On Thursday night, the House of Representatives passed a final version of the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 (WRDA), according to Congressman Mike Thompson's office.

The legislation authorizes the Army Corps of Engineers to construct $21 billion in flood protection ane ecosystem restoration projects, and improve the nation's rivers and harbors.

The bill, the National Audubon Society reported, includes an unprecedented $5.5 billion in funding for ecosystem restoration on the Mississippi, coastal Louisiana, and for the Great Lakes and the Everglades.

WRDA also authorizes the Corps to design and construct the Middle Creek Ecosystem Restoration Project, as Lake County News previously reported.

The legislation states that the Middle Creek project will cost $45.2 million, with an estimated federal cost of $29,500,000 and an estimated non-federal cost of $15,700,000.

Bob Lossius, Lake County's assistant director of Public Works, said in a previous interview with Lake County News that the county was only seeking $1.2 million at this time to get the project started.

"Restoring Middle Creek will improve our area's protection from flooding," said Thompson in a statement issued shortly after the House vote. "It will also have a very positive effect on the wetlands surrounding Clearlake.”

The project will restore 1,200 acres of wetlands and 500 acres of floodplain in the Clear Lake area. It entails reconnecting the Scotts Creek and Middle Creek to the historic Robinson Lake wetland and floodplain.

The Scotts and Middle Creek watersheds provide 57 percent of the water flow into Clear Lake.

No WRDA bill has been passed since 2000, a fact that's been attributed to a desire to reform the Corps' policies and prevent pork barrel politics, as Lake County News previously reported.

The House passed a version of the WRDA bill in April, with the Senate passing its version the following month.

The bill then went to conference committee, where the differences in the House and Senate bills were worked out, according to GovTrack.us. WRDA then headed back to the two chambers for final approval.

The House's Thursday vote was 381-40 in favor of the bill.

The Senate has yet to consider and approve its final version of WRDA, but it could happen as soon as this week, Thompson's office reported. The bill would then go to the president.

But even if the bill gets through the Senate, it's not home free.

In May, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy that reported President Bush was opposed to the bill.

He has since renewed his threat to veto the bill, which has groups from the Louisiana Congressional delegation to the National Audubon Society asking him to reconsider.

Some members of Congress – including those from Louisiana – have stated that they have enough votes in Congress to override a possible veto.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

WASHINGTON – On Wednesday the House of Representatives passed the Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007 (The CHAMP Act, HR 3162).

This historic legislation reauthorizes the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provides health insurance coverage for millions of children in working families with incomes slightly too high to qualify for Medicaid.

The CHAMP Act also includes important Medicare provisions, which benefit providers and beneficiaries alike.

"Keeping kids healthy today means that the government will inherit a healthier Medicare population tomorrow," said Congressman Mike Thompson. "Investments in our children are both common sense and cost-effective."

The CHAMP Act maintains current SCHIP eligibility requirements, but it provides states with the resources needed for outreach to eligible children not yet enrolled in the program. As a result, five million new children will be able to obtain health care.

The bill also makes critical changes to the Medicare program. Without this legislation, physician reimbursement rates would be slashed by 10 percent next year, and by an additional 5 percent in 2009.

"This legislation will provide five million new kids with healthcare and millions of children already in the SCHIP program will keep their benefits," added Thompson. "With this legislation, physicians will avoid the biggest rate cut in the history of the Medicare program, which would have triggered a mass exodus of doctors from Medicare. Today, Congress took an historic step and dramatically improved healthcare for millions of Americans."

The CHAMP Act also expands preventive healthcare available to Medicare beneficiaries, and it provides critical new funding for rural healthcare.

"For many reasons, it's much harder for seniors in rural areas to access high-quality healthcare than it is for their urban counterparts," said Thompson. "This bill extends key bonus payments for rural providers, ensuring that doctors, ambulances, home health agencies and other providers will keep their doors open in rural communities like ours."

Thompson also noted that the CHAMP Act does not increase the deficit. Consistent with the Democratic Majority's commitment to Pay-As-You-Go rules, of which Thompson is a long-time advocate, the CHAMP Act is fully funded.

