Congressman Mike Thompson will host a virtual town hall this week to discuss community members’ concerns about the economy, inflation and the global market.
The town hall will take place beginning at 7 p.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday, April 13.
Thompson’s special guest on Wednesday will be Ronnie Chatterji, chief economist for the United States Department of Commerce, to discuss and answer questions regarding inflation, gas prices, how we are strengthening supply chains, and effort to increase the country’s competitiveness in the global market by supporting Buy American policies.
Thompson (D-CA-05) represents California’s Fifth Congressional District, which includes all or part of Contra Costa, Lake, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties.
If you are not able to make the town hall but have any questions about his work, upcoming legislation to tackle high prices, or issues that affect business in the district, call him at one of his district offices in Napa (707-226-9898), Santa Rosa (707-542-7182), and Vallejo (707-645-1888) or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has a new group of dogs this week that includes puppies and little dogs.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Akita, Australian cattle dog, Australian Kelpie, border collie, boxer, Chihuahua, dachshund, Entlebucher mountain dog, German shepherd, husky, Jack Russell terrier, Labrador retriever, pit bull and miniature wire haired terrier.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
Female Entlebucher mountain dog
This 3-year-old female Entlebucher mountain dog has a short tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 2, ID No. LCAC-A-3250.
Female Jack Russell terrier-Chihuahua
This 4-year-old female Jack Russell terrier-Chihuahua has a short liver and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 3, ID No. LCAC-A-3251.
‘Kona’
“Kona” is a 1-year-old female German shepherd-Akita mix with a short black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 5, ID No. LCAC-A-3239.
Male pit bull terrier
This 1-year-old male pit bull terrier has a short white and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 7, ID No. LCAC-A-2821.
Female Australian cattle dog
This 2-year-old female Australian cattle dog has a short blue, black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 8, ID No. LCAC-A-3231.
Male cattle dog
This 3-year-old male cattle dog has a short black coat with white markings.
He is in kennel No. 14, ID No. LCAC-A-3228.
Australian cattle dog
This 3-year-old male Australian cattle dog has a black coat with tan markings.
He is in kennel No. 16, ID No. LCAC-A-3131.
Male border collie
This young male border collie has a short black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 17, ID No. LCAC-A-3207.
‘Max’
“Max” is a 4-year-old male Australian Kelpie mix with a black and tan coat with white markings.
She is in kennel No. 18, ID No. LCAC-A-2852.
‘Chaos’
“Chaos” is a 1-year-old male pit bull with a short brown brindle coat.
He is in kennel No. 19, ID No. LCAC-A-3268.
Chihuahua-dachshund-miniature wire haired mix
This 2-year-old male Chihuahua-dachshund-miniature wire haired terrier mix has a short tan and brown coat.
He is in kennel No. 21, ID No. LCAC-A-3244.
‘Blue’
“Blue” is a 4-year-old female husky with a gray and white coat, and blue eyes.
She is in kennel No. 25, ID No. LCAC-A-2816.
Labrador retriever mix puppy
This 3-month-old female Labrador retriever mix puppy has a short golden coat.
She is in kennel No. Kennel#27a, ID No. LCAC-A-3241.
Labrador retriever mix puppy
This 3-month-old female Labrador retriever mix puppy has a short golden coat.
She is in kennel No. 27b, ID No. LCAC-A-3242.
‘King’
“King” is a 1-year-old American bulldog with a short brown and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 32, ID No. 3109.
Male Australian cattle dog
This 3-year-old male Australian cattle dog has a short black, tan and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 34, ID No. LCAC-A-3130.
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. — A head-on crash near Middletown on Friday evening resulted in one death.
The wreck was first reported shortly before 5:20 p.m. on Highway 29 just south of Grange Road, north of Middletown and near the Crazy Creek gliderport.
The California Highway Patrol said two sedans — one black, one white — were involved.
Shortly after firefighters arrived on scene, they reported over the radio that one person had died, with another patient suffering minor injuries.
The highway remained open but the CHP warned of potential delays.
Additional information about the crash and its cause was not immediately available.
The wreck was the second fatal crash in Lake County this week.
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.
As conservationbiologists familiar with these clashing viewpoints, we wondered whether there was room for a more nuanced strategy than the typical yes/no standoff. In a recently published study, we used camera traps at hundreds of sites across Washington, D.C., to analyze the predatory behavior of urban free-roaming cats. The cameras recorded all cats that passed them, so our study did not distinguish between feral cats and pet cats roaming outdoors.
