LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport City Council is set to hold a special meeting to make appointments to a city commission and two committees.
The council will meet at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 7, and will continue the meeting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 8, if more time for the interviews and discussion is needed.
The meeting will be by teleconference only. The city council chambers will not be open to the public.
To speak on an agenda item, access the meeting remotely here or join by phone by calling toll-free 669-900-9128 or 346-248-7799. The webinar ID is 944 7457 5790, access code is 235323; the audio pin will be shown after joining the webinar. Those phoning in without using the web link will be in “listen mode” only and will not be able to participate or comment.
Comments can be submitted by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. To give the City Clerk adequate time to print out comments for consideration at the meeting, please submit written comments prior to 3 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 7.
Indicate in the email subject line "for public comment" and list the item number of the agenda item that is the topic of the comment. Comments that read to the council will be subject to the three minute time limitation (approximately 350 words). Written comments that are only to be provided to the council and not read at the meeting will be distributed to the council prior to the meeting.
On Monday night, the council will conduct interviews and consider three appointments to the Lakeport Planning Commission, four for the Lakeport Economic Development Advisory Committee and three for the Measure Z Advisory Committee.
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.
NORTH COAST, Calif. – A 4.4-magnitude earthquake just inside the Mendocino County border on Sunday morning shook the North Coast, with residents in Lake County – particularly Lakeport – reporting feeling the temblor.
The US Geological Survey said the quake occurred at 7:03 a.m. Sunday.
It was centered five miles north northeast of Hopland and 11 miles southeast of Ukiah at a depth of 4.9 miles, the US Geological Survey said.
So far, US Geological Survey records show that the quake hasn’t been followed by any aftershocks.
It was, however, felt by a large number of residents across the state.
By Sunday afternoon, approximately 1,073 people had reported they’d felt the quake, 247 of them in Ukiah, while 107 in Lakeport filed shake reports.
The quake also was felt in other parts of Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma counties and the greater Bay Area, with reports also coming in from Humboldt County, Modesto, San Jose and Stockton, parts of the Sacramento Valley. It also was felt as far away as Nevada and Oregon.
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.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has more new dogs this week that it’s offering for adoption.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Australian Cattle Dog, border Chihuahua, collie, husky, Labrador Retriever, pit bull, German Shepherd and heeler.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm for information on visiting or adopting.
Female Chihuahua
This female Chihuahua has a short black coat.
She is in kennel No. 11, ID No. 14199.
Male pit bull mix
This male pit bull mix has a short gray and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 15, ID No. 14196.
Pit bull-Australian Cattle Dog
This male pit bull-Australian Cattle Dog mix has a short tricolor coat.
He is in kennel No. 16, ID No. 14197.
Male pit bull mix
This male pit bull terrier mix has a short gray and brindle coat.
He is in kennel No. 18, ID No. 14138.
Male husky
This male husky has a medium-length black and white coat and blue eyes.
He’s in kennel No. 22, ID No. 14194.
‘Mable’
“Mable” is a young female Labrador Retriever-border collie mix with a short black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 26, ID No. 14206.
Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short tan and white coat.
He has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 27, ID No. 14216.
Male heeler-Labrador Retriever
This male heeler-Labrador Retriever mix has a short black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 29, ID No. 14178.
Female German Shepherd
This female German Shepherd has a long black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 31, ID No. 14210.
Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short brindle and brown coat.
He is in kennel No. 33, ID No. 14218.
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.
Many farmworkers who plant and harvest our food are forced to live and work under conditions that are ripe for transmission of COVID-19.
During the summer harvest season, coronavirus outbreaks popped up across the nation among farmworkers in agricultural communities, including many in California.
In a white paper published Dec. 2, public health researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, detail preliminary findings from the first long-term study on the prevalence of, and the risk factors for, COVID-19 infection among California’s agricultural laborers.
The paper reports that between mid-July and November 2020, 13 percent of the 1091 Salinas Valley farmworkers enrolled in the study tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
In California as a whole, only 5 percent of the population has tested positive between the beginning of the pandemic and late November.
By the end of October, roughly 20 percent of farmworkers recruited for the study tested positive for antibodies to COVID-19, indicating prior infection. These figures are far higher than estimates of approximately 1 percent in the San Francisco Bay Area population at large from studies led by the Centers for Disease Control and by other UC Berkeley researchers during the spring and summer.
