COBB, Calif. – A Kelseyville man suffered major injuries as the result of a Tuesday afternoon solo-vehicle crash on Cobb Mountain.
Richard Mills, 40, was injured when his vehicle rolled over at around 3:30 p.m. on Highway 175 at the southern entrance to Wildcat Road, the California Highway Patrol reported.
A California Fish and Game warden was among the first to arrive at the scene, finding Mills conscious and alert but with multiple fractures, according to radio reports.
Kelseyville Fire and CHP also responded to the site, where both lanes of traffic were reportedly blocked by the crash.
Firefighters transported Mills to a landing zone at Kit’s Corner, the intersection of Highway 29 and Highway 281, where a REACH air ambulance met them.
REACH 6 lifted off with Mills en route to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital at about 4:20 p.m., according to radio reports.
Highway 175 at Wildcat Road was reopened at approximately 4:13 p.m., the CHP reported.
A semi truck overturned on Highway 20 in Lucerne, Calif., on Monday, January 2, 2012, spilling a load of corrugated metal that hit and broke a nearby power pole, leading to outages and many hour of repairs. Photo by John Jensen.
LUCERNE, Calif. – The cause of an early Monday afternoon semi crash on Highway 20 in Lucerne that led to traffic detours and power outages is still under investigation.
Driver William Soito III, 56, of Sacramento was traveling to Eureka, driving westbound in a 2002 Sterling semi pulling a trailerload of corrugated steel, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The CHP report from Officer Kevin Domby said Soito entered a lefthand curve near Sixth Avenue and the trailer overturned to the right, resulting in the load of steel hitting the power pole and street sign at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Highway 20.
The truck tractor and trailer both came to rest on their right sides, facing west, and partially blocking Highway 20’s westbound lane, Domby said.
Domby said the crash’s cause remains under investigation.
The crash resulted in major damage to the power pole, which Domby said led to an extended power outage in the immediate area.
Northshore Fire treated Soito at the scene for a minor cut to the top of his head, Domby reported.
Domby said Northshore Fire Protection District responded to the scene and set up a traffic detour with the assistance of a passing California Fish and Game warden.
Power in some areas was restored following the initial outage, although at about 1:15 p.m. Pacific Gas & Electric took the power offline from Seventh Avenue east to Bell Ray Avenue for several hours while the damaged pole was replaced by a PG&E crew from Ukiah. An AT&T crew also was on scene.
Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol were on scene throughout the day to assist with traffic control, due to a long-term closure of Highway 20. They kept traffic moving by routing vehicles around the crash site, moving them down Country Club Drive and back to the highway.
Northshore Fire Protection District personnel also were present throughout the day to help with managing the incident.
Deputy Chief Pat Brown was planning for potential issues due to the power outage, including arranging for enough backup oxygen for local residents.
When power outages occur, people who need to use oxygen tanks must rely on the fire department for assistance in getting replacement bottles, he said.
There were two people who needed backup oxygen, and Brown had arranged with Sutter Lakeside Hospital to bring in an additional supply if needed.
“We’ve got all of our backup supply out,” he said later in the evening, adding that Lakeport Fire also had given Northshore Fire some oxygen to keep them stocked up.
Following the crash, Soito’s little dog Eddie – a Chihuahua/Shih Tzu mix – had escaped from the truck and disappeared for several hours.
Northshore Fire Chief Jay Beristianos said fire staff spent about an hour looking for the little dog and notifying residents in the area that he was missing.
Later in the day, a woman who lives on Sixth Avenue came home and found the little dog outside of her house. She brought him down to the crash scene and dropped him off, receiving an ovation from the crowd who was gathered there.
The semi had to be moved in order for PG&E to replace the pole. Willits Towing responded with a large semi tow truck which it used to upright Soito’s truck shortly before 8 p.m.
Brown said forklifts and a flatbed truck were brought in to remove the metal construction materials.
Late Monday officials at the scene reported that the highway would remain closed through most of the night. PG&E was to bring in their own staff to conduct traffic control as work continued to repair and replace equipment.