Our data showed that the cats were unlikely to prey on native wildlife, such as songbirds or small mammals, when they were farther than roughly 1,500 feet (500 meters) from a forested area, such as a park or wooded backyard. We also found that when cats were approximately 800 feet (250 meters) or farther from forest edges, they were more likely to prey on rats than on native wildlife.
Since the average urban domestic cat ranges over a small area – roughly 550 feet (170 meters), or one to two city blocks – the difference between a diet that consists exclusively of native species and one without any native prey can be experienced within a single cat’s range. Our findings suggest that focusing efforts on managing cat populations near forested areas may be a more effective conservation strategy than attempting to manage an entire city’s outdoor cat population.
Cats on the loose
Free-roaming cats are a common sight in Washington, D.C., which has a feline population of 200,000. Like many cities, Washington has had its share of cat management controversies.
Professionals on either side of the free-roaming cat debate largely agree that cats are safest when kept indoors. An outdoor cat’s lifespan generally peaks around 5 years, compared with 10 to 15 years for an indoor cat. Free-roaming cats face numerous threats, including vehicle collisions and contact with rat poison. Acknowledging these risks, most animal welfare organizations encourage an indoor-only lifestyle.
Similarly, there is little disagreement that cats hunt; for centuries humans have used them for rodent control. But invasive rats, which are often the target of modern rodent control, can grow too large to be easy prey for cats. In response, cats also pursue smaller species that are easier to catch. Studies have linked cats to 63 extinctions globally and estimated that cats kill 12.3 billion wild mammals annually in the U.S. alone.
Disagreements arise around handling cats that already live outside. Population management programs often utilize trap-neuter-return, or TNR – a process in which cats are trapped, spayed or neutered and re-released where they were caught.
In theory, TNR limits population growth by reducing the number of kittens that will be born. In reality it is rarely effective, since 75% of individual cats must be treated every year to reduce the population, which is often not feasible. Regardless, reproduction itself is not what most worries conservation biologists.
Feline invaders
Today the Earth is losing wild species at such a rate that many scientists believe it is experiencing its sixth mass extinction. In this context, free-roaming cats’ effects on wildlife are a serious concern. Cats have an instinctual drive to hunt, even if they are fed by humans. Many wildlife populations are already struggling to survive in a rapidly changing world. Falling prey to a non-native species doesn’t help.
Cats aren’t picky hunters but will pounce on the easiest available prey. This generalist predatory behavior contributes to their reputation as one of the most damaging invasive species. In our view, however, it could also be a key to limiting their ecological impact.
Managing cats based on their behavior
Since cats are generalist predators, their wild-caught diet tends to reflect the local species that are available. In areas with more birds than mammals, like New Zealand, birds are cats’ primary prey. Similarly, cat diets in the most developed portions of cities likely reflect the most available prey species – rats.
While cats top the list of harmful invasive species, rats aren’t far behind. In cities, rats spread disease, contaminate food and damage infrastructure. There aren’t many downsides to free-roaming cats preying on rats.
City centers have no shortage of rats, which can live anywhere, including parks, subways, sewers and buildings. But native animals tend to stay in or near areas with sufficient outdoor habitat, like parks and forested neighborhoods. When cats hunt in these same spaces, they are a threat to native wildlife. But if cats don’t share these spaces with native species, the risk declines dramatically.
Conservation funding is limited, so it’s critical to choose effective strategies. The traditional approach to cat management has largely consisted of attempting to prohibit cats from being loose altogether – an approach that’s incredibly unpopular with people who care for outdoor cats. Despite calls for outdoor cat bans, few have been enacted.
Instead, we suggest prioritizing areas where wildlife is most at risk. For example, cities could create “no cat zones” near urban habitats, which would forbid releasing trap-neuter-return cats in those areas and fine owners in those areas who let their cats roam outdoors.
In Washington, D.C., this would include forested neighborhoods like Palisades or Buena Vista, as well as homes near parks like Rock Creek. As we see it, this targeted approach would have more impact than citywide outdoor cat bans that are unpopular and difficult to enforce.