“These findings validate concerns from researchers, public health professionals and community advocates that farmworkers would suffer from the COVID-19 pandemic in California,” said Joseph Lewnard, assistant professor of epidemiology at UC Berkeley and a member of the study team. “We have failed to protect this population, while they have continued to engage in essential work through the pandemic.”
To conduct the study, UC Berkeley researchers partnered with the Clinica de Salud del Valle De Salinas, or CSVS, to recruit and test study participants. The CSVS is the main clinic network serving farmworkers and their families in Monterey County and has conducted testing throughout the pandemic, both at its clinics and through community outreach.
“Our study is an attempt to find answers about incidence and prevalence of this viral infection in the Hispanic farmworker community,” said Dr. Maximiliano Cuevas, CSVS chief executive officer. “Understanding the level of disease present in our community, and understanding how it spreads among these ‘essential workers,’ will provide guidance for developing policies that can be used to quickly reduce and reverse the spread of disease and ultimately protect our vital food supply for our nation.”
The research was a new collaboration within the UC Berkeley School of Public Health: Brenda Eskenazi, Professor of the Graduate School, and Ana Maria Mora, a researcher in the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health, have led longstanding studies of farmworkers in Salinas Valley and elsewhere in the world.
Lewnard has focused on respiratory and vaccine-preventable infections, and Eva Harris, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, leads serological studies of viruses, such as dengue and Zika.
COVID-19 in ‘America’s Salad Bowl’
California’s Salinas Valley, known as “America’s Salad Bowl,” is home to more than 50,000 farmworkers, many of whom are Mexican immigrants and undocumented.
Low wages and food insecurity make many fearful of missing work when they are sick, and fear of deportation may also deter them from seeking health care.
The community also faces higher rates of medical conditions like obesity, hypertension and diabetes that can make COVID-19 infections worse.
In early April, Eskenazi rapidly helped to organize a coalition of growers, county officials, farmworker advocates, doctors and scientists to protect farmworker health.
The coalition, the Monterey County Coalition of Agriculture, quickly helped to set COVID-19 safety guidelines for growers, distributed hundreds of thousands of face masks to workers and secured emergency housing for farmworkers needing to quarantine.
But, as epidemiologists, the study team members also wanted hard data to help guide the coalition’s efforts.
“We need numbers,” Eskenazi said. “And we don’t just need the positivity rate. We also need to know things like: What proportion of the community is living in crowded conditions? And is that related to having COVID-19? Or, what personal protective equipment is being provided to the farmworkers? And should they be provided more?”
Study participants include farmworkers who came to the CSVS clinic for testing, as well as those recruited through community outreach. A total of 140, or 13 percent, tested positive for COVID-19 using polymerase chain reaction testing. The positivity rate was 28 percent for symptomatic individuals and 8 percent for asymptomatic individuals.
Alarmingly, more than half or 58 percent, of individuals who were both symptomatic and infected said that they continued to go to work while sick.
“A big problem is that farmworkers were going to work symptomatic because they thought they'd lose their jobs, and they felt they needed to feed their families,” Eskenazi said. “A large portion of the farmworkers are food insecure, meaning they are going hungry during this pandemic, and these are the people that put food on our table.”
Most farmworkers who become sick with COVID-19 are entitled to replacement income and emergency housing, where they can safely quarantine.
However, some farmworkers also reported not receiving information about these resources from employers. And while a Monterey County Agricultural Advisory encourages growers to screen employees for symptoms, many study participants indicated that their employers did not have any such screening in place.
“It seems that employers are providing a lot of information about COVID-19 and are providing face coverings to farmworkers who don't have them,” Mora said. “But while the guidelines recommend that they perform temperature checks and ask for symptoms when people arrive to work, most employers are not doing that.”
Language barriers may also have prevented many farmworkers from taking advantage of these resources. Those who tested positive are more likely to speak Indigenous languages, rather than Spanish or English.
“I think we need a very strong media messaging campaign in multiple languages that reaches different groups within the farmworker community,” Mora said. “This campaign would have to include not only the resources available if you are infected, but also who can help you access those resources. For instance, it seems that the paperwork required to get replacement income is a headache. So, who can help you deal with that if you have a low level of education, or you don't have time?”
While the work of the growers and public health officials has gone a long way toward helping farmworkers weather the COVID-19 crisis, Eskenazi stresses the need for continued social and epidemiological interventions in these communities.
“We need rapid testing that gives immediate results, plus rapid contact tracing by people who are connected to and trusted by the farmworkers,” Eskenazi said. “We also need to provide immediate wraparound care, to let people know their benefits and to make sure that we help them get replacement income right away, because many are living paycheck to paycheck. As vaccination becomes available, it is imperative that we prioritize these farmworkers to safeguard their health and to secure our food supply."
