In a decision announced Dec. 15, the CPUC levied a $1 million fine on San Dimas-based Golden State Water Co. for not informing the commission of the company’s internal control failures and the impact of those failures on its rates.

The fine is to be paid by Golden State Water shareholders to the state’s general fund, the CPUC reported.

The CPUC also ordered Golden State Water to refund $9.5 million in refunds to customers in its Clear Lake service area along with customers in Arden Cordova, Bay Point, Los Osos, Ojai, Santa Maria and Simi Valley over the next three years.

According to the 16-page agreement, Golden State Water’s 2,200 Clearlake customers are to see refunds totaling $1,437,211 over the next one to three years.

In addition, the commission is requiring Golden State Water to reduce its plant costs by $2.5 million, which it said will result in lower future rates and reduce other amounts owed by certain customers by $500,000.

CPUC President Michael R. Peevey said the settlement followed “a robust investigation into allegations that Golden State Water did not exercise reasonable management oversight and failed to apply adequate internal controls over its procurement for plant improvements."

Golden State Water released a statement in which it said the agreement it reached with the CPUC settled an eight-year-old contracting matter which began after two Northern California-based Golden State Water executives violated internal bidding procedures for work – much of it dating back to the 1990s – involving one contractor.

The company said in its statement that it disputed many of the conclusions reached by commission staff but that it agreed to settle the case “to avoid the uncertainty of a costly legal battle.”

Golden State Water “had long ago put in place safeguards to ensure that such a problem would not happen again,” said Robert Sprowls, chief executive officer and president of American States Water Co. and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Golden State Water Co.

“I am pleased that we were able to reach an agreement that is good for all parties,” Sprowls said. “The settlement reflects our commitment to our customers, who will be the greatest beneficiaries of this agreement, and our recognition of the importance of maintaining positive relations with the CPUC.”

Golden State Water said that when the contracting problem surfaced in 2003, it launched a thorough investigation which led to the firing of the two executives alleged to be responsible for the violations.

The company also said it severed all ties with the contractor that it found to be at fault, and hired independent experts to evaluate both the financial issues and the quality of the work.

Golden State Water said it conducted a top to bottom review of its policies and procedures, putting in place additional safeguards – among them, a more rigorous employee code of conduct, ethics training, a confidential employee hotline and an anti-fraud committee reporting directly to the board of directors – in order to prevent similar problems from happening again.

The CPUC said it will conduct three additional independent audits and require Golden State Water's management to report on internal controls related to the company's procurement practices over the next 10 years.

Those audits will coincide with Golden State Water’s next two general rate cases, the first of which is anticipated to be filed for 2016, to seek rate increases, according to the agreement.

Golden State Water reported that it has agreed to participate in the audits.

“The commission directed Golden State to view the settlement as a fresh start to vigorously enforce strong and effective internal controls; we understand this direction and will comply,” said Sprowls.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Google+, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .

121511 CPUC and Golden State Water Co. Agreement

Black-eyed peas are a favorite in the southern U.S., especially on New Year's Day, when they're believed to bring good luck. Photo by Esther Oertel.

Happy New Year and pass the black-eyed peas, please!

These happy little bi-colored legumes, also called cowpeas, field peas, crowder peas or Southern peas, are said to bring good luck in the New Year.

When combined with leafy vegetables such as collards or kale, which represent the green of money, then a financial boon is said to be in store.

Black-eyed peas are actually one of four recognized cultivated subspecies of the cowpea, a crop prevalent in Africa.

Ancient ancestors were inconspicuous, low-lying plants that grew among dusty rocks in the Sahel of north central Africa, a transitional region that lies between the Sahara desert to the north and savannahs to the south.

Cowpeas have been cultivated throughout the African continent for thousands of years and are an important resource there, both as a staple food and a source of revenue for countless people that work small farms.

Two hundred million men, women and children in Africa consume cowpeas often, even daily when they’re available. Africa’s hot, arid climate is a perfect environment for this crop, which thrives in such conditions.

Cowpeas, black-eyed peas and the like are the dried seeds of long, slender green pods that look much like one of their relatives, Asian yardlong beans. The seeds are pea-like, on the small side when compared to other dried beans. This, along with the characteristic black spot on the center of each bean, provides the source of their moniker.