Hard-line policies have done little to reduce outdoor cat populations across the U.S. Instead, we believe a data-driven and targeted approach to cat management is a more effective way to protect wildlife.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Local health officials are marking Stress Awareness Month by sharing information on its impacts and how to address it.
Stress Awareness Month has been recognized since 1992 as a national, cooperative effort to inform people about the dangers of stress, successful coping strategies and harmful misconceptions about stress that are prevalent in our society.
Stress can be debilitating. It can cause and aggravate mental health concerns. Many report needing greater emotional support, of late, due to rising gas, grocery and energy costs and global uncertainty: https://www.apa.org/topics/stress
Stress is a normal part of life — no one is immune to it. It is important to equip ourselves with skills and knowledge, so we recognize stress when it rears its ugly head. Building coping strategies into our norms and routines can help each of us address this silent scourge:
• Practice meditation. Learning how to “train your attention” is one of the most effective ways to deal with stress head on. And it so happens, meditation is one of the most popular ways to achieve peace and quiet.
• Exercise. Exercise is another way to battle the debilitating effects of stress. Be sure to get out and breathe our beautiful Lake County air by walking, jogging, bicycling or any other physical activity you can enjoy outdoors.
• Avoid drugs and alcohol. Stress can increase vulnerability to addiction. Drug and alcohol use can also reduce resiliency to future stressors.
• Visit your doctor. Your physician is truly the best and most objective person to help you get started on the path to stress reduction and more effective management.
Short-term stress responses have been found to help people perform better, in some cases. Recent University of Rochester research suggests “stress reappraisal,” informing people of “functional benefits of stress” may reduce anxiety and even procrastination.
However, on the flip side, unmanaged stress can make individuals more susceptible to a host of ailments, like insomnia, headaches, high blood pressure, acute heart problems and even chronic cardiovascular disease.
A multitude of factors contribute to stress; relationships, economic outlook, family, work, and money, for example. In recent years, natural disasters have caused stress for many Lake County residents.
“Practicing self-care, and learning to cope with our own stress, can even help people around us,” attests Todd Metcalf, director of Lake County Behavioral Health Services. “This month, reach out to people you trust, talk about what you are experiencing and share healthy and effective coping strategies. You are not alone.”
Please join Lake County Behavioral Health Services in recognizing April as Stress Awareness Month.
We have a private, single drinking water intake that takes in water from Clear Lake and provides tap water and wash water to our lakeside summer vacation cottage. With the drought and algae concerns this year, what do I need to know about being able to safely drink and use our water?
— Carly at the Cottage
Dear Carly,
Thank you for reaching out about this topic! I am also glad that you are asking this topical question and thinking ahead. Right now is a good time to be preparing for the summer season, with expected low water levels due to drought combined with warm summer temperatures, we can expect a very heavy cyanobacteria season. Heavy cyanobacteria means that drinking water systems, both public and private, will require more attention to operate safely.
Let’s remind ourselves that cyanobacteria are not algae, they are in completely different categories in the “biological kingdoms of living things.” Cyanobacteria, since they are bacteria, are in the monera kingdom with other prokaryotic bacterias. Green algae, or phytoplankton are grouped into the protista kingdom.
In Clear Lake, the green algae does not produce toxins or pose human health concerns when exposed or ingested. Some types of cyanobacteria in Clear Lake, especially in the warm and long days of summer and fall, produce high concentrations of toxins that can pose health concerns to humans and pets when exposed to the skin or ingested.
Not every person responds the same way to a cyanobacteria exposure, it’s comparable to allergies in that everyone is affected differently and has different symptoms. Some people never notice when they swim in water or ingest a small amount of water with cyanobacteria and some people go wading one time and get rashes or flu-like symptoms for a day or more.
These cyanobacterias are the main concern for small, individual drinking water systems on Clear Lake, as high concentrations of cells, and the toxin they produce, can overwhelm smaller systems, making the filtering and chemical treatments uneffective, increasing the potential for exposure through drinking or bathing water.
Understanding what type of drinking water system you have
To reiterate, today’s column will mostly focus on small, or single, private, individual drinking water systems (less than 14 connections or homes). These systems start with an intake pipe, usually on a private, residential property, that takes water directly from Clear Lake, and into a small treatment or filter system on your property or inside your home. Sometimes a few neighbors, cottages, or a small resort or mobile home estate will have private systems with less than 14 connections. These are all considered small, private, individual, or very small drinking water treatment systems.