The research team finished enrolling participants in the Salinas Valley at the end of November and hopes to expand the study to other agricultural regions of California.
The study was funded by the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley and Clinica de Salud del Valle de Salinas.
Kara Manke writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County’s excellent walnuts were celebrated on Saturday at the Lake County Farmers’ Finest market.
Walnuts grown in Lake County are particularly prized because of their color, which is lighter due to high elevations that engender cooler summer temperatures here than in the Central Valley. A premium is paid by commercial buyers for the higher quality of our local walnuts.
As with the county’s pear crop, much of walnut cultivation is giving way to wine grapes; however, large amounts of walnuts are still grown and harvested here, accounting for a significant portion of the county’s agricultural bounty.
This year the Lake County Farmers’ Finest market became a year-round affair, allowing the celebration of the walnut crop. In prior years, the market would’ve been closed for the season before walnuts were harvested.
The market, now held Saturdays from 10 till 1 at the fairgrounds in Lakeport, had on hand locally harvested walnuts sold by a variety of vendors.
Walnut purveyors included Loasa Farms, Ponce Farms, The Bearded Nut of Valley Long Farm (he also creates deliciously scented walnut oil-based beard oils and hair serums), and David Furger.
In addition to the walnuts (which included some free samples), special displays with walnut-related implements and agricultural information provided interesting food for thought.
One item featured was a hand-cranked, high-volume nutcracker, invented in Lake County in 1978 by a local entrepreneur. The inventor is now 90 and, along with his daughter, still produces these nutcrackers locally and markets them internationally.
The “#43 Nutcracker,” as it’s called, is available for sale at the Davebilt Co., as is another invention, the “Lil’ Davey Nut Picker,” a long-handled implement for harvesting nuts from the ground.
I love all manner of nuts and if I had to choose, walnuts would likely be listed as my favorite. They go with almost everything and their health benefits are legendary.
As in Lake County, almost all walnuts cultivated in the U.S. are one variety or another of English walnuts, which in Britain are called Persian walnuts or common walnuts. These are native to an area from the Balkans eastward to the Himalayas and southwest China. The ancient realm of Persia is included in this swath of land, hence the name Persian walnut.
It is said that walnuts are the oldest tree food known to man, dating back to 7,000 B.C.
Because English merchant marines transported walnuts for trade to world ports, these beloved nuts became known as English walnuts. Interestingly, walnuts were never grown commercially in England.
Another species of walnut, the black walnut, is native to North America, with varieties that grow in both the east and west. The Eastern black walnut grows wild throughout eastern North America, and the California black walnut, also known as the California walnut, is endemic to California, including in Lake County.
The shell is far more difficult to crack than the English walnut’s thinner one, and the extraction of the nut is also harder.
Black walnuts are not generally cultivated (they’re harvested in the wild for commercial use); however, English walnuts are often grafted onto black walnut rootstock to promote a hardier tree for commercial farming.
We have six or seven black walnut trees on our property, which produce copious crops of walnuts each fall, with mounds of green and black walnut-filled husks piled under the trees.
Even so, I’ve yet to seriously harvest them because they’re so notoriously hard to remove from the hull and shell. I have tasted them, though, and I found the taste is pleasant, earthier and more robust than an English walnut.
English walnuts flourish in California’s Mediterranean-like climate, something discovered by the Franciscan fathers who were the first to cultivate them here in the late 1700s.
Now the Golden State accounts for a full 99 percent of the nation’s walnut crop, with about 1 percent of that coming from Lake County.
Toasting walnuts intensifies their flavor and I often take the time to do this before adding them to dishes.
My preferred method is to toast them in a dry sauté pan on the stovetop, stirring or tossing them to ensure even toasting, though they may also be roasted in the oven in a shallow pan. This takes a bit longer than the direct heat of a stovetop burner.
In either case, be sure to watch them carefully, as there’s a fine line between perfectly toasted and burned nuts. Once you begin to smell them they’re close to being done, so keep a close eye on them.
If you’d like an interesting (and healthier, in my opinion) substitute for a traditional graham cracker crust, try one made with walnuts and a bit of brown sugar. I use about two tablespoons brown sugar to a few handfuls of walnuts for a subtly sweet crust. The sugar may be eliminated if the crust is for a savory dish, such as quiche or a mushroom pie.