After centuries of cultivation in Africa, cowpeas became popular in many regions of Asia. They were brought across the Atlantic to the Caribbean basin in the holds of slave ships in the 17th century. There are records of their use in Jamaica as early as 1675, in Florida by 1700, and in North Carolina by 1714.

These plants were long considered “poor man’s food” and looked upon as cattle fodder by those with land throughout the Eastern seaboard, who preferred the English pea. George Washington, for example, imported 40 bushels of seed from Jamaica to plant for his livestock in 1797.

Farmers in the southern U.S., however, embraced the black-eyed pea as a food source. It grew well in the heat of the south, unlike the cool weather English pea.

Many varieties were developed, some known only within a particular region. One such variety was the Clay pea carried by Confederate soldiers as a source of protein. Many who reenact the history of the Civil War grow the Clay pea to provide an authentic field provision.

Hoppin’ John, a favorite southern dish made with black-eyed peas and greens (often collards), is traditionally served there on New Year’s Day as a harbinger of luck and prosperity. Southerners are not the only ones who see black-eyed peas as being lucky, however.

They’re eaten by Sephardic and Israeli Jews on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, as a good luck tradition. This practice is recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, compiled in 500 A.D., which says, "… now that you have established that good-luck symbols avail, you should make it a habit to see qara (bottle gourd), rubiya (black-eyed peas), kartei (leeks), silka (either beets or spinach), and tamrei (dates) on your table on the New Year."

Sephardic Jews immigrated to Georgia in the 1730s and have lived there continuously since. Some say their custom of eating black-eyed peas at the New Year was adopted by non-Jews in the South. Others point to the Civil War, when the town of Vicksburg, Mississippi ran out of food. A store of black-eyed peas was found, and they’ve been considered lucky ever since.

A variety of dishes around the world are made with black-eyed peas, including Texas caviar, which is made by marinating them for a relish-like salad.

Fritters are made from them in Colombia; they’re mashed and fried to make akkra in West Africa and the Caribbean; in Indonesia they’re used for curry dishes; they’re made into a stew called daal in northern India and Pakistan; in Vietnam they’re used in a dessert with sticky rice and coconut milk; and in Portugal, they’re served as a side dish with boiled cod and potatoes, just to name a few uses in world cuisine.

The tender leaves of the plant are nutritious as well; they contain high stores of good quality protein. In fact, NASA is so impressed with the nutritional potential of the leaves that they’ve considered growing cowpeas in future space stations as food for astronauts.

In some areas of Africa, cowpeas are cooked as green pods, and the swollen beans consumed. These fresh cowpea pods, together with fresh green leaves, are the earliest foods available to harvest, another reason they’re a live-saving crop there.

When planted, the cowpea family gives copious amounts of nitrogen to the soil, which makes them a wonderful crop to plant in advance of vegetables that use much of it, such as corn.

These small beans are amazingly nutritious, with 25 percent of calories in the form of protein. They’re also rich in digestible carbohydrate. When combined with grain, a meal with balanced protein is achieved, which makes the southern tradition of serving them with cornbread all the more appealing.

Today’s recipe is – of course! – my version of Hoppin’ John. Be sure to serve it with plenty of cornbread.

If you don’t have time to soak the beans overnight, put them in a pot with the water, bring it to a boil, then turn off the heat and let the beans sit for an hour. Drain the water and cook as directed below. You can also substitute frozen or canned peas.

If desired, add a ham hock to the pot with the beans as you cook them.

Enjoy! And best wishes for a happy, healthy 2012.

Hoppin’ John

2 cups dried black-eyed peas

6 cups water

1 medium white or yellow onion, chopped

Several sprigs fresh thyme (tied with kitchen string for use as a bouquet garni or the chopped leaves of the sprigs)

2 bay leaves

1 medium green or red bell pepper, seeded and chopped

1 large bunch kale, stems removed and chopped

1 cup long-grain rice

2 medium cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon smoked paprika

Leaves from 3 or 4 sprigs thyme leaves (1 tablespoon; may substitute 1 teaspoon dried thyme)

Salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste

Tabasco sauce (optional)

Rinse black-eyed peas and soak in water to cover for six hours or overnight. Drain peas and transfer to a large soup pot.

Add water, onions, kale, garlic, thyme, and bay leaves. Simmer until beans are tender but still whole, about 45 minutes.