These types of small, individual systems are not regulated by the State or the County. Safe operation, maintenance, and monitoring of these systems is provided by the homeowner or property manager.
Today’s column will notfocus on large public or private purveyor drinking water systems. If you pay a bill to a company that treats and distributes your drinking water to your home, and your neighbors, through a pipe, then you are on a public, or municipal, or large private company drinking water treatment system. These systems are fully regulated by the State’s Drinking Water Division.
If you do have municipal, public, or large private drinking water that you pay a company every month or every other month, I will refer you to several references where you can find more information about those types of systems and the monitoring that is done.
I wrote about drought and drinking water systems, and cyanobacteria, in my “Distressed about Drought” column on July 25 2021. This column would be a good refresher to drought impacts on larger drinking water systems.
To access your public or large private system monitoring data, as well as other system information, visit the CA Drinking Water Watch website. This website includes information like system details, facilities, monitoring results and schedules, violations or enforcement actions, and copies of consumer confidence reports. This resource is provided by the Drinking Water Division of California and provides information for all state-regulated systems, not just those with intakes on Clear Lake.
To learn about cyanobacteria monitoring that is done on these public, municipal, or large private systems, you can watch an informative County of Lake Water Quality Wednesday webinar from the Lake County Water Resources, Public Health Department, and Special Districts that was recorded on Sept. 1, 2021.
Recording of Water Quality Wednesday Webinar September 1, 2021. Clear Lake Drinking Water and Cyanobacteria. Presenters included Rachel Kennard (UC Davis and Cal Rural Water Association) and Sarah Ryan (Big Valley EPA).
Unregulated individual drinking water systems
If you have been out on the lake so far this season, you might have noticed that it looks pretty good. Some areas are even blue and very clear. While so far things seem relatively fine, we should prepare for a point in the season when we will see an interaction of quantity (low lake levels) and quality (extremely severe blooms of algae and cyanobacteria) impacting small, individual drinking water systems.
The upcoming low water levels, combined with hot and long summer days might cause trouble for small or individual systems with smaller treatment or filter capacities. These systems are unregulated by any local or state government, and not monitored for effectiveness or performance. Therefore a household may be paying a significant amount of money for a service provider to “be treating” their water that comes directly from Clear Lake, but there is no oversight to these type of systems or laws to protect the consumer, like there are for public, municipal, or professionally large treatment systems and purveyors.
The owner of the system is the responsible party for ensuring these systems are maintained and serviced regularly. Additionally, some small treatment service providers are unfamiliar with the unique and special needs of being a small, individual treatment system on Clear Lake, a unique lake that is enriched with 500,000 years of organic matter and suffers from very frequent and sometimes severe toxic cyanobacteria blooms.
These small, individual systems are usually capable of providing safe drinking water from natural water sources, but during the late summer, when Clear Lake experiences frequent and severe cyanobacteria bloom events, the amount of organic material in the water can overwhelm these private, small systems. Even boiling or chlorinating the water will not remove cyanobacteria cells or the toxins they produce, in fact these methods make the toxins more pronounced and cause more exposure risk.
Public,municipal and large private professional systems on the other hand, are much larger, with multiple layers of treatment and filters in place that adequately remove cyanobacteria cells from the raw water of Clear Lake, before entering the chemical treatment process. In fact, in 2021, the State of California Drinking Water Division of the State Water Resources Control Board, mandated cyanobacteria monitoring of all the 18 public, municipal and large private drinking water systems on Clear Lake. Every system that was monitored at the tap resulted in no exceedances for cyanobacteria microcystis toxins and were safe for drinking.
Be aware of drinking water advisories
Last year the concentrations of toxins produced by some cyanobacteria in Clear Lake were sampled at such high, concerning levels that the Public Health Officer issued an advisory, followed by a news release, urging some households on small, private, individual systems in certain areas of the lake to stop drinking their water.
This release was issued on Sept. 16, 2021, when the summer months and low water levels had created perfect conditions for exceptionally large and severe cyanobacteria blooms to occur. People on private, small individual systems, in mostly the Oaks and Jago Bay area, were warned to not drink the water from their tap, only if they were part of a small system of 14 connections or less, or had a single intake directly from the lake into their home and managed their own drinking water treatment system.