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

LUCERNE – A travel trailer that caught fire Monday afternoon caused an outage of Mediacom Internet and television services along much of the Northshore and parts of Lakeport.

Northshore Fire Protection District Battalion Chief Lou Dukes said firefighters were dispatched to the fire at 11:23 a.m.

The fire broke out in the 40-foot trailer as a local man who had borrowed it was returning it to Clearlake. As he drove eastbound along Highway 20, Dukes said the man noticed the fire.

“He looked in his rear view mirror and flames were coming out of the trailer,” Dukes explained.

Firefighters arrived minutes later to find the trailer parked in front of the Paradise Cove subdivision east of Lucerne, said Dukes. By that time, the trailer already was fully involved.

Northshore Fire and Cal Fire sent a total of five pieces of equipment and eight firefighters, said Dukes.

Dukes said there was potential for the fire to get into nearby vegetation, but by 11:32 p.m. firefighters had contained it, and completely extinguished it a short time later.

It took another hour to mop up the smoldering trailer, said Dukes. No injuries were reported, and the cause of the fire isn't yet known.

The fire did, however, manage to damage a Mediacom cable line, said Dukes.

The trailer had been pulled off the road, where it was sitting underneath Mediacom's fiberoptic line and power lines, said Dukes. The power lines were OK, but the cable lines were burned enough to knock out service.

A Mediacom service representative reported that the fire took out service in Nice, Upper Lake, Lucerne and the Robin Hill area of Lakeport.

Cable and TV services in the affected areas weren't restored until 7 p.m., two hours after Mediacom originally estimated repairs would be complete.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

LAKEPORT – The body of a man found in the Mendocino National Forest late last month has been positively identified.

According to a statement Lt. Cecil Brown of the Lake County Sheriff's Office issued late Thursday, the man was Owen Andrew Lampman, 55, of Clearlake Oaks.

Lampman's body was found July 21 by a hunter in the Corbin Creek area of the Mendocino National Forest, near the border of Lake and Glenn counties, as Lake County News previously reported.

Glenn County Sheriff's Office deputies initially responded and found Lampman's body in the bed of Corbin Creek, near a burned up pickup truck that was registered to him, Brown reported.

Mary Beth Stanbery, administrative services officer for the Glenn County Sheriff's Office, told Lake County News in a previous interview that sheriff's deputies also found a handgun and documents at the scene.

Brown had previously reported that the Lake County Sheriff's office was contacted by Glenn County July 22, once they realized the body had been located within Lake County's jurisdiction.

Dental records were used to confirm Lampman's identity, Brown reported.

About three weeks before Lampman's body was found, Brown's report explained that the sheriff's office received a missing person's report regarding Lampman.

The man who filed the report on July 9 said he had not seen Lampman since June 25, according to Brown.

June 25 was also the date that firefighters responded to Lampman's home for a structure fire, Brown reported.

Battalion Chief Lou Dukes of the Northshore Fire Protection District's Clearlake Oaks station said Thursday that the fire was located in a storage unit a few doors down from Lampman's home on Fifth Street.

“It was a total loss,” said Dukes.

He added, “It's still under investigation. We didn't have any luck finding any cause.”

Brown said the sheriff's office entered Lampman into the Missing or Unidentified Persons System database as a missing person and initiated an investigation, which didn't identify anyone who had seen Lampman since June 25.

But the cause of Lampman's death still isn't known, Brown reported.

The sheriff's office ordered an autopsy to determined what killed Lampman, but the results aren't yet available, according to Brown.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

After receiving numerous requests from Lake County citizens, theater manager Justin Hamaker said in an announcement Tuesday, "The only way we could accommodate Sicko was to bring it in for a single matinée showing each day at 12:15 p.m.," which he realizes is not an ideal time for everyone, but his only other option was not to show it at all.

Sicko is currently playing in Ukiah until Thursday, Aug. 2.

Michael Moore's latest documentary is bringing people from all political affiliations, backgrounds and beliefs together around the crisis of health insurance in the United States.