Add rice, green or red pepper, paprika, salt, and pepper. Cover and simmer until rice is tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.

If desired, season with Tabasco sauce. Remove thyme (if in bouquet garni) and bay leaves before serving. Ladle into bowls and enjoy with cornbread.

Makes four servings.

Recipe by Esther Oertel.

Esther Oertel, a freelance writer, cooking teacher, and speaker, is passionate about local produce and all foods in the vegetable kingdom. She welcomes your questions and comments and may be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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This image of the asteroid Vesta, calculated from a shape model, shows a tilted view of the topography of the south polar region. The image has a resolution of about 1,000 feet per pixel, and the vertical scale is 1.5 times that of the horizontal scale. This perspective shows the topography, but removes the overall curvature of Vesta, as if the giant asteroid were flat and not rounded. An observer on Vesta would not have a view like this, because the distant features would disappear over the curvature of the horizon. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI.

When NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around giant asteroid Vesta in July, scientists fully expected the probe to reveal some surprising sights.

But no one expected a 13-mile high mountain, two and a half times higher than Mount Everest, to be one of them.

The existence of this towering peak could solve a longstanding mystery: How did so many pieces of Vesta end up right here on our own planet?

For many years, researchers have been collecting Vesta meteorites from "fall sites" around the world. The rocks' chemical fingerprints leave little doubt that they came from the giant asteroid.

Earth has been peppered by so many fragments of Vesta that people have actually witnessed fireballs caused by the meteoroids tearing through our atmosphere.

Recent examples include falls near the African village of Bilanga Yanga in October 1999 and outside Millbillillie, Australia, in October 1960.

"Those meteorites just might be pieces of the basin excavated when Vesta's giant mountain formed," says Dawn PI Chris Russell of UCLA.

Russell believes the mountain was created by a 'big bad impact' with a smaller body; material displaced in the smashup rebounded and expanded upward to form a towering peak.

The same tremendous collision that created the mountain might have hurled splinters of Vesta toward Earth.

"Some of the meteorites in our museums and labs," he said, "could be fragments of Vesta formed in the impact -- pieces of the same stuff the mountain itself is made of."

To confirm the theory, Dawn's science team will try to prove that Vesta's meteorites came from the mountain's vicinity. It's a "match game" involving both age and chemistry.

"Vesta formed at the dawn of the solar system," said Russell. "Billions of years of collisions with other space rocks have given it a densely cratered surface."

The surface around the mountain, however, is tellingly smooth. Russell believes the impact wiped out the entire history of cratering in the vicinity.

By counting craters that have accumulated since then, researchers can estimate the age of the landscape.

"In this way we can figure out the approximate age of the mountain's surface,” Russell said. “Using radioactive dating, we can also tell when the meteorites were 'liberated' from Vesta. A match between those dates would be compelling evidence of a meteorite-mountain connection."

For more proof, the scientists will compare the meteorites' chemical makeup to that of the mountain area.

"Vesta is intrinsically but subtly colorful,” Russell explained. “Dawn's sensors can detect slight color variations in Vesta's minerals, so we can map regions of chemicals and minerals that have emerged on the surface. Then we'll compare these colors to those of the meteorites."

Could an impact on Vesta really fill so many museum display cases on Earth? Stay tuned for answers.

Dauna Coulter works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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Cross-section of the south polar mountain on Vesta with the cross sections of Olympus Mons on Mars, the largest mountain in the solar system, and the Big lsland of Hawaii as measured from the floor of the Pacific, the largest mountain on Earth. These latter two mountains are both shield volcanoes.Credit: Russell et. al.

The effort is part of the Mendocino National Forest Grow-site Reclamation Project, which is supported, in part, by county funding granted at the recommendation of the Lake County Fish and Wildlife Advisory Committee and in cooperation with the High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew.

Abandoned illegal marijuana grow sites on public lands have caused major devastation to the environment. When a grow site is discovered by law enforcement, they remove the marijuana and any weapons, but the sites are left primarily intact because of a lack of manpower to do a full cleanup.

These sites often include miles of irrigation tubing, pesticides, piles of trash, water diversions, temporary living quarters and erosion.

The sites also can be a major impediment in developing safe trails and the public's unrestricted use of natural resources and public lands, according to the Konocti Regional Trail Team.