The advisory also recommended homeowners to purchase their drinking water or fill up clean containers from alternative filling stations provided by commercial or public treatment systems. These companies were Konocti Municipal Water Company (Kelseyville) and Golden State Water Company (Clearlake). These two large private, professionally-treated drinking water purveyors were providing treated, potable water for those in areas who had private intakes providing temporarily unsafe water.
It really is amazing how the community and businesses come together in times of crisis to support one another; we are grateful to these companies to step up to provide safe drinking water sources for free during a time of need.
Be prepared and get help monitoring your small or individual drinking water intake
If you or your household is on one of these small, individual systems (less than 14 connections) then you might want to be more vigilant this year about monitoring your drinking water at the tap. Luckily, local tribal organizations and partners have developed a program to monitor and track this information at no cost to the homeowners.
Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians, working with Tracking California, the Institute of Health, and the Drinking Water Division of the California Water Resources Control Board, are currently working on a grant program to monitor cyanobacteria — and other contaminants — in private, small, individual drinking water systems of Clear Lake. This program is called the California Water: Assessment of Toxins for Community Health Project, or Cal-WATCH. Visit the Tracking California Cal-Watch Project website here.
The Cal-Watch program started last year in 2021, and Big Valley EPA Director, Sarah Ryan, and the Cal-Watch team have learned a plethora of information about public health when it comes to private, individual drinking water systems on Clear Lake.
The results from the 2021 Cal-Watch project will be presented this coming Wednesday. April 13th 2022, at 6 p.m. at an online Water Quality Wednesday Public Learning Forum. This webinar is hosted by the County of Lake, Water Resources Department, and Public Health Department.
This webinar is free, open to the public, and will be accessible through zoom, County of Lake Facebook Live, and through PegTV (Mediacom Channel 8). The webinar will be recorded and available on the County of Lake YouTube channel and Water Resources Department Cyanobacteria webpage. To access the webinar through zoom, use Webinar ID: 930 6092 7543 and Pass code: 466041.
This webinar will present the data and results from monitoring for contaminants in private, small drinking water systems on Clear Lake, in addition to some well monitoring data. The presenters will talk about their findings from a monitoring during a drought year, which will be applicable for this coming summer during the third year of drought conditions.
What to do?
Now, if you are like Carly and her cottage, and your small, individual private drinking water system is questionable or incapable of effectively treating Clear Lake source water during high bloom events, such as were experienced last year, there really is not an easy fix. There is no magic small treatment system that can handle the conditions Clear Lake sometimes contains.
The absolute best and safest solution would be to try to connect to a municipal, public or large private system that is regulated and mandated by the state to monitor and remove cyanobacteria from their systems. Currently large systems, adjacent to areas with no municipal water sources, are looking at plans for expanding their connections into these areas. If you are concerned or curious, you can call the treatment purveyor closest to you and ask about these plans and feasibility of including your home as a connection. If the company knows that they might have customers in the area, it might increase the rate and speed of expansion of their system to your area.
The next solution, if the first one isn’t possible, is to be prepared for not using your drinking tap water when a significant and severe bloom occurs and a public health advisory is released for your area. This doesn’t happen every year, but is more likely to occur during times of drought and longer, warmer summers. Again, this recommendation is only for small, individual private intake systems that are located in areas identified in a public health advisory notice. This does not apply to large private, public or municipal drinking water systems, as their tap water is regularly monitored and safe to drink.
Being prepared means having extra gallons of drinking water on hand as well as having an alternative source for drinking water. Make sure to have clean containers and reliable transportation to get those containers filled if needed.
If you don’t have access to reliable transportation to get to and from a filling station, contact your neighbors, family, or friends, to see if you can pool resources, or combine efforts, to get clean, safe water to drink.
How do I know if I am close to a large private, public, or municipal drinking water provider?
To find out where the public, municipal, or large drinking water system providers are located around Clear Lake, and the rest of Lake County, you can visit the Tracking California Drinking Water Mapping Tool online.
This tool provides information on the locations of Community Drinking Water sources, that include both groundwater and surface waters, like Clear Lake. This is an interactive mapping tool, using an ESRI-based platform, so it deserves some time exploring to find out the full extent of information and data that the tool can provide. I suggest turning on and off layers and making different selections to see what type of information is available on the map and what it can tell you.
The Tracking California Drinking Water Tool is available at the following website (as of April 5, 2022).