Susan Carson, a recently retired family physician, said in an article published by the Capital Times, a Madison, WI-based newspaper, that nationally, one in six people have no health insurance at all. "None of us have adequate health insurance," she said.

Half of personal bankruptcies have to do with health care bills, said Carson, who is active with Physicians for a National Health Program, a nonprofit group of 14,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support a single-payer national health system, the Capital Times reported.

In the current U.S. system, there are thousands of different health care organizations, Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and billing agencies. With so many different payers of health care fees, there's an enormous amount of administrative waste, the Capital Times reported.

"The only way to control costs in a for-profit system is to not provide care," Carson said.

Since 1970, the number of health administrators increased by 2,500 percent, she said. Of every dollar spent on health care, 31 cents goes to administrative costs, Carson said in the Capital Times article.

"There are currently 700 health policies in Wisconsin. As a doctor, I could not cope with this," she told the Capital Times. "People would ask me, Is this covered? Is this not covered? I would tell them they had to call their insurance company and ask."

In California, SB 840, The California Health Insurance Reliability Act authored by Sen. Sheila James Kuehl (D-CA), proposes to provide a fiscally sound, single-payer health insurance coverage to all Californians, provide every Californian the right to choose his or her own physician and control

health cost inflation.

"Single payer" is a type of financing system that has one entity acting as administrator, or "payer." A single-payer system would be set up with a government-run entity collecting all health care fees and paying for all health care costs according to the Capital Times.

District 1 Assembly Member Patty Berg (D-CA) and District 2 Senator Patricia Wiggins (D-CA) are coauthors of the bill.

SB 840 also proposes that eligibility for coverage be based on residency, instead of on employment or income. Income being a factor determining if you can pay for a health insurance policy for you and your family if you are self employed or unemployed.

According to Kuehl, SB 840 will eliminate waste by consolidating the functions of many insurance companies into one comprehensive insurance plan, saving the state and consumers billions of dollars each year.

Currently it's estimated that half of every dollar spent on health care is squandered on clinical and administrative waste, insurance company profits and overpriced pharmaceuticals, according to Kuehl.

SB 840 was re-referred to the Appropriations Committee on July 10.

According to a 2004 report by the Institute of Medicine, "lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States. Although America leads the world in spending on health care, it is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage," which is what Moore's documentary is all about.

For more information, visit the following sites.

www.healthcareforall.org/factsheet.pdf

http://michaelmoore.com

www.lakeportcinema.com

www.iom.edu/?id=19175

www.cinemablend.com/new/Sicko-Spurs-Audiences-Into-Action-5639.html

E-mail Terre Logsdon at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

This compares to a seasonally unadjusted rate of 5.2 percent for the state and 4.7 percent for the nation for the month, according to Dennis Mullins of the Employment Development Department.

Lake County's unemployment rate ranked it No. 42 among California's 58 counties, according to statistics Mullins provided.

Surrounding county rates included 8.7 percent for Glenn, 10.7 percent for Colusa, 4.3 percent for Sonoma and 5.1 percent for Mendocino, Mullins reported. Marin had the lowest rate in the state with 3.7 percent and Imperial County had the highest at 16.6 percent.

Total industry employment in Lake County grew by 220 jobs (1.4 percent) between June 2006 and June 2007, said Mullins, ending the year-over period with 15,910 jobs.

Year-over job growth occurred in farm; natural resources, mining and construction; trade, transportation and utilities; information; leisure and hospitality; and government, Mullins reported. Year-over job losses occurred in financial activities, and professional and business services.

Industry sectors with no change over the year included manufacturing, private educational and health services, and other services, according to Mullins' report.

The Farm sector again led industry gainers for the year-over period adding 130 jobs, Mullins noted. Government gained 60. Natural resources, mining, and construction added 30 jobs and trade, transportation, and utilities was up 20. Information, and leisure and hospitality were each up 10 jobs. Professional and business services was down 30 and financial activities dropped 10 jobs for the period.

