inadvertently left the wheels down, a situation that Trimble said the pilot would have noticed if he had been traveling any distance, since it would have slowed him down considerably.

However, with the airfield a short distance from the lake, “He didn't particularly notice any difference in performance,” said Trimble.

The plane has two wheels in the front and one in the back, which Trimble said pilots affectionately call “tail draggers.”

Just before the plane's hull touched the water, the wheels touched first, which abruptly stopped the plane's forward motion, causing it to flip over. The plane – which had been heading south – ended up facing to the north, Trimble said.

Dempsey said the plane came to rest with the nose down into the water, the tail in the air and the engine cutting off.

Trimble said his boat and the boat driven by Dempsey and Wahleithner arrived at the plane at about the same time.

Dempsey and Wahleithner threw a buoy to the pilot, who was just coming up out of the wreck. He had contusions to his face and appeared to be “pretty cut up,” said Dempsey.

When the passenger surfaced they helped him to the swim deck of their boat. He couldn't swim on his own due to his leg injuries, which they said included one broken leg, deep cuts and a possible fracture to the second leg, Dempsey said.

Trimble said the Marine Patrol boat had been down at the Fifth Street boat ramp and arrived at the scene just behind his boat and the one driven by the two Air Force pilots.

Trimble said the Sheriff's Marine Patrol deputies got the pilot – who had a big gash on his head – into their boat, while Dempsey said he and Wahleithner took the passenger to shore, using a life jacket to stabilize the man's broken leg.

Another man – whose name Trimble didn't know but who had been on the safety boat with him – also assisted in the rescue, getting into the water to help pull the injured men from the plane.

Trimble said a sheriff's deputy called Lakeport Fire – which Hutchison said had one engine standing by during the event – on the radio and had an ambulance meet them at the Fifth Street Boat Ramp.

Dempsey said both crash victims were coherent and had no spinal or breathing problems. “I just imagine the one guy will need some pins and some surgery,” Dempsey said of the passenger.

Hutchison said the man with the injured leg was taken to the REACH air ambulance base at Lampson Field, and from there flown to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

The pilot refused to be transported by ambulance and was taken by private vehicle to Sutter Lakeside Hospital, Hutchison said. “He needed some stitches.”

As for the plane, “It was in rough shape,” said Dempsey, noting it was a beautiful aircraft.

Trimble said the plane was in about 8 feet of water, with the nose on the bottom. They had attached ropes to it during the initial rescue, and he didn't think it completely submerged, although the cabin filled up with water.

About an hour after the crash, Trimble went back to the crash area but didn't see any signs of the plane. He wasn't sure if by then it had been removed.

Both of the Air Force pilots have had training in CPR and first aid, which Dempsey said helped a lot in the Saturday incident.

Dempsey and Wahleithner are in the same flying squadron at Travis Air Force Base. They fly KC-10 air refueling tankers, which refuel fighter and bomber aircraft in flight to extend their range.

“It's not as exciting as it sounds,” Dempsey said.

Dempsey had attended last year's Splash In, driving up to Lake County because he was concerned about the flight conditions due to the area's wildland fires.

This year he wanted to fly up, arriving on Friday in his Lake Buccaneer seaplane with Wahleithner.

Paulich said the sheriff’s office is coordinating with Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board, which will be taking over the crash investigation.

Trimble attributed the incident to simple human error.

This is not the first plane crash on the lake to coincide with the Splash In.

In September 1990, a World War II-era Lockheed P2V Harpoon doing a series of low passes and maneuvers nose dived into the lake, killing all seven aboard.

Organizers of the 1990 Splash In said that the plane involved in the crash was not a part of the event but had intruded, according to media reports at the time.

Trimble said besides the 1990 incident, he doesn't remember any other crashes having taken place during the Splash In, which has been held in Lakeport since 1979.

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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Lakes and snowmelt-fed streams on Mars formed much later than previously thought possible, according to new findings using data primarily from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The recently discovered lakes and streams appeared roughly a billion years after a well-documented, earlier era of wet conditions on ancient Mars.