Simply toss the walnuts (and the sugar if you’re using it) into a food processor and pulse until the walnuts have become the consistency of fine crumbs. Be careful not to overdo it, as you may end up with walnut butter instead.
The high oil content of the nuts will make it easy to press into a pie pan, rendering added butter unnecessary.
Walnuts should be stored properly, or their oils may become rancid. Shelled walnuts may be kept in an airtight container in the fridge or in a cool, dark place for up to six months. They may also be frozen for up to a year.
Walnut oil has a lovely taste and a light, delicate consistency. Its fresh flavor is short-lived, so is best when used quickly after opening. It makes a wonderful vinaigrette, especially when combined with Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar and parsley, but is not good for cooking because of its low smoke point.
The health benefits of walnuts are copious, and scientific research indicates they improve bone and heart health, benefit cognitive function, positively impact those with diabetes and protect against some forms of cancer.
Walnuts are one of the best plant sources of protein and are rich in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats that have been shown to lower LDL cholesterol.
Walnuts have significantly higher amounts of omega 3 fatty acids than other nuts; in fact, a handful of walnuts provides as much of it as a serving of salmon.
They’re also rich in fiber, B vitamins, magnesium, and antioxidants such as vitamin E.
Rosemary walnuts are one of my favorite savory snacks and are very easily made, simply a combination of walnuts, rosemary and some olive oil (local, if you’ve got it).
Since the holidays are close and earthy rosemary walnuts make a great gift, the recipe is below. They’re good with a hearty Cabernet, and believe me, they won’t last long. You might want to hide a batch just for you.
Rosemary Walnuts
This recipe is the result of an experimental marriage between a bag of Lake County walnuts and the abundance of rosemary growing in my backyard. It has since become one of my favorite quick snacks.
Ingredients:
A drizzle of local olive oil for the pan
A couple cups of local walnuts
A handful of fresh rosemary, roughly chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat the oil in the pan for a few seconds, and then add the walnuts, tossing them as they cook (for about 20 seconds, just to begin the process). Add the chopped rosemary and allow the walnuts to finish toasting. Watch the plan closely and continue to toss the walnuts as they cook. Once the walnuts are toasted to your liking, add salt and pepper to taste.
This entire process will take no more than a few minutes.
Esther Oertel is a writer and passionate home cook from a family of chefs. She grew up in a restaurant, where she began creating recipes from a young age. She’s taught culinary classes in a variety of venues in Lake County and previously wrote “The Veggie Girl” column for Lake County News. Most recently she’s taught culinary classes at Sur La Table in Santa Rosa. She lives in Middletown.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, space- and ground-based observations have shown that Earth’s atmosphere has seen significant reductions in some air pollutants.
However, scientists wanted to know how much of that decline can be attributed to changes in human activity during pandemic-related shutdowns, versus how much would have occurred in a pandemic-free 2020.
Using computer models to generate a COVID-free 2020 for comparison, NASA researchers found that since February, pandemic restrictions have reduced global nitrogen dioxide concentrations by nearly 20 percent. The results were presented at the 2020 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis.
Download this video in HD formats from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio Nitrogen dioxide is an air pollutant that is primarily produced by the combustion of fossil fuels used by industry and transportation – both of which were significantly reduced during the height of the pandemic to prevent the novel coronavirus from spreading.
“We all knew the lockdowns were going to have an impact on air quality,” said lead author Christoph Keller with Universities Space Research Association at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Keller works in Goddard’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, which uses high-tech computer models to help track the chemistry of the ocean and the atmosphere, and forecast future climate scenarios.
He says, “it was also soon clear that it was going to be difficult to quantify how much of that change is related to the lockdown measures, versus general seasonality or variability in pollution.”
No two years are exactly alike. Normal variations in weather and atmospheric circulation change the make-up and chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere. Comparing 2020 nitrogen dioxide concentrations with data from 2019 or 2018 alone would not account for year-to-year differences.
But, because the NASA model projections account for these natural variations, scientists can use them to parse how much of the 2020 atmospheric composition change was caused by the COVID-19 containment measures.
Even with models, there was no predicting the sudden, drastic shifts in human behavior as the novel coronavirus – and the regulations attempting to control it – spread rapidly. Instead of trying to re-program their model with this unexpected event, Keller and his colleagues accounted for COVID-19 by having the model ignore the pandemic altogether.