There were reports from some community members of the power coming back on just after 9 p.m. PG&E said that all customers were expected to have their power restored by 2 a.m.
An overturned semi is resulting in a lengthy closure on Highway 20 in Lucerne, Calif., on Monday, January 2, 2012. Photo by Laurie Ann Jarrett.
THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH INFORMATION ABOUT A POWER OUTAGE.
LUCERNE, Calif. – A semi passing through the Northshore town of Lucerne early Monday afternoon overturned and hit a power pole, an incident that is resulting in an hours-long closure of the highway and a temporary power shutdown.
The California Highway Patrol reported that the single-vehicle crash occurred just after 12 p.m. on Highway 20 at Sixth Avenue near the Lake County Sheriff’s substation.
According to initial reports the semi’s driver was not speeding, but as he drove through a slight curve in the road his heavy load of metal materials shifted, leading to the truck overturning.
A Lake County News reporter at the scene said the truck rolled into a power pole, snapping the pole and causing the power lines to fall into nearby trees.
Northshore Fire Deputy Chief Pat Brown said the driver suffered minor injuries – a cut on his head and scrapes – and refused medical transport at the scene.
Along with Northshore Fire, CHP, Caltrans, AT&T and PG&E responded to the crash site on Monday afternoon.
Pacific Gas & Electric was to bring in their own traffic control later in the afternoon and will begin repairing the pole, officials reported.
Brown said they are bringing in a loader to move the truck’s load in order to let PG&E access the damaged pole.
Shortly before 2 p.m., Brown estimated that Highway 20 would be closed for up to five hours as repairs are made. Traffic will be routed around the crash site and onto Country Club Drive.
Power in a portion of Lucerne also is off to allow PG&E to conduct repairs.
Kyle Woodard, a lineman for PG&E, said they were able to isolate the outage area.
While originally it had been estimated that an outage would extend from Ceago to Glenhaven, Woodard said the power was taken offline from Seventh Avenue east along Highway 20 to Bell Ray Avenue.
Lucerne residents in that area should be prepared for a long outage; Woodward said power is expected to be restored on Tuesday.
Willits Towing arrived with two tow trucks, including a heavy duty semi tow truck that is the biggest truck of its kind north of Santa Rosa, according to company owner Mason Cook.
“We’re ready to pull it over just as soon as they give us the word,” he said of the overturned truck.
Lake County News will continue to update the story and post Facebook and Twitter updates as information becomes available.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The city of Lakeport is continuing to be hit by numerous graffiti incidents, with police investigating several more cases this week.
Beginning in late November, businesses, Library Park and even schools have been damaged by graffiti or other vandalism, as Lake County News has reported.
In one case late last month, police reported that several windows at Terrace Middle School were shot out by a BB or pellet gun.
With the arrival of the new year, the focus appears to be switching from buildings to vehicles.
From Sunday through Tuesday the Lakeport Police Department took five reports involving vehicles that had been vandalized during nighttime hours, according to Sgt. Kevin Odom.
At this point the new cases do not appear to be related to previous instances of graffiti, “But we’re still investigating,” Odom said.
In the recent cases, Odom said the vandals primarily are using a large ink pen to write on cars in different locations around the city.
All of the earlier cases remain under investigation, Odom said.
NICE, Calif. – A man was lifeflighted to an out-of-county trauma center Monday night after he was reportedly assaulted with a baseball bat.
The incident was reported shortly before 6 p.m. at 3825 Manzanita Ave. in Nice.
The victim and his girlfriend were driving through the area when four subjects – a male and three females – allegedly yelled at them to leave because it was their “territory,” according to reports from the scene.
The man pulled over and confronted them, and was allegedly hit several times in the head with a metal baseball bat by the male in the group, the reports indicated.
The woman in the vehicle honked the horn and yelled at the suspects that she was calling police, and the group ran off, according to the radio reports.
Northshore Fire Deputy Chief Pat Brown said the man sustained serious head injuries.
Brown said Northshore Fire Protection District paramedics transported the man via ground ambulance to a landing zone at Sentry Market, where a REACH air ambulance picked him up.
The helicopter lifted off for Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital shortly before 6:30 p.m., radio reports stated.