These results provide insight into the climate history of the Red Planet and suggest the surface conditions at this later time may also have been suitable for microbial life.

"We discovered valleys that carried water into lake basins," said Sharon Wilson of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. "Several lake basins filled and overflowed, indicating there was a considerable amount of water on the landscape during this time."

Wilson and colleagues found evidence of these features in Mars' northern Arabia Terra region by analyzing images from the Context Camera and High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and additional data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and the European Space Agency's Mars Express.

"One of the lakes in this region was comparable in volume to Lake Tahoe," Wilson said, referring to a California-Nevada lake that holds about 45 cubic miles of water. "This particular Martian lake was fed by an inlet valley on its southern edge and overflowed along its northern margin, carrying water downstream into a very large, water-filled basin we nicknamed 'Heart Lake.'"

The chain of lakes and valleys that are part of the Heart Lake valley system extends about 90 miles. Researchers calculate Heart Lake held about 670 cubic miles of water, more than in Lake Ontario of North America's Great Lakes.

Wilson and co-authors of the report in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Planets, map the extent of stream-flow in "fresh shallow valleys" and their associated former lakes. They suggest that the runoff that formed the valleys may have been seasonal.

To bracket the time period when the fresh shallow valleys in Arabia Terra formed, scientists started with age estimates for 22 impact craters in the area.

They assessed whether or not the valleys carved into the blankets of surrounding debris ejected from the craters, as an indicator of whether the valleys are older or younger than the craters. They concluded that this fairly wet period on Mars likely occurred between two and three billion years ago, long after it is generally thought that most of Mars' original atmosphere had been lost and most of the remaining water on the planet had frozen.

The characteristics of the valleys support the interpretation that the climate was cold: "The rate at which water flowed through these valleys is consistent with runoff from melting snow," Wilson said, "These weren't rushing rivers. They have simple drainage patterns and did not form deep or complex systems like the ancient valley networks from early Mars."

They note that similar valleys occur elsewhere on Mars between about 35 and 42 degrees latitude, both north and south of the equator.

The similar appearance and widespread nature of these fresh, shallow valleys on Mars suggest they formed on a global scale rather than a local or regional scale.

"A key goal for Mars exploration is to understand when and where liquid water was present in sufficient volume to alter the Martian surface and perhaps provide habitable environments," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Scientist Rich Zurek of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "This paper presents evidence for episodes of water modifying the surface on early Mars for possibly several hundred million years later than previously thought, with some implication that the water was emplaced by snow, not rain."

The findings will likely prompt more studies to understand how conditions warmed enough on the frozen planet to allow an interval with flowing water. One possibility could be an extreme change in the planet's tilt, with more direct illumination of polar ice.

Wilson's co-authors are Alan Howard of the University of Virginia; Jeffrey Moore of the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California; and John Grant of the Smithsonian.

NASA's Mars orbiter missions are advancing understanding about the Red Planet that serves in preparation for human-crew missions to Mars beginning in the 2030s.

For more about NASA's Journey to Mars, visit http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-journey-to-mars .

LOWER LAKE, Calif. – On Saturday, the Lower Lake Historic Schoolhouse Museum will open its popular annual Quilt and Fiber Arts Show, a celebration of weaving, quilting, spinning and other forms of textile artwork.

The 24th annual show opens Saturday, with an artist' reception from noon to 2 p.m.

The reception will include demonstrations by some of the artists whose work is on display.

On Friday, Sheila O’Hara, who has organized the weaving component of the show for the last 12 years and now oversees the entire production, was busy putting the finishing touches on the displays, which once again are located in the museum's second-story auditorium.

“What we have is a bigger diversity of techniques,” said O'Hara, who has been a weaver for 40 years.

This year's show highlights textile artwork including weaving, quilts, batik, painted fabric and hand-done silkscreened textiles, needlepoint, clothing and basketry from around the world.

The museum narrowly escaped the ravages of the Clayton fire, which burned up to the edges of the building last month.