The model simulation and machine learning analysis took place at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation. Its “business as usual” scenario showed an alternate reality version of 2020 – one that did not experience any unexpected changes in human behavior brought on by the pandemic.
From there it is simple subtraction. The difference between the model simulated values and the measured ground observations represents the change in emissions due to the pandemic response.
The researchers received data from 46 countries – a total of 5,756 observation sites on the ground – relaying hourly atmospheric composition measurements in near-real time. On a city-level, 50 of the 61 analyzed cities show nitrogen dioxide reductions between 20-50%.
“In some ways I was surprised by how much it dropped,” said Keller. “Many countries have already done a very good job in lowering their nitrogen dioxide concentrations over the last decades due to clean air regulations, but what our results clearly show is that there is still a significant human behavior-driven contribution.”
Wuhan, China was the first municipality reporting an outbreak of COVID-19. It was also the first to show reduced nitrogen dioxide emissions – 60 percent lower than simulated values expected. A 60 percent decrease in Milan and a 45 percent decrease in New York followed shortly, as their local restrictions went into effect.
“You could, at times, even see the decrease in nitrogen dioxide before the official policies went into place,” said co-author Emma Knowland with USRA at Goddard’s GMAO. “People were probably reducing their transit because the talk of the COVID-19 threat was already happening before we were actually told to shut down.” Once restrictions were eased, the decreases in nitrogen dioxide lessened, but remained below expected “business as usual” values.
Keller compared his estimates of the nitrogen dioxide decreases to reported economic numbers, namely, the gross domestic products, of the nations included in the study. According to Keller, they lined up shockingly well. “We would expect them to be somewhat related because nitrogen dioxide is so closely linked to economic activities, like people who travel and factories running,” he said. “It looks like our data captures this very well.”
The research is ongoing, and the GEOS model data used in this study are publicly available.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has an adult cat and many kittens waiting for new homes.
The following cats at the shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm for information on visiting or adopting.
Male orange tabby kitten
This male orange tabby kitten has a short coat and gold eyes.
He is in cat room kennel No. 1b, ID No. 14159.
Male brown tabby kitten
This male brown tabby kitten has a short coat and gold eyes.
He is in cat room kennel No. 1c, ID No. 14160.
Female domestic short hair
This female domestic short hair kitten has a black coat and gold eyes.
She is in cat room kennel No. 1f, ID No. 14163.
Male brown tabby kitten
This male brown tabby kitten has a short coat and gold eyes.
He is in cat room kennel No. 36b, ID No. 14190.
Male domestic short hair kitten
This male domestic short hair kitten has a gray and white coat and green eyes.
He is in cat room kennel No. 108, ID No. 14169.
‘Loki’
“Loki” is a female domestic short hair with a seal point and gray coat and blue eyes.
She is in cat room kennel No. 132, ID No. 14207.
Female domestic short hair kitten
This female domestic short hair kitten has a black and gray tabby coat and gold eyes.
She is in cat room kennel No. 142, ID No. 14165.
Female domestic short hair kitten
This female domestic short hair kitten has a gray tabby coat and green eyes.
She is in cat room kennel No. 147, ID No. 14219.
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.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Pacific Gas and Electric is continuing to anticipate a public safety power shutoff early Monday, but on Saturday the company reduced the scope of the shutoff by about 40,000 customers across the region.
The company said the shutoff is forecasted to affect approximately 92,000 customers in targeted portions of 16 counties: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Fresno, Kern, Lake, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sonoma, Tulare, Tuolumne, and Yuba, as well as two tribal communities.
On Saturday PG&E reduced the number of Lake County customers in the shutoff area from 1,223 to 24. None of those customers are in the Medical Baseline program.
PG&E reported that those customers still expected to have their power turned off are near Cobb and west of Middletown. The impacted customers are expected to be out of power starting at between 4 and 6 a.m. Monday, with power to be back on by 10 p.m. Tuesday.
The decrease in customers expected to be impacted is due to changing weather conditions, PG&E said.
It also removed Monterey and Sierra counties but added less than 100 customers in Butte, Kern and Plumas counties.
PG&E said high fire-risk conditions are expected to arrive late Sunday evening with high winds forecast to continue early Monday morning, peaking in strength during the day Monday, and possibly lingering in some regions through early Tuesday.
Once the strong winds subside, PG&E said its crews will patrol the deenergized lines to ensure they were not damaged during the severe weather before restoring power. The company’s goal is to have the power back on within 12 daylight hours of the all-clear, pending weather conditions.