I have taken an excerpt of the mapping tool showing the Community Water Systems layer selected. This shows the companies, public, municipal, and large private systems that are located around Clear Lake. If you live outside these highlighted areas, you may receive your water from a groundwater provider, a private well, or you may be on an unregulated, small, individual system with less than 14 connections.
If the latter is the case, please be prepared for the summer cyanobacteria season especially when it comes to having a safe, drinking water source for you, your family, your pets, and your home.
Sincerely, Lady of the Lake
Angela De Palma-Dow is a limnologist (limnology = study of fresh inland waters) who lives and works in Lake County. Born in Northern California, she has a Master of Science from Michigan State University. She is a Certified Lake Manager from the North American Lake Management Society, or NALMS, and she is the current president/chair of the California chapter of the Society for Freshwater Science. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover spent most of March climbing the “Greenheugh Pediment” — a gentle slope capped by rubbly sandstone.
The rover briefly summited this feature’s north face two years ago; now on the pediment’s southern side, Curiosity has navigated back onto the pediment to explore it more fully.
But on March 18, the mission team saw an unexpected terrain change ahead and realized they would have to turn around: The path before Curiosity was carpeted with more wind-sharpened rocks, or ventifacts, than they have ever seen in the rover’s nearly 10 years on the Red Planet.
Ventifacts chewed up Curiosity’s wheels earlier in the mission. Since then, rover engineers have found ways to slow wheel wear, including a traction control algorithm, to reduce how frequently they need to assess the wheels. And they also plan rover routes that avoid driving over such rocks, including these latest ventifacts, which are made of sandstone – the hardest type of rock Curiosity has encountered on Mars.
The team nicknamed their scalelike appearance “gator-back” terrain. Although the mission had scouted the area using orbital imagery, it took seeing these rocks close-up to reveal the ventifacts.
“It was obvious from Curiosity’s photos that this would not be good for our wheels,” said Curiosity Project Manager Megan Lin of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads the mission. “It would be slow going, and we wouldn’t have been able to implement rover-driving best practices.”
The gator-back rocks aren’t impassable – they just wouldn’t have been worth crossing, considering how difficult the path would be and how much they would age the rover’s wheels.
So the mission is mapping out a new course for the rover as it continues to explore Mount Sharp, a 3.4-mile-tall (5.5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014.
As it climbs, Curiosity is able to study different sedimentary layers that were shaped by water billions of years ago. These layers help scientists understand whether microscopic life could have survived in the ancient Martian environment.
Why Greenheugh?
The Greenheugh Pediment is a broad, sloping plain near the base of Mount Sharp that extends about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) across. Curiosity’s scientists first noticed it in orbital imagery before the rover’s landing in 2012. The pediment sticks out as a standalone feature on this part of Mount Sharp, and scientists wanted to understand how it formed.
It also sits nearby the Gediz Vallis Ridge, which may have been created as debris flowed down the mountain. Curiosity will always remain in the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, where there’s evidence of ancient water and environments that would have been habitable in the past. Driving across about a mile (1.5 kilometers) of the pediment to gather images of Gediz Vallis Ridge would have been a way to study material from the mountain’s uppermost reaches.
“From a distance, we can see car-sized boulders that were transported down from higher levels of Mount Sharp – maybe by water relatively late in Mars’ wet era,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at JPL. “We don’t really know what they are, so we wanted to see them up close.”
The road less traveled
Over the next couple weeks, Curiosity will climb down from the pediment to a place it had previously been exploring: a transition zone between a clay-rich area and one with larger amounts of salt minerals called sulfates.
The clay minerals formed when the mountain was wetter, dappled with streams and ponds; the salts may have formed as Mars’ climate dried out over time.
“It was really cool to see rocks that preserved a time when lakes were drying up and being replaced by streams and dry sand dunes,” said Abigail Fraeman, Curiosity’s deputy project scientist at JPL. “I’m really curious to see what we find as we continue to climb on this alternate route.”
Curiosity’s wheels will be on safer ground as it leaves the gator-back terrain behind, but engineers are focused on other signs of wear on the rover’s robotic arm, which carries its rock drill. Braking mechanisms on two of the arm’s joints have stopped working in the past year.
However, each joint has redundant parts to ensure the arm can keep drilling rock samples. The team is studying the best ways to use the arm to ensure these redundant parts keep working as long as possible.