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

Northshore Fire officials close off Highway 20 at the north end of Lucerne while CHP officers farther down the highway conduct an investigation. Photo by Elizabeth Larson.

THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED.

LUCERNE – The California Highway Patrol has closed Highway 20 between Nice and Lucerne while they conduct what they called a crime scene investigation.

Northshore Fire Protection District Chief Jim Robbins reported at 8:45 p.m. that the CHP expected the highway would be completely closed for at least another 30 minutes, and planned to open at least one lane of traffic.

Fire officials at the road closure said a collision involving three cars had resulted in two fatalities.

No official statement on the incident has been released, beyond that the area is considered a crime scene and that traffic will be closed while the CHP investigation continues.

Lake County News will update this story as more information is released.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

HOPLAND – Two local men were arrested over the weekend when they were found in possession of methamphetamine at a local casino.

A report from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office explained that Elliott Brackett, 51, of Upper Lake and John W. Feeney, 45, of Lakeport were arrested Saturday night at Hopland Sho-Kah-Wa Casino.

Mendocino County Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to Sho-Kah-Wa just after midnight Saturday on a report that tribal police had detained two subjects possessing a controlled substance, the report stated.

Tribal police told deputies arriving at the scene that a female subject – who had left the casino to use the phone – told them she had just purchased suspected methamphetamine from the men, who were sitting in the casino's parking lot, according to the report.

The woman turned over the drugs to tribal police, the report noted, saying she had paid $40 for the substance.

Checking the parking lot, tribal police located Brackett and Feeney, detained them and called the sheriff's office, the report stated.

Deputies interviewed the suspects, who denied any wrong doing and requested to speak to an attorney, according to the sheriff's office.

Both men were arrested for sales of a controlled substance (methamphetamine) and later transported and booked into the Mendocino County Jail, with bail for each set at $15,000, according to the report.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

A Solares House Moving truck tows the Ely Stage Stop toward its new location. Photo by Elizabeth Larson.

KELSEYVILLE – After weeks of final preparations, the Ely Stage Stop was moved to its new home on Sunday.

The move was originally scheduled to take place over the next week, with the house being moved in stages across Highway 29 and then through cattle pastures and oak woodland.

However a lot of prep work completed this past week apparently allowed Solares House Moving – the Bay Area firm with the contract to complete the move – to complete the move in one day.

On Thursday the house had been moved from its original location to a staging area down toward S Bar S Ranch where it would cross the highway. A trail also was cleared across the open ground to the site of a new Ely Stage Stop museum along Soda Bay Road, which will be owned by the county but run by the Lake County Historical Society.

The work day began early on Sunday, with Caltrans closing the highway at 6 a.m. and California Highway Patrol standing by.

A Pacific Gas & Electric crew worked to raise power lines to let the house – reportedly built around 1859-1860 – pass underneath.

With the lines raised and the house hooked up to a semi towing truck, the house began to move across Highway 29 and then through the fields just before 8 a.m.

Historical Society President Randy Ridgel and wife Jackie, the group's secretary, along with Board of Directors member Kevin Engle, were on hand to witness the move, recording it with both film and photography.

The house movers stopped to build a bridge over a part of Thurston Creek and continued the move in the afternoon.

Kelly Cox, the county's chief administrative officer, watched the move throughout the day. He said the house finally moved up the hill to the museum site at about 5 p.m. after a few hours of “painstakingly slow” progress. At the final push the movers used a cable to pull the house up, inch by inch, said Cox.

County Deputy Redevelopment Director Eric Seely, who was away this week and unable to be there for the move, was given an update on the progress via cell phone, said Cox.

Seely has spent several years working to make the museum project a reality. Cox said Seely was glad to hear the house had survived the move and safely arrived at its new location.

Cox said next come the foundation, roof and siding, which will be done in stages. Seely said the work will be done in stages, as funding allows.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

A Pacific Gas & Electric crew prepared the power lines to be raised so the house could pass underneath. Photo by John Jensen.

The stage stop building, just before it began its move across the highway. Photo by John Jensen.