Customers can look up their address online to find out if their location is being monitored for the potential safety shutoff, and find the full list of affected counties, cities and communities, at www.pge.com/pspsupdates.
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.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – An early December wind event that’s forecast to begin over the weekend could result in a public safety power shutoff that would impact more than 130,000 power customers in 15 Northern California counties – including Lake – on Monday.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Friday began notifying customers in targeted portions of the North State that it may need to turn off power early Monday morning due to a combination of dry and high wind gusts that pose an increased risk for damage to the electric system, with the potential to ignite fires in areas with dry vegetation.
The company said the high fire risk conditions are expected to arrive late Sunday evening. High winds are forecast to continue until early Monday morning, peaking in strength during the day. Those conditions could linger in some regions through early Tuesday.
On Friday evening, PG&E said that while there is still uncertainty about the timing and strength of the wind event, the potential shutoff is forecasted to affect approximately 130,000 customers in targeted portions of Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Fresno, Lake, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Sierra, Sonoma, Tulare, Tuolumne and Yuba counties.
In Lake County, approximately 1,223 customers – 67 of them in the Medical Baseline program – are included in the shutoff area, PG&E said.
A PG&E map, published below, shows the impacted customers are in the south county, west of Middletown and throughout the Cobb area.
Power to those areas in Lake County is to be turned off between 4 and 6 a.m. Monday and restored by 10 p.m. Tuesday.
In the neighboring counties of Napa and Sonoma, PG&E said 6,780 and 1,797 customers, respectively, are expected to be impacted.
PG&E said that, once the strong winds subside, crews will inspect electrical equipment for damage. It said that, based on weather conditions, it will restore most impacted customers within 12 daylight hours.
During PSPS events, PG&E opens temporary community resource centers, or CRCs, to support customers, offering ADA-accessible restrooms and hand-washing stations; medical-equipment charging; Wi-Fi; bottled water; and nonperishable snacks.
Two CRCs are expected to be set up in Lake County: at the Little Red Schoolhouse, 15780 Bottlerock Road in Cobb, and Twin Pine Casino and Hotel, 22223 Highway 29, Middletown.
They will be open from 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily during the shutoff.
Lake County was last impacted by a public safety power shutoff in late October, when more than 21,000 residents were included in a shutoff, as Lake County News has reported.
For more information, visit the PG&E PSPS website.
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.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Clearlake Police Department is investigating a fatal crash that occurred Saturday afternoon on Highway 53.
Sgt. Ryan Peterson said that at 1:50 p.m. Saturday, officers from the Clearlake Police Department responded to a report of a single-vehicle traffic collision that had occurred on Highway 53 near Olympic Drive.
When the officers arrived, they found an early 2000s Chrysler PT Cruiser had crashed into a tree with major damage, Peterson said.
Peterson said the officers located a single person at the scene – believed to have been the driver – who had been ejected from the vehicle during the crash.
Medical staff from the Lake County Fire Protection District arrived on scene and evaluated the male, who is believed to be in his 60s. Peterson said the man had significant injuries which he succumbed to at the scene, and he was pronounced dead by medical staff.
The identity of the driver is being withheld pending notification of next of kin, Peterson said.
Peterson said the preliminary indications of the traffic collision are that the driver was traveling northbound on Highway 53 and drifted off the roadway. After drifting off the road, the vehicle hit the tree causing significant vehicle damage and injuries to the male.
Radio reports at the time of the incident also reported that a small fire was started by the crash.
This case is pending further investigation and review for final determination and cause, Peterson said.
Peterson offered an additional reminder to drivers and pedestrians to be vigilant while on the roadways.
With the days being shorter and the weather changes, drivers are encouraged to be extra careful of their safety and that of others, he said.
Anyone with information in this case is encouraged to contact Officer Mauricio Barreto at 707-994-8251, Extension 507.
In 1872 the U.S. economy was growing as the young nation industrialized and expanded westward. Then in the autumn, a sudden shock paralyzed social and economic life. It was an energy crisis of sorts, but not a shortage of fossil fuels. Rather, the cause was a virus that spread among horses and mules from Canada to Central America.
For centuries horses had provided essential energy to build and operate cities. Now the equine flu made clear just how important that partnership was. When infected horses stopped working, nothing worked without them. The pandemic triggered a social and economic paralysis comparable to what would happen today if gas pumps ran dry or the electric grid went down.