Further information about the male victim was not available Monday night.
A man matching the physical description of the male suspect implicated in the beating was arrested in Nice for assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm shortly after 8 p.m. Monday, but jail officials would not confirm whether that arrest was for the assault involving the baseball bat.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The California Public Utilities Commission has fined one of the water companies serving Clearlake, ordering it to repay millions of dollars to customers around the state because of management oversight deficiencies which led to customers overpaying.
In a decision announced Dec. 15, the CPUC levied a $1 million fine on San Dimas-based Golden State Water Co. for not informing the commission of the company’s internal control failures and the impact of those failures on its rates.
The fine is to be paid by Golden State Water shareholders to the state’s general fund, the CPUC reported.
The CPUC also ordered Golden State Water to refund $9.5 million in refunds to customers in its Clear Lake service area along with customers in Arden Cordova, Bay Point, Los Osos, Ojai, Santa Maria and Simi Valley over the next three years.
According to the 16-page agreement, Golden State Water’s 2,200 Clearlake customers are to see refunds totaling $1,437,211 over the next one to three years.
In addition, the commission is requiring Golden State Water to reduce its plant costs by $2.5 million, which it said will result in lower future rates and reduce other amounts owed by certain customers by $500,000.
CPUC President Michael R. Peevey said the settlement followed “a robust investigation into allegations that Golden State Water did not exercise reasonable management oversight and failed to apply adequate internal controls over its procurement for plant improvements."
Golden State Water released a statement in which it said the agreement it reached with the CPUC settled an eight-year-old contracting matter which began after two Northern California-based Golden State Water executives violated internal bidding procedures for work – much of it dating back to the 1990s – involving one contractor.
The company said in its statement that it disputed many of the conclusions reached by commission staff but that it agreed to settle the case “to avoid the uncertainty of a costly legal battle.”
Golden State Water “had long ago put in place safeguards to ensure that such a problem would not happen again,” said Robert Sprowls, chief executive officer and president of American States Water Co. and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Golden State Water Co.
“I am pleased that we were able to reach an agreement that is good for all parties,” Sprowls said. “The settlement reflects our commitment to our customers, who will be the greatest beneficiaries of this agreement, and our recognition of the importance of maintaining positive relations with the CPUC.”
Golden State Water said that when the contracting problem surfaced in 2003, it launched a thorough investigation which led to the firing of the two executives alleged to be responsible for the violations.
The company also said it severed all ties with the contractor that it found to be at fault, and hired independent experts to evaluate both the financial issues and the quality of the work.
Golden State Water said it conducted a top to bottom review of its policies and procedures, putting in place additional safeguards – among them, a more rigorous employee code of conduct, ethics training, a confidential employee hotline and an anti-fraud committee reporting directly to the board of directors – in order to prevent similar problems from happening again.
The CPUC said it will conduct three additional independent audits and require Golden State Water's management to report on internal controls related to the company's procurement practices over the next 10 years.
Those audits will coincide with Golden State Water’s next two general rate cases, the first of which is anticipated to be filed for 2016, to seek rate increases, according to the agreement.
Golden State Water reported that it has agreed to participate in the audits.
“The commission directed Golden State to view the settlement as a fresh start to vigorously enforce strong and effective internal controls; we understand this direction and will comply,” said Sprowls.
MENDOCINO COUNTY, Calif. – A Sea Ranch man has been identified as the victim in a fight that turned fatal on New Year’s Eve in Fort Bragg.
Jose G. Madrid, 45, was the man found unresponsive just after 1 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 31, by Mendocino County Sheriff’s deputies dispatched to the scene of a physical fight, according to Capt. Kurt Smallcomb of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.
Glenn Hughes, 52, of Fort Bragg, allegedly was found standing over Hughes’ body. Eyewitnesses told deputies that they saw Hughes beating Madrid.
Hughes was arrested and booked into the Mendocino County Jail for murder, the sheriff’s office reported.
An autopsy on Madrid was scheduled for Monday, Smallcomb said. No results were announced.