O'Hara said large air filters were run in the building following the fire, with a crew with vacuum backpacks also cleaning the building to make sure any smoke and soot from the fire was removed from the facility.

As a result, the museum, originally built in 1877 as the community's schoolhouse, was ready to once again host the quilt show.

In January, O'Hara joined the staff of the museum.

Her efforts on this year's show have gotten the stamp of approval from Lake County Museum Curator Tony Pierucci.

“I think it's the best we've ever had,” Pierucci said Friday of the show.

He added, “I just give her free rein.”

O'Hara has used that license to assemble an exhibit that moves from more traditional textile forms such as quilts to painted fabrics.

She previously led a guild in the Bay Area, where she learned techniques for setting up an exhibit from the Oakland Museum exhibit designer.

“We've kind of mixed it up a little bit more rather than just keeping the weaving all in one spot,” O'Hara said.

There are vignettes that feature the textile artwork with items from the museum collection, such as a quilt paired with a mannequin wearing a vintage blue silk ball gown from 1880; a mix of artwork and functional items, from tablecloths to sewn bags plus hats by Kelseyville hatmaker Tess McGuire; and items grouped in color that leads one around the room.

Some of the featured quilters include Laura Lee Fritz, Jane Alameda, JoAnn Andresen and Marj Sweeney.

The show also features clothing, such as Janis Eckert's woven shawl which won best of show for amateur weaving at this year's Lake County Fair, and the “Pagan Santa” vest, with deer and other motifs sewn on red velvet, by Christalene Loren.

On the auditorium's stage is a collection of basketry by local artist Sherry Harris and her students, including Stephanie Rodriguez.

On a wall near the stage are several framed pieces of needlepoint by Mara Bosnar.

Among the weaving displays is O'Hara's own work and that of her students.

One particularly eye-catching piece is the woven wall hanging titled “Egyptian Magic,” inspired by a trip O'Hara took to Egypt 10 years ago as part of a weaving-related job.

The show runs through Oct. 15.

The Lower Lake Historic Schoolhouse Museum is located at 16435 Main St.

Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday.

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.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Mercury is an odd element: it is liquid under normal conditions, it forms amalgams with many other metals such as gold and silver, and it is over 13 times denser than water.

In natural waters, mercury is a concern because of the potential toxic effects of one form, methylmercury, to humans and wildlife.

Methylmercury forms as a byproduct of certain bacteria metabolizing mercury under conditions such as those found in wetlands.

Its toxicity is difficult to comprehend – one standard thermometer’s volume worth of methylmercury is enough to pollute over 3,000 Olympic-size swimming pools worth of water.

Exposure to methylmercury comes largely from eating fish that have accumulated it through their diet. Methylmercury is linked to developmental problems in fetuses and children, and effects the nervous system in adults. Similar affects are observed in wildlife.
 
Today, mercury is the most common cause of contaminated water bodies in the Cache Creek and Putah Creek watersheds, which drain from the Inner Coast Range eastward from Colusa, Lake and Napa counties into Yolo and Solano counties.

The state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has issued several fish consumption warnings ( www.oehha.ca.gov/node/412 ). A recent US Geological Survey study of mercury concentrations in grebes (a common fish-eating bird) at 25 lakes statewide found the highest levels at Lake Berryessa.
 
The Inner Coast Range is a complex mixture of rock types: sedimentary, volcanic and the delicate green- and black-flecked serpentine, the California state rock.

Areas rich in serpentine tend to contain relatively high concentrations of mercury. These bare surface soils naturally erode into local creeks, and mineral springs discharge waters rich in mercury.

Even more broadly, reactive mercury in global emissions of oil and coal contaminate even pristine watersheds worldwide.
 
There have been three eras of mercury mining in these watersheds: the Gold Rush (second half of the 19th century), two world wars (first half of the 20th century), and the Industrial Revolution (1950s to early 1970s).

Mercury mining activity fluctuated with economic demand due to developments in gold mining in the Sierra Nevada and Nevada Comstock Lode, medicine, explosives, gasoline additives and atomic energy research.