In an era when many looked forward to replacing the horse with the promising new technologies of steam and electricity, the horse flu reminded Americans of their debt to these animals. As I show in my new book, “A Traitor to His Species: Henry Bergh and the Birth of the Animal Rights Movement,” this reckoning fueled a nascent but fragile reform movement: the crusade to end animal cruelty.
This animation shows how the equine flu spread across the U.S. in 1872-1873, aided by rail shipment of horses. Lines show rail networks and diamonds mark reports of outbreaks. Credit: Sean Kheraj, 2018.
A world suddenly ‘unhorsed’
The equine influenza first appeared in late September in horses pastured outside of Toronto. Within days most animals in the city’s crowded stables caught the virus. The U.S. government tried to ban Canadian horses, but acted too late. Within a month border towns were infected, and the “Canadian horse disease” became a North American epidemic. By December the virus reached the U.S. Gulf Coast, and in early 1873 outbreaks occurred in West Coast cities.
The flu’s symptoms were unmistakable. Horses developed a rasping cough and fever; ears drooping, they staggered and sometimes dropped from exhaustion. By one estimate, it killed 2% of an estimated 8 million horses in North America. Many more animals suffered symptoms that took weeks to clear.
At this time the germ theory of disease was still controversial, and scientists were 20 years away from identifying viruses. Horse owners had few good options for staving off infection. They disinfected their stables, improved the animals’ feed and covered them in new blankets. One wag wrote in the Chicago Tribune that the nation’s many abused and overworked horses were bound to die of shock from this sudden outpouring of kindness. At a time when veterinary care was still primitive, others promoted more dubious remedies: gin and ginger, tinctures of arsenic and even a bit of faith healing.
Throughout the 19th century America’s crowded cities suffered frequent epidemics of deadly diseases such as cholera, dysentery and yellow fever. Many people feared that the horse flu would jump to humans. While that never happened, removing millions of horses from the economy posed a different threat: It cut off cities from crucial supplies of food and fuel just as winter was approaching.
Horses were too sick to bring coal out of mines, drag crops to market or carry raw materials to industrial centers. Fears of a “coal famine” sent fuel prices skyrocketing. Produce rotted at the docks. Trains refused to stop at some cities where depots overflowed with undelivered goods. The economy plunged into a steep recession.
Every aspect of life was disrupted. Saloons ran dry without beer deliveries, and postmen relied on “wheelbarrow express” to carry the mail. Forced to travel on foot, fewer people attended weddings and funerals. Desperate companies hired human crews to pull their wagons to market.
Worst of all, firemen could no longer rely on horses to pull their heavy pump wagons. On Nov. 9, 1872, a catastrophic blaze gutted much of downtown Boston when firefighters were slow to reach the scene on foot. As one editor put it, the virus revealed to all that horses were not just private property, but “wheels in our great social machine, the stoppage of which means widespread injury to all classes and conditions of persons.”
Henry Bergh’s kindness crusade
Of course, the flu injured horses most of all – especially when desperate or callous owners forced them to work through their illness, which quite often killed the animals. As coughing, feverish horses staggered through the streets, it was evident that these tireless servants lived short, brutal lives. E.L. Godkin, the editor of The Nation, called their treatment “a disgrace to civilization … worthy of the dark ages.”
Henry Bergh had been making this argument since 1866, when he founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals – the nation’s first organization devoted to this cause. Bergh had spent most of his adult life pursuing a failed career as a playwright, supported by a large inheritance. He found his true calling at age 53.
Motivated less by the love of animals than by a hatred of human cruelty, he used his wealth, connections and literary talents to lobby New York’s Legislature to pass the nation’s first modern anti-cruelty statute. Granted police powers by this law, Bergh and his fellow badge-wearing agents roamed the streets of New York City to defend animals from avoidable suffering.
Many observers scoffed at the suggestion that animals should enjoy legal protection, but Bergh and his allies insisted that every creature had the right not to be abused. Thousands of women and men across the country followed Bergh’s lead, passing similar laws and founding branches of the SPCA. This crusade provoked wide public debate about what humans owed to their fellow species.
As the equine flu raged, Bergh planted himself at major intersections in New York City, stopping wagons and horse-drawn trolleys to inspect the animals pulling them for signs of the disease. Tall and aristocratic, Bergh dressed impeccably, often sporting a top hat and silver cane, his long face framed by a drooping mustache. Asserting that working sick horses was dangerous and cruel, he ordered many teams back to their stables and sometimes sent their drivers to court.