In order to fill this void and help restore public lands back to their natural state, the Mendocino National Forest Grow-site Reclamation Project, coordinated by Bruce Hilbach, has been organizing cleanups in Mendocino County.

The group recently announced planned operation dates for cleaning up marijuana grow sites in the Upper Lake District of the Mendocino National Forest.

All volunteer groups are escorted and assisted by at least one law enforcement official at all times. Volunteer safety is of the highest priority.

Volunteers will cleanup and bag trash and debris from the grow sites and leave it onsite. The Mendocino National Forest Rangers will coordinate pickup of the bags at a later time, often by helicopter.

Weather permitting, work will begin on Thursday, Jan. 5, with most of the action taking place from Friday, Jan. 6, through Sunday, Jan. 8. If necessary, mopup will take place on Monday, Jan. 9, Konocti Regional Trails reported.

Interested volunteers should know that some hiking off of main roads may be required, but volunteers of varied physical strength and ability are encouraged.

If you can spend some time, please contact coordinator Bruce Hilbach as soon as possible to indicate availability for any or all of those dates.

Hilbach can be reached at 707-983-6169 or send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., including your phone number so he can contact you with further details.

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The solo-vehicle crash was reported shortly before 1 a.m. in the 2800 block of Merced Street at Floyd Way in Nice, according to radio reports.

Responding to the crash were Northshore Fire Protection District firefighters and the California Highway Patrol.

Firefighters arriving at the scene reported that a 23-year-old male had gone over an embankment, finding him about 30 feet down the side.

The male crash victim was said to be bleeding from his leg. The incident commander reported from the scene that the man had suffered a moderate injury due to the crash, while the CHP reported his injuries as minor.

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Glenn Hughes, 52, was arrested early Saturday morning, according to a report from Sgt. Greg Van Patten of the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.

Just after 1 a.m. Saturday morning the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office dispatch center received a call from a person reporting a physical altercation between two adult males at the Hidden Pines Campground near the city of Fort Bragg, Van Patten reported.

Deputies were dispatched less than five minutes later and arrived at the campground at 1:15 a.m., two minutes after being dispatched, Van Patten said.

When Deputies arrived they witnessed Hughes standing over the body of an adult male who was lying on the ground unconscious, according to Van Patten.

Deputies immediately detained Hughes as an eyewitness told deputies they had seen Hughes physically beating male victim, Van Patten said.

Deputies checked the male on the ground determined he was not breathing and didn’t have a pulse. Van Patten said deputies requested an ambulance and began performing CPR on man but he was later pronounced dead at the scene.

Mendocino County Sheriff's Office detectives were called to the scene and have begun followup investigations into the incident, Van Patten said Saturday.

He said Hughes was arrested for murder and was to be booked into the Mendocino County Jail, where bail would be determined.

Van Patten said Saturday that the victim’s identity was being withheld pending the notification of his next of kin.

Anyone who may have information in regards to this incident is urged to call Det. Dustin Lorenzo at 707-961-2692.

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Artist concept of GRAIL-B performing its lunar orbit insertion burn. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The second of NASA's two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft has successfully completed its planned main engine burn and is now in lunar orbit.

Working together, GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B will study the moon as never before.

"NASA greets the new year with a new mission of exploration," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The twin GRAIL spacecraft will vastly expand our knowledge of our moon and the evolution of our own planet. We begin this year reminding people around the world that NASA does big, bold things in order to reach for new heights and reveal the unknown."

GRAIL-B achieved lunar orbit at 2:43 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday. GRAIL-A successfully completed its burn yesterday at 2 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, NASA reported.

The insertion maneuvers placed the spacecraft into a near-polar, elliptical orbit with an orbital period of approximately 11.5 hours.

Over the coming weeks, the GRAIL team will execute a series of burns with each spacecraft to reduce their orbital period to just under two hours.

At the start of the science phase in March, the two GRAILs will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 34 miles.

During GRAIL's science mission, the two spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them.

As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity caused by visible features such as mountains and craters, and masses hidden beneath the lunar surface, the distance between the two spacecraft will change slightly.

Scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the moon's gravitational field. The data will allow scientists to understand what goes on below the lunar surface.

This information will increase knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds we see today.

Each spacecraft carries a small camera called GRAIL MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) with the sole purpose of education and public outreach.