On Sunday, the house was towed along a dirt path cleared for the trip. Photo by Elizabeth Larson.

The Lower Lake Schoolhouse Museum's new bell tower, photographed after the construction scaffolding was taken down this week. Photo by Dwain Goforth.

THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED.

LOWER LAKE – After missing its bell tower for more than a century, the Lower Lake Schoolhouse Museum's new bell tower is finally ready.

“It's complete, we're just waiting for the contractor to pull the scaffolding down,” said Kim Clymire, director of the county's Public Services Department, said Tuesday.

Since then, the scaffolding has come down to reveal the tower, restoring the building to its original look. 

The schoolhouse was built in 1877, and originally featured a bell tower which the new tower replicates.

Then, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake hit. The quake was so powerful that it rippled northward, knocking down buildings in Lakeport. The school's bell tower also was severely damaged by the quake, Clymire said.

In about 1908, the tower was taken down, said Clymire. “The structural integrity was so compromised it was dangerous.”

At one point, the schoolhouse was in danger of being torn down. But the efforts of John and Jane Weaver and the Lower Lake Schoolhouse Preservation Committee stepped in, along with the county, to keep the historic building, said Clymire.

And one of the goals was to restore the building's original look, which included the bell tower, said Clymire.

The $400,000 project was funded by a one-time allocation from the county's general fund, said Clymire. The contract went to Middletown contractor R&C Construction.

The contractor started building about six months ago, said Clymire, and had 90 days to complete the tower, with time out for inspections and concrete drying.

The tower measures 10 feet by 10 feet and is 70 feet tall, said Clymire. It consists of a steel frame with stucco siding and a metal roof.

Its base contains 80 yards of concrete, he added. A membrane was placed between the tower, which is earthquake proof, and the museum, which has yet to be retrofitted for earthquake safety.

The museum's earthquake retrofit is estimated to cost about $1.2 million, said Clymire. The county is working with Congressman Mike Thompson to find the funding for that project.

Over the years, the schoolhouse preservation committee has raised money for projects such as a new restroom facility, which was added three years ago, also by R&C Construction, said Clymire. The committee also held a fundraiser to add an elevator shaft several years ago.

The committee plans to replace the insulation in the ceiling's attic, but first they have to finish sealing up the building to keep bats out, said Clymire.

The bats are in the attics and in the second floor walls, with the occasional bat making appearances during theater productions that are held in the Weaver Auditorium, said Clymire. Bat houses have been installed behind the museum and the bats are starting to make their home there rather than the museum.

Clymire said an an official bell ringing ceremony is tentatively planned for September.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

A 1902 picture of the school from a historic plaque at the museum grounds. The schoolhouses' original bell tower was damaged in the 1906 earthquake and taken down two years later. Photo of plaque by Elizabeth Larson.

LOWER LAKE – With its wells running low, the Lower Lake County Water Works board held a public hearing Monday night to discuss an urgency ordinance to impose emergency conservation restrictions.

The meeting, which lasted more than two hours in Lower Lake's Brick Hall, was at times contentious, as district customers voiced their frustration over issues ranging from what they perceived as the district's failure to plan for the future to wondering why they hadn't heard about the issue sooner.

More than 30 district customers attended, along with Supervisor Ed Robey and County Counsel Anita Grant, who also acts as counsel for the district.

District Board Chair Frank Haas explained that the meeting was held to discuss the four-page conservation ordinance.

In the form handed out Monday, the ordinance suggests prohibiting all landscape and outdoor water usage, putting fines in place for overuse, cutting off service in cases where overuse continues, preventing new service connections and cutting off customers from outside of the district.

Haas, however, conceded that the ordinance was a “boiler plate,” and would be changed before the board accepts it, likely at a yet-to-be-scheduled meeting in early August.

District General Manager Al Tubbs explained that due to less rain this past year, the wells are down. The district's pumps are going 24 hours a day, but still can't fill the district's pumps, he said.