Dog owners in Northern California are reminded to take precautions to protect their pets from salmon poisoning disease.
Salmon poisoning disease is a potentially fatal condition seen only in dogs after they eat certain types of raw or cold smoked fish like trout and salmon that are infected with a bacteria-like organism, Neorickettsia helminthoeca, which is transmitted by the parasitic flatworm (or “fluke”) Nanophyetes salmincola.
Nanophyetes salmincola occurs naturally in waters of Northern California and most of the north state can be considered the native range for the fluke.
Dog owners are advised to be cautious and to keep their dogs away from salmon, steelhead, trout and other freshwater fish carcasses.
The parasite cannot survive in cooked fish, is not harmful to humans and does not affect pets other than dogs.
If your dog has eaten or is suspected of eating raw fish, watch for signs of the disease.
Symptoms are similar to distemper and may include some or all of the following: a rise in body temperature, loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, listlessness and/or rapid weight loss.
If signs of the disease appear, promptly take your dog to a veterinarian. Salmon poisoning disease is treatable if caught in time.
If untreated, death usually occurs within two weeks of eating the infected fish. Without treatment, 90% of dogs showing symptoms die.
While all fish caught or originating from streams in Northern California could potentially be infected, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife cautions that trout stocked in some waters in its North Central Region are more likely to be infected with the flukes that cause salmon poisoning disease.
Weekly fish stocking information is publicly available at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fish Planting Schedule web page.
March 2022 marked the third month in a row where precipitation was below average across the contiguous U.S., which led to an expanding drought and areas of record dryness throughout the West.
March also brought several rounds of severe weather that pounded parts of the nation.
Below are more takeaways from NOAA’s latest monthly U.S. climate report:
Climate by the numbers: January through March 2022
The average contiguous U.S. temperature for the year to date was 36.3 degrees F (1.2 degrees above average), which ranks in the middle third of the record.
The year-to-date average rainfall was 5.66 inches — 1.30 inches below average — ranking as the seventh-driest January-March period for the U.S. on record.
The current multi-year drought across the western U.S. is the most extensive and intense drought in the 22-year history of the U.S. Drought Monitor. Across some parts of the West, precipitation for the first three months of 2022 was at or near record-low levels.
During March, drought coverage across the contiguous U.S. reached 61% — the largest observed extent of drought since fall of 2012.
With below-average snow cover and critically low reservoirs in some places, concerns are mounting that the western drought will continue to intensify and strain water supplies.
March 2022
The average monthly temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 44.1 degrees F (2.6 degrees above the 20th-century average) and ranked in the warmest third of the 128-year climate record.
Temperatures for the month were warmer than average across much of the West, and from the Midwest to the East Coast. Alaska also saw above-average temperatures across much of the state, with Anchorage and Talkeetna both reporting a top-10 warm March.
The average precipitation in the contiguous U.S. last month was 2.26 inches (0.25 of an inch below average), ranking in the driest third of the climate record.
Precipitation was below average across much of the West, northern and southern Plains, and from the Tennessee Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Northeast.
Above-average precipitation fell from the central Plains to the Great Lakes, as well as across parts of the Deep South and Southeast. North Dakota saw its seventh-driest March on record, while Michigan had its eighth wettest.
Other notable climate events in March
• Tornadoes took a toll: Several severe weather outbreaks produced strong and damaging tornadoes last month. On March 5, supercell thunderstorms produced at least 13 confirmed tornadoes across Iowa, including a confirmed EF4 tornado in Winterset. From March 21-22, severe weather and tornadoes were reported from Texas to Alabama, including an EF3 tornado that substantially damaged two schools in Jacksboro, Texas; an EF3 tornado that ripped through the New Orleans metro area; and a severe weather outbreak impacted the Gulf Coast states from March 30-31, with at least 14 tornadoes and two fatalities.
• Billion-dollar disasters update: So far in 2022, no billion-dollar weather and climate disasters have been confirmed, although several events are currently being evaluated. An updated analysis based on a 2022 Consumer Price Index adjustment calculates that the U.S. has sustained 323 separate weather and climate disasters since 1980, where overall damages and costs reached or exceeded $1 billion. The total cost of these 323 events exceeds $2.195 trillion.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A motorcycle wreck on Saturday afternoon along Highway 20 led to the third traffic fatality in Lake County this week.