The MoonKAM program is led by Sally Ride, America's first woman in space, and her team at Sally Ride Science in collaboration with undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego.

GRAIL MoonKAM will engage middle schools across the country in the GRAIL mission and lunar exploration.

Thousands of fifth- to eighth-grade students will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego. Photos of the target areas will be sent back by the GRAIL satellites for students to study.

A student contest that began in October 2011 also will choose new names for the spacecraft. The new names are scheduled to be announced this month.

Ride and Maria Zuber, the mission's principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, chaired the final round of judging.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.

For more information about GRAIL, visit www.nasa.gov/grail. Information about MoonKAM is available online at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/grail/education.cfm.

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Sarah Riccio, 11, of Hidden Valley Lake, Calif., is visited by UPS driver Paul Murray and another UPS employee before Christmas. Murray and fellow UPS employees purchased items for Sarah and her siblings, and food for a Christmas dinner for her entire family in December 2011. Courtesy photo.

HIDDEN VALLEY LAKE, Calif. – A young girl who had heart surgery the day before Thanksgiving is on the mend and celebrated Christmas at home with her family.

Sarah Riccio, 11, got the best gift of the year when she was able to return home 24 days after open-heart surgery at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, according to family friend Carol Luis.

“This surgery saved her life and has given her another 10 years before more will need to be done,” said her mother, Suzanne Riccio. "We are extremely grateful for that."

Sarah was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which means her left ventricle is severely underdeveloped. It’s a rare congenital heart defect that led to her having her first open-heart surgery when she was two days old, with three other surgeries occurring in her first month of life, as Lake County News has reported.

Doctors reportedly told Sarah’s parents that the November surgery was high risk because the child’s right lung no longer works. They also were told to expect her to be in the hospital at least 30 days. A previous surgery had resulted in a three-month stay.

But Sarah improved ahead of schedule and got to go home to spend Christmas with her parents and two siblings, Luis said.

The Riccio family said it has been overwhelmed by the show of support from their community, friends, family and total strangers.

They offered thanks to everyone who kept Sarah in their thoughts and prayers when she needed it most.

They’re also grateful for the donations made on their daughter’s behalf.

Donations are continuing to be taken to help cover Sarah’s very expensive medical costs. Funds can be donated online at www.everribbon.com/r/sarahsfund.

The Web site said that, as of Dec. 31, $5,941.11 had been raised. The goal is $7,500.

Luis said UPS made Sarah's day when they delivered several gifts to her and her family.

UPS driver Paul Murray and several of his coworkers generously purchased items for Sarah, her siblings and food for a delicious Christmas dinner for the entire family, Luis said.

Murray, along with a fellow UPS employee, took time out of their hectic delivery day to personally deliver these gifts to Sarah and visit with the family, according to Luis.

“Helping the Riccio family has been such an amazing experience,” said Luis. “The tremendous response from our community truly made me believe that people are genuinely good."

She said that every time she received a phone call, an email or someone came to her door asking how they could help she was overwhelmed.

“I am truly grateful to everyone that helped with raising money and awareness for Sarah and her ordeal,” said Luis. “Sarah getting to be home for Christmas is the best gift ever!"

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David Phillip Clark, 48, and Stephanie Alyce Ybarra, 29, both of Middletown, Calif., were arrested on drug charges on Friday, December 30, 2011. Lake County Jail photos.

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The service of a search warrant by the Lake County Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force on Friday morning resulted in two arrests, the seizure of approximately six grams of methamphetamine and several pounds of processed marijuana.

Arrested were 48-year-old David Phillip Clark and Stephanie Alyce Ybarra, 29, both of Middletown.

On Thursday, Dec. 22, narcotics detectives secured a search warrant for Clark’s person, home and vehicle, according to Sgt. Steve Brooks.

Then on Friday, Dec. 30, at approximately 11 a.m., detectives served the warrant at Clark’s home on Santa Clara Road in Middletown.

When narcotics detectives entered the home, they detained Clark and Ybarra without incident, Brooks reported.

During a search of the home, detectives located approximately six grams of methamphetamine packaged for sales and multiple pounds of processed marijuana, which was also packaged for sales, according to Brooks. Several packages of the marijuana also were labeled with prices.

Brooks said detectives also located a glass meth pipe, digital scales and a surveillance system monitoring the front of the home.