Tubbs said if the district's customers can't start conserving by 15 to 20 percent of the 560,000 gallons the district pumps each day, he's concerned that the district will be in desperate straights.

The situation became critical in early June. At that time Tubbs went to the board to notify them that the district's pumps were having to run much longer because of lower water levels, as Lake County News previously reported.

The board decided to shut down a standpipe on Morgan Valley Road that 12 Morgan Valley families – who are outside of the district's bounds – use to supply potable water to their homes because of their own low or dry wells.

After the families appealed to the district, the board held a special meeting where it decided to compromise. It cut off commercial trucks using the potable water to spray down construction sites and allowed the Morgan Valley families to continue using the pipe through July 31.

Tubbs admitted Monday, “The standpipe is a very, very minuscule amount of water.”

The consensus from district customers Monday was that the families who use the standpipe, despite being technically outside of the district, are customers, and should not be cut off. But Grant said that the district's ability to sell water to out-of-district customers is defined by California water law.

“State law speaks particularly to the idea of users outside the district,” she said.

The district must define its water needs and then, if there is a surplus, the standpipe use for outside district users can continue.

But Tubbs did not have any hard numbers of what would amount to a surplus. The board did say, however, that the standpipe users would continue to be supplied for at least another month.

Grant said the board couldn't discuss the out-of-district users formally because the item wasn't on the meeting's agenda.

She also surprised some audience members by saying that, in an emergency, the district could cut off water to certain customers if it deemed it necessary. “The ramifications for these things can be quite dire.”

Tubbs handed out information about the level of water use over the last four years.

On a daily basis in July 2003, the district pumped 393,335 gallons of water, Tubbs reported. This past month, it pumped 584,912 gallons on a daily basis, an increase of nearly 50 percent. Overall the district serves close to 900 households.

Tubbs neither explained the reason for the increase in usage nor provided data on new hookups to account for the increase.

When questioned about plans for the future, Tubbs said the district is in the process of creating a rate structure to penalize overuse, and that he's going to meet with the Konocti water district in August to ask for an emergency system tie-in.

He said he also would like to put in a $500,000 surface water treatment system so they could purchase surface water from Cache Creek from Yolo County, but that he has thus far been unsuccessful in obtaining grant funding. Robey said he would try to help Tubbs find the money.

Several audience members suggested they would be willing to pay more money now against a loan for the treatment system in order to address the district's water shortage.

Robey told the district board that he believed the ordinance stipulations against outdoor water use and accompanying penalties would be hard to enforce. He did suggest adding surcharges for overuse and putting a temporary stop to hookups to the system, which would demonstrate to the Konocti water district that they were serious about finding solutions.

He added that water conservation doesn't need to be painful. “It's possible to conserve water without suffering very much.”

C.J. LeBrun said she was upset that the district was only now telling customers about its water problems. Haas said the board itself only found out in June about the problems, when Tubbs notified board members.

By the end of the meeting, frustration and tempers had subsided, with customers asking for guidance on conservation.

Carl Cunningham, one of the Morgan Valley out-of-district customers, summed up the district's situation this way: “It's not an emergency, it's a matter of growth.”

He said he and other customers want to help the district improve, and are looking for ways to help in ways that include conservation and finding agencies to support system upgrades and expansion.

Another Morgan Valley resident, Roger Lipman, added “The reality is, the whole district has to conserve.”

The district board moved to hold over approval of the ordinance until it has time to update it with input from the meeting.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

The third Bartlett Springs Resort lodge, pictured May 6, 2007. This lodge was built after its predecessor blew down in a 1988 windstorm. The lodge was destroyed by a fire Saturday. Photo by Elizabeth Larson.

BARTLETT SPRINGS – This weekend, two local buildings with important connections to the county's past met very different fates.

On Sunday, the Ely Stage Stop began its move to a new museum location. A day earlier, the reconstructed Bartlett Springs Resort lodge was burned to the ground.

“It's completely gone,” said Zane Gray, the resort's caretaker since 1982, of the main lodge building.

The fire was reported Saturday afternoon, said Gray. On Sunday, he went to survey the damage, which included five acres of brush land and the building.