The California Highway Patrol said the solo motorcycle crash was first reported at about 2:20 p.m. Saturday just west of Bruner Drive, between Lucerne and Glenhaven.
The motorcycle went into the lake and was reported to be about 20 feet off the shore. The rider was reported to be out of the water and on the lakeshore, according to radio traffic.
Firefighters responding to the scene reported a fatality, which the CHP confirmed a short time later.
Work took place at the scene to recover the motorcycle from the lake, the CHP reported.
The CHP said the highway remained open during the recovery.
Additional information on the circumstances of the crash were not immediately available.
Saturday’s fatal crash follows two deadly head-on wrecks earlier in the week, one on Wednesday near Blue Lakes and another on Friday near Middletown.
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.
Two years into the 2020 SECURE Act, the Internal Revenue Service has issued its proposed regulations.
These regulations contain important changes to the required minimum distributions rules for beneficiaries of retirement plans. Distributions received from a retirement plan are taxed as ordinary income.
Under SECURE, a plan participant, or owner, must receive required minimum distributions starting April 1 of the year following his or her 72nd birthday, i.e., the “required beginning date,” an important concept.
Death beneficiaries generally want to delay how long they have to receive plan required minimum distributions after the owner’s death.
Delay means smaller annual required minimum distributions which lowers the recipient’s taxable income and allows undistributed assets to grow tax free.
Generally, under SECURE, a designated beneficiary — i.e., a natural person or certain trusts that meet special IRS rules — has 10 years to receive all plan assets.
Important exceptions, however, exist for five categories of special “eligible designated beneficiaries,” including the deceased owner’s surviving spouse, the deceased owner’s minor child (under age 21), and a chronically ill or disabled beneficiary.
Certain trusts where all the beneficiaries are eligible designated beneficiaries also qualify for the same treatment.
Before the new regulations, it was understood that a designated beneficiary did not have to receive any annual required minimum distributions from a decedent’s plan. Under the regulations that is no longer true.
Different required minimum distributions rules exist for different types of beneficiaries regarding both the annual distributions and the outer limit at which time the plan must be fully distributed.
Which rules apply generally depends on whether the plan owner died before he or she had to begin to receive required minimum distributions and whether or not a death beneficiary qualifies as either a designated beneficiary or an eligible designated beneficiary. For a designated beneficiary, it was understood that he or she had until the 10th year after the decedent’s death, when all assets had to be withdrawn.
Now, however, if the deceased plan owner died after their required beginning date, the regulations require a designated beneficiary to receive annual required minimum distributions during years one to nine after the participant’s death.
Similarly, an eligible designated beneficiary must also take annual required minimum distributions that are often computed based on the beneficiary’s own actuarial lifetime and sometimes are computed based on the remaining hypothetical actuarial life expectancy of the deceased plan owner at death.
Eligible designated beneficiaries generally have up to their lifetime to completely withdraw all plan assets. A minor child of the deceased owner, however, has only 10 years from when the minor child attains age 21.
Annual required minimum distributions alone, however, can sometimes mean that the retirement plan assets are completely withdrawn sooner than the eligible designated beneficiary’s actuarial lifetime.
Conceptually the foregoing approach has a certain similarity to installment note payments. That is, the amount of annual payments are often amortized (computed) based on distribution over a much longer term of years (e.g., a 30 year amortization) with a final balloon payment at end of the installment note’s term (e.g., a 15 year note).
Lastly, important new rules exist regarding trusts as designated beneficiaries. Trusts have primary and alternative beneficiaries and are used to control distributions. Certain trusts can qualify as either a designated beneficiary or as an eligible designated beneficiary. Such trusts are either “conduit trusts” or “accumulation trusts.”
Conduit trusts require all retirement plan distributions, including required minimum distributions, to be distributed by the trustee to or for the benefit of the conduit trust beneficiaries.
Accumulation trusts allow the trustee to accumulate some or all plan distributions received by the trustee, including required minimum distributions.
How a trust is drafted depends on the goals and circumstances. That said, where possible the conduit trust is usually preferred when the primary beneficiary is an eligible designated beneficiary, such as the surviving spouse.
Planning with an accumulation trust is more complicated because both the primary and the secondary beneficiaries have an impact on which required minimum distribution rules apply.
The foregoing brief discussion of a complex and broad subject is not legal advice. Consult a qualified attorney or financial adviser for guidance.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235.