Anyone who may have information in regards to this incident is urged to call Det. Dustin Lorenzo at 707-961-2692.
LUCERNE, Calif. – A water heater was ruled the cause of a fire that destroyed a mobile home late last week.
The fire was first reported just after 10 p.m. Friday, Dec. 30, at the Country Club Mobile Home Park, located at 3630 Country Club Drive in Lucerne, according to Northshore Fire Protection District.
Northshore Fire Chief Jay Beristianos said the fire was traced to the trailer's water heater closet.
He said half of the singlewide mobile home was destroyed by fire, while the other half was severely damaged by smoke.
The woman who owns the trailer will be able to salvage some of her personal possessions from it, Beristianos said.
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – A cleanup effort targeting abandoned illegal marijuana grow sites in the Mendocino National Forest’s Upper Lake Ranger District will take place from Thursday, Jan. 5, through Monday, Jan. 9.
The effort is part of the Mendocino National Forest Grow-site Reclamation Project, which is supported, in part, by county funding granted at the recommendation of the Lake County Fish and Wildlife Advisory Committee and in cooperation with the High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew.
Abandoned illegal marijuana grow sites on public lands have caused major devastation to the environment. When a grow site is discovered by law enforcement, they remove the marijuana and any weapons, but the sites are left primarily intact because of a lack of manpower to do a full cleanup.
These sites often include miles of irrigation tubing, pesticides, piles of trash, water diversions, temporary living quarters and erosion.
The sites also can be a major impediment in developing safe trails and the public's unrestricted use of natural resources and public lands, according to the Konocti Regional Trail Team.
In order to fill this void and help restore public lands back to their natural state, the Mendocino National Forest Grow-site Reclamation Project, coordinated by Bruce Hilbach, has been organizing cleanups in Mendocino County.
The group recently announced planned operation dates for cleaning up marijuana grow sites in the Upper Lake District of the Mendocino National Forest.
All volunteer groups are escorted and assisted by at least one law enforcement official at all times. Volunteer safety is of the highest priority.
Volunteers will cleanup and bag trash and debris from the grow sites and leave it onsite. The Mendocino National Forest Rangers will coordinate pickup of the bags at a later time, often by helicopter.
Weather permitting, work will begin on Thursday, Jan. 5, with most of the action taking place from Friday, Jan. 6, through Sunday, Jan. 8. If necessary, mopup will take place on Monday, Jan. 9, Konocti Regional Trails reported.
Interested volunteers should know that some hiking off of main roads may be required, but volunteers of varied physical strength and ability are encouraged.
If you can spend some time, please contact coordinator Bruce Hilbach as soon as possible to indicate availability for any or all of those dates.
Hilbach can be reached at 707-983-6169 or send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., including your phone number so he can contact you with further details.
Snow surveyors on Tuesday reported that California’s mountain snowpack is among the driest for the date on record.
Manual and electronic readings on Tuesday record the snowpack’s statewide water content at 19 percent of the Jan. 3 average. That is only 7 percent of the average April 1 measurement, when the snowpack is normally at its peak before the spring melt, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
Despite the dry conditions, water managers remain cautiously optimistic about this year’s water supply.
“Fortunately, we have most of winter ahead of us, and our reservoir storage is good,” said Department of Water Resources Director Mark Cowin.
Electronic readings indicate that water content in the northern mountains is 21 percent of normal for the date and 8 percent of the April 1 seasonal average; 13 percent of normal for the date and 5 percent of the April 1 average for the central Sierra; and the southern Sierra’s results are 26 percent of average for the date and 9 percent of the April 1 average.
Statewide, the snowpack water content is 19 percent of normal for today’s date and 7 percent of April 1, the agency reported.
The Department of Water Resources cooperating agencies conduct manual snow surveys around the first of the month from January to May. The manual surveys supplement and check the accuracy of real-time electronic readings from sensors up and down the state.
The agency’s initial estimate is that the State Water Project (SWP) will be able to deliver 60 percent of the slightly more than 4 million acre-feet of water requested by the 29 public agencies that supply more than 25 million Californians and nearly a million acres of irrigated farmland.