Traffic piled up as grumbling passengers were forced to walk. Transit companies threatened to sue Bergh. Critics ridiculed him as a misguided animal lover who cared more about horses than humans, but many more people applauded his work. Amid the ravages of the horse flu, Bergh’s cause matched the moment.
The rights of horses
At its darkest hour the epidemic left many Americans wondering whether the world they knew would ever recover, or if the ancient bond between horses and humans might be forever sundered by a mysterious illness. But as the disease ran its course, cities silenced by the epidemic gradually recovered. Markets reopened, freight depots whittled away delivery backlogs and horses returned to work.
Still, the impact of this shocking episode lingered, forcing many Americans to consider radical new arguments about the problem of animal cruelty. Ultimately the invention of electric trolleys and the internal combustion engine resolved the moral challenges of horse-powered cities.
Meanwhile, Bergh’s movement reminded Americans that horses were not unfeeling machines but partners in building and running the modern city – vulnerable creatures capable of suffering and deserving of the law’s protection.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County’s Public Health officer on Friday offered an update on the governor’s new stay home order and the impact it could have in the days and weeks to come as the county’s COVID-19 caseload and hospitalizations continue to rise.
Due to the rapidly increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the region and statewide, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday issued new “stay home orders” that will take effect when the intensive care unit bed availability in the region goes below 15 percent, along with restrictions on nonessential travel, as Lake County News has reported.
Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace said Friday that the governor’s orders are not yet in effect in Lake County, but the projections are that they will begin sometime in the next few weeks.
On Friday, Lake County Public Health reported 1,022 confirmed cases in the county, with a total of 21 deaths related to the coronavirus so far.
“The number of cases is rising dramatically, as are the number of people hospitalized with COVID-related symptoms,” Pace said. “Given the way hospitals work in rural areas, our two hospitals operate as a part of a larger regional network. So, when looking at hospital capacity, it is important to evaluate the bed availability in the larger region.”
Pace said 13 Lake County residents were hospitalized as of Thursday with a positive COVID-19 status, with 11 of them are in out-of-county facilities.
Since the trigger for these new restrictions is ICU bed availability, the state is evaluating regional bed capacity on a daily basis, he said.
Lake County is part of the Northern California region, which also includes Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Tehama and Trinity counties.
Pace said the current projections are that the Northern California region will likely cross this 85-percent ICU threshold within the next few weeks.
As of Thursday, 78 percent of Lake County’s ICU beds were filled, with 76 percent filled in the Northern California region, Pace said.
The state and the local Public Health team will be checking those numbers daily, and when they “flip the switch,” Pace said the county will have 24 hours to comply with the stay home order.
“The thinking is that the number of ICU beds is limited, and when they start getting filled up, there can be problems in getting necessary care, and the number of deaths can rise,” Pace said. “The best way to try to prevent this is to add more restrictions that can limit interaction with people outside of your household, so we have less virus transmission.”
Pace said approximately 12 percent of the cases end up in the hospital within a few weeks. “Some of these people will end up in the ICU, and a week or two later, we tend to see an increase in deaths. The state’s strategy here is to try to add the restrictions a few weeks before these tragic outcomes.”
He said 85 percent of the ICU beds being filled is the state’s trigger to bring on the strongest intervention in time to try to prevent “this severe situation.”
The new restrictions will be similar to what Californians had to do in the spring, with some improvements, Pace said.
He said the restrictions include the following:
– Nonessential gatherings are not permitted. – People should stay at home except for necessary activities. – Gatherings for worship and political expression are permitted outdoors. – Restaurants, food pickup and delivery only. – Schools may continue as they are in the purple tier. – Retail establishments can operate at 20 percent capacity with metering at the door. The "essential" and "nonessential" distinction is not being applied to stores. – Outdoor recreation can continue, with precautions. – Lodging is not permitted for recreational travel. People traveling out of the area should self-quarantine for 14 days upon return.
“The next few months will be tough, but we should begin to start going back to a more normal life in spring and summer,” Pace said. “Now is the really important time to take the strongest precautions against the virus, even before the ‘stay at home order’ goes into effect. Stay home whenever possible, cancel travel plans, go out only when necessary.”
Pace urged people to continue exercising and going outside, as indoor gyms and exercise classes are not currently permitted.
He said another closure of Clear Lake – such as was implemented in the spring – is not anticipated, but he urges people to be safe when outside, wearing masks and keeping distant from people not from your household.
“Protect the vulnerable people in your home. Get the vaccine when it is available. We will be through this in a few months, so please take care of your family and friends by being very cautious in the coming months,” Pace said.