A US Forest Service investigator is working to determine the fire's cause, Gray said. The Mendocino National Forest office in Willows couldn't be reached over the weekend for comment.

However, Gray said he believes it was arson, saying that fire officials told him Sunday that the fire appears to have started in the lodge building.

“It couldn't have started by itself,” he maintained, explaining that the propane tanks were removed several years ago, and the electricity was turned off.

“Somebody had to match it, that's all,” he said.

The lodge building that burned Saturday was located at the site of the resort's original lodge, which burned down in 1934. It was rebuilt, with that incarnation of the lodge blowing down in a windstorm in 1988, said Gray.

“I had the building all totally rebuilt in 1989,” said Gray. “It cost the company $171,000 at that time to do the upgrade on it.”

The nearby gazebo, said Gray, was spared in Saturday's fire. “The fire burned right to it but never touched it.”

Gray said he rebuilt the gazebo in 1985, installing new timbers and lumber in an attempt to put it back the way it was at the turn of the 20^th century.

The Bartlett Springs Resort's history stretches back to the 1870s, after a mineral spring was discovered there by Napa resident Greene Bartlett during a camping trip, according to The Bartlett Springs Area: Past & Present, written in 2005 by Upper Lake resident Michelle Wells.

Bartlett, who suffered from rheumatism, believed in the springs' healing abilities, Wells' history reports, so he filed a claim for the 160 acres around the spring.

A resort would later be built there, Wells wrote, that included three hotels, camping areas, two stores, mineral steam baths, a bottling facility, a concert hall, stores, a doctor's office and numerous recreational activities – swimming, golf, croquet, tennis, riding, bowling and more.

A Justice of the Peace and constable even were stationed at the resort, Wells wrote, explaining, “because it was so isolated it became more like its own little town as well.”

Known by friends and neighbors as “the mayor of Bartlett Springs,” Gray, who will be 80 in September, has cared for the 1,990-acre property for the last 25 years.

A self-described “pretty tough old man,” Gray is a World War II veteran who moved to Lake County in 1978 with his wife, Frances.

During the time Gray has acted as caretaker, the resort has changed hands a few times, purchased by the French water bottling company Vittel in 1984, who later sold the property to Nestle in 1993. The Vittel bottling plant was later sold separately, and is today the home of Tulip Hill Winery in Nice.

Gray has worked hard over the years to preserve and improve the remaining resort buildings.

The resort suffered damage in the 1996 Fork Fire, said Gray. The two-week Fork Fire reportedly burned 83,000 acres in the Mendocino National Forest and on private property, destroying 11 structures.

Of those structures destroyed, one was a small second house on Gray's 12-acre property near the resort.

A member of the Northshore Fire Protection District, Gray helped fight the Fork Fire and tried to protect the resort then as well.

“We were able to save the lodge at that time and all of the buildings, except for two of the old cabins that were from the 1890s era, and I had just restored them,” he said.

In recent years, despite his care, Gray has been fighting a losing battle against vandals intent on destroying the resort buildings.

Vandalism has been going on in Bartlett Springs “nearly forever,” he said, adding, “It's picked up in the last two years.”

He's found a lot of people on the property – mostly young people, he added – and despite chasing them off the problems have continued.

A visit this reporter made to the lodge in May – granted access by Gray – revealed windows, walls bashed in, bullet holes, kicked in doors and evidence of parties, including trash and beer bottles.

There have also been bouts of arson in the area, said Gray, with a “firebug” around caught there a few years ago after setting some fires.

Gray said he notified Nestle of the building's destruction, and hasn't received word what the company might do. He said he doesn't think that they will rebuild the lodge.

Editor's note: Zane Gray is the great-uncle of Lake County News Editor Elizabeth Larson.

{mos_sb_discuss:2}

The historic Bartlett Springs Resort gazebo, restored in 1985 by caretaker Zane Gray, pictured on May 6, 2007. The gazebo escaped the fire that burned the resort's lodge on Saturday. Photo by Elizabeth Larson.