The 60 percent delivery estimate is largely based on the known quantify of carryover reservoir storage. Unknown is how much snow and rain the state will get the rest of this winter, the state said.
Calendar year 2011 illustrates how weather-driven water supply conditions can dramatically change. The initial 2011 estimate was that the SWP would be able to deliver 25 percent of the slightly more than 4 million acre-feet requested. As winter took hold and storms swept the state, a near-record snowpack and heavy rains resulted in deliveries of 80 percent of requests in 2011. The final allocation was 50 percent in 2010, 40 percent in 2009, 35 percent in 2008, and 60 percent in 2007.
The last 100 percent allocation – difficult to achieve even in wet years because of Delta pumping restrictions to protect threatened and endangered fish – was in 2006, officials reported.
Lake Oroville in Butte County, the SWP’s principal storage reservoir with a capacity of 3.5 million acre-feet, is still 72 percent full thanks to last winter’s heavy storms. That is 114 percent of average for the date.
Lake Shasta north of Redding, the federal Central Valley Project’s (CVP) largest reservoir with a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet, is 68 percent full (106 percent of average).
San Luis Reservoir in Merced County, an important reservoir south of the Delta, is 95 percent full (137 percent of average for the date). San Luis, with a capacity of 2, 027,840 acre-feet, is an important source of water for both the SWP and the CVP when pumping from the Delta is restricted or interrupted.
An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, enough to cover one acre to a depth of one foot.
Mountain snow that melts into reservoirs, streams and aquifers in the spring and summer provides approximately one-third of the water for California’s households, farms and industries.
THIS QUAKE'S MAGNITUDE HAS BEEN ADJUSTED FROM 3.0 DOWN TO 2.9 BY THE US GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.
COBB, Calif. – The US Geological Survey reported that a 2.9-magnitude earthquake took place near The Geysers geothermal steamfield Monday morning.
The initial report on the quake, which could later be adjusted for magnitude, indicated that it occurred at 7:54 a.m. two miles north of The Geysers, four miles west of Cobb and seven miles northwest of Anderson Springs.
Its depth was recorded at 1.5 miles, the survey reported.
Seven shake reports were submitted from the same number of zip codes – Middletown, Kelseyville, Calistoga, San Ramon, Berkeley, Sausalito and San Jose.
Artist concept of GRAIL-B performing its lunar orbit insertion burn. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
The second of NASA's two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft has successfully completed its planned main engine burn and is now in lunar orbit.
Working together, GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B will study the moon as never before.
"NASA greets the new year with a new mission of exploration," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The twin GRAIL spacecraft will vastly expand our knowledge of our moon and the evolution of our own planet. We begin this year reminding people around the world that NASA does big, bold things in order to reach for new heights and reveal the unknown."
GRAIL-B achieved lunar orbit at 2:43 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday. GRAIL-A successfully completed its burn yesterday at 2 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, NASA reported.
The insertion maneuvers placed the spacecraft into a near-polar, elliptical orbit with an orbital period of approximately 11.5 hours.
Over the coming weeks, the GRAIL team will execute a series of burns with each spacecraft to reduce their orbital period to just under two hours.
At the start of the science phase in March, the two GRAILs will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 34 miles.
During GRAIL's science mission, the two spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them.
As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity caused by visible features such as mountains and craters, and masses hidden beneath the lunar surface, the distance between the two spacecraft will change slightly.
Scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the moon's gravitational field. The data will allow scientists to understand what goes on below the lunar surface.
This information will increase knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds we see today.
Each spacecraft carries a small camera called GRAIL MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) with the sole purpose of education and public outreach.
The MoonKAM program is led by Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, and her team at Sally Ride Science in collaboration with undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego.
GRAIL MoonKAM will engage middle schools across the country in the GRAIL mission and lunar exploration.
Thousands of fifth- to eighth-grade students will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego. Photos of the target areas will be sent back by the GRAIL satellites for students to study.
A student contest that began in October 2011 also will choose new names for the spacecraft. The new names are scheduled to be announced this month.
Ride and Maria Zuber, the mission's principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, chaired the final round of judging.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.
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