Clark was arrested for possession of a controlled substance for sales, possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana for sales and possession of narcotics paraphernalia, Brooks said.

He reported that Ybarra was arrested for possession of a controlled substance and possession of narcotics paraphernalia.

Both were transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility and booked.

Jail records indicated Ybarra’s bail was set at $15,000, and Clark’s at $25,000. Both remained in jail overnight.

The Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force can be reached through its anonymous tip line at 707-263-3663.

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Lakeport and Kelseyville firefighters work to put out a fire at the Burger King in Lakeport, Calif., on Sunday, January 1, 2012. The fire had begun in the restaurant's hood system and spread to the attic, but Lakeport Fire Capt. Bob Ray said the building did not sustain major structural damage. Photo by Becky Hirscher.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – A hood fire has been ruled the cause of a fire on New Year’s morning at the Burger King in Lakeport.

Firefighters were dispatched to the fast food restaurant, located at 1142 Lakeport Blvd., at 10:50 a.m. Sunday, according to Lakeport Fire Capt. Bob Ray.

Lakeport Fire responded with a ladder truck and an engine, with Kelseyville Fire sending two engines on mutual aid, Ray said.

By the time firefighters arrived everyone was out of the restaurant, so Ray did not know how many employees or customers may have been in the building at the time the fire broke out.

“It originated in the hood system above the deep fat fryer,” he said of the fire’s cause.

“Their hood extinguishing system did activate and it controlled the fire. It didn’t totally put it out,” Ray added.

He said the grease fire burned hot enough and long enough that the heat radiated out from the metal hood system and into the surrounding wood framing, allowing the fire to get into the attic.

Ray said firefighters had to cut a hole in the roof around the duct system in order to access all of the fire. They also pulled down ceiling tiles from below in the kitchen.

The fire was confined to that area around the hood, with a 7 foot by 7 foot hole cut in the ceiling and roof, Ray said.

While Lakeport Fire was committed to the Burger King incident, Ray said two medical aids were reported in the city. He said the second Kelseyville engine and a Northshore Fire unit from Nice assisted with responding to those calls.

Lakeport Fire remained on scene at Burger King until approximately 11:59 a.m., Ray said.

The fire has been ruled accidental, he said.

Ray had no available estimate of damage, although he said that it would be in the thousands to make the repairs.

The fire did not damage the building’s main structure, but Ray said the hood system will have to be replaced, necessitating the restaurant’s closure for what he estimated would be more than a few days.

“There’s quite a bit to do to get it back in service,” Ray said.

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Firefighters had to cut a hole in the roof of the Burger King in Lakeport, Calif., on Sunday, January 1, 2012, in order to access a fire that spread from the hood system into the attic and roof. Photo by Becky Hirscher.

A firefighter works to put out a fire that spread from the hood system into the attic of the Burger King in Lakeport, Calif., on Sunday, January 1, 2012. Firefighters had to pull down ceiling tiles and cut a hole in the roof to put it the fire out. Photo by Becky Hirscher.

A group of community members holds an "Occupy Lakeport" event in Lakeport, Calif., in October 2011. Lake County file photo.

The Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York and spread to America’s largest cities and abroad also found support in many of California’s smaller towns and municipalities, according to researchers at the University of California, Riverside.

Occupy movements “emerged in seemingly unlikely places, demonstrating the depth of frustration that people feel about the recession and the austerity measures that have been taken by authorities,” researchers from UCR’s Transnational Social Movements Research Working Group wrote in a report issued this month.

In an ongoing study of the breadth of the protests against economic inequality, high unemployment and greed – “Diffusion of the Occupy Movement in California” – the researchers identified Occupy movements in 143 smaller California towns and cities.

Lake County’s cities and towns do not have Occupy pages; however, in late November an “Occupy Lake County” Facebook page was formed.

There also is a dedicated Web site to the local movement at www.occupylakecounty.org/, as Lake County News has reported.

“Big cities got the movement early. The spatial depth of the movement to small towns is not well-known,” said Christopher Chase-Dunn, a distinguished professor of sociology who is known internationally for his research of social movements.

People in medium and small-sized towns are occupying space, organizing events and lending their voices to the movement in their own towns, graduate student Michaela Curran-Strange added. “They are focusing on local issues as well as national and regional ones.”