We are now left with the legacy of about 80 abandoned mercury mines in the upper Cache Creek and Putah Creek watersheds, and many thousands of other abandoned mines statewide.

 
The vast majority of this mining predated two important developments: major water projects damming and diverting large proportions of the runoff from the two watersheds, and modern environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act.

Consequently, enterprising miners simply dumped their contaminated waste downhill to be swept away in the next storm, and that contaminated material still blankets floodplains and the San Francisco Bay-Delta.
 
A key challenge to cleaning up mine sites is often, ironically, environmental laws.

Common concerns for any organization interested in improving a site include: (1) “Touch it and you own it” meaning you are liable for ongoing contamination from a site even if all you did there was try to fix the problem; and (2) “Perfect is the enemy of good” meaning the law doesn’t easily allow only inexpensive improvements if standards are still being exceeded.

It can take years (and too much budget) to complete an adequate environmental assessment and obtain the necessary federal, state, and local permits for cleaning up a mine site. Nonetheless, several organizations are taking on the challenge.
 
The Delta Tributaries Mercury Council ( www.sacriver.org/aboutwatershed/mercury/dtmc ), which morphed from a Cache Creek stakeholders group in 1995, is guided by its 2002 Strategic Plan to reduce the risk of mercury within the larger Sacramento River watershed. The council hosts quarterly meetings which are announced to its nearly 500 members.
 
The federal Brownfields program provides liability protection, funds, and technical assistance (not enforcement) to assess and clean up contaminated sites (including “mine-scarred” lands).

Water managers representing four of the counties encompassing the Cache and Putah creeks watersheds recently formed a coalition to assess the mercury mines in the region as brownfields in order to improve them ( www.westsideirwmbrownfields.org ).
 
Stephen McCord is president of McCord Environmental, based in Davis, Calif. As a registered professional engineer, he has more than 25 years of consulting, research and teaching experience in the environmental engineering field throughout the US and internationally. The local nonprofit Tuleyome is a regional leader in cleaning up abandoned mercury mine sites ( www.tuleyome.org/projects/mercury-mine-remediation-program ). Tuleyome is currently implementing a three-year, $2.4 million grant from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Ecosystem Restoration Program to clean up the Corona and Twin Peaks mercury mines in northwest Napa County, which drain into Lake Berryessa.

Caltrans and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) remind motorists to remain alert for wildlife on roadways during Watch Out for Wildlife Week, which runs Sept. 18 to 24.

“We urge motorists to remain alert and be cautious when traveling through wildlife areas, so our roadways will remain as safe as possible,” said Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty. “Drivers can really make a difference in avoiding wildlife collisions, simply by being aware while driving and watching for wildlife crossing signs.”

According to Defenders of Wildlife, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting native species and their natural communities, there are 725,000 to 1.5 million wildlife-vehicle collisions in the U.S. every year, resulting in more than 200 human fatalities.

In California, between eight and 10 drivers and as many as 20,000 deer die in wildlife-vehicle collisions each year.

“Between now and December, deer and other wildlife are highly susceptible to vehicle collisions,” said Marc Kenyon, CDFW’s Human-Wildlife Conflict Program Manager. “Deer will soon start their annual migrations to winter range, bucks will be preoccupied competing for mates, and bears will be searching for food in preparation for hibernation. Such natural behaviors can lead these animals into the way of unsuspecting drivers. Drivers can prevent collisions with animals by being careful and paying attention.”

The Watch Out for Wildlife campaign is supported by Caltrans, CDFW, Defenders of Wildlife and the Road Ecology Center at the University of California, Davis.

Wildlife experts from these organizations offer the following tips for motorists:

• Be especially alert when driving in areas frequented by wildlife, and reduce your speed so you can react safely.
• Pay particular attention when driving during the morning and evening, as wildlife are most active during these times.
• If you see an animal cross the road, know that another may be following.
• Don’t litter. The odors may entice animals to venture near roadways.