“The Occupy Barstow Web site proclaimed that Barstow is ‘about as far from Wall Street as you can get.’ But the Barstow occupiers probably did not know that there were also Occupy actions in Weaverville, Idyllwild, Calistoga, El Centro and many other small California towns, even in very remote areas,” Chase-Dunn and Curran-Strange wrote in their report.

A survey of 482 incorporated towns and cities in California found that 143 of them – nearly 30 percent – had Occupy sites on Facebook between Dec. 1 and Dec. 8.

Many of the small and medium-sized towns are very active with likes, posts and events on their Facebook pages. For example, the town of Arcata has about 17,000 people and 2,950 subscriptions on their page.

A few of the medium- and small-sized towns created pages fairly early, Curran-Strange said. For example, Petaluma Occupiers created their Facebook site on Sept. 27; South Lake Tahoe and Arcata on Sept. 28; the Coachella Valley on Oct. 2; and Half Moon Bay on Oct. 5.

“When you think about the fact that Occupy Wall Street states on their website that they began on September 17th, that's pretty impressive that West Coast towns – some of them medium and small – picked up on it almost immediately,” Curran-Strange noted.

Facebook Occupy sites in California’s smaller cities were nearly evenly divided between the northern and southern halves of the state, with 70 identified north of Bakersfield and 73 south of the Kern County city.

“This was fairly unexpected,” Curran-Strange said. “Southern California is more densely populated than Northern California, with the exception of the Bay area, of course, so fewer pages were expected from Northern California.”

The north-south finding also is interesting because most people believe that the political culture of Northern California is much more Leftist than that of Southern California, Chase-Dunn and Curran-Strange wrote. “Our findings suggest that this is no longer true, at least as indicated by the propensity to establish Occupy sites.”

The two researchers found that the Occupy movement relies on social media such as Twitter and Facebook as well as public assemblies to organize, communicate, and raise awareness about growing inequalities that spawned the national movement.

“This snapshot of the Web presence of the Occupy movement shows where and the extent to which this movement diffused from its early presence in the largest cities to the smaller cities and towns of California,” Chase-Dunn and Curran-Strange explained.

Discussions on local movement Facebook pages illustrate the variety of issues that are important to local participants, ranging from student loan debt, rising tuition costs and raising taxes on the rich to corporate crime and moving toward a more democratic and sustainable economy.

Most pages have become a forum for sharing news of all kinds as well as images associated with the movement.

For example:

• A Yreka man who lost his home to foreclosure organized an Occupy group in the small Northern California town.

• Occupy Riverside activists helped an ex-Marine reoccupy the home that he and his family were evicted from as a result of foreclosure.

• Occupy Petaluma protestors successfully petitioned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to suspend evictions during the holidays.

• Ojai organizers urged participants to move their savings from accounts from large banks such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America to local banks and credit unions.

• Occupy Davis protested tactics of police who pepper-sprayed students protesting tuition increases at UC Davis.

• Occupy Redding is supporting postal workers who are protesting job cuts.

Noting that many Occupy encampments have been removed by authorities, the UCR researchers observed that events such as the crackdown in Oakland and the following one-day shut-down of the Port of Oakland “show that this movement has broad support and is capable of powerful collective action.”

California cities with Occupy pages on Facebook:

Alameda, Amador, Anaheim, Antioch, Apple Valley, Arcata, Arroyo Grande, Atascadero, Atherton, Atwater, Bakersfield, Beaumont, Berkeley, Beverly Hills, Brea, Brentwood, Burbank, Calabasas, Calistoga, Camarillo, Chico, Chula Vista, Citrus heights, Claremont, Coachella, Colton, Compton, Concord, Corona, Coronado, Costa Mesa, Covina, Cudahy, Culver City.

Danville, Davis, Delano, El Centro, Elk Grove, Encinitas, Escondido, Eureka, Fontana, Fresno, Fullerton, Gilroy, Half Moon Bay, Hayward, Healdsburg, Hemet, Hollister, Imperial, Irvine, Laguna Niguel, Lake Elsinore, Livingston, Lodi, Lompoc, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Madera, Malibu, Manteca, Martinez, Marysville, Merced, Mission Viejo, Modesto, Montclair, Monterey, Mount Shasta, Mountain View.

Napa, Novato, Oakland, Oceanside, Ojai, Ontario, Orange, Oxnard, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Palmdale, Palo Alto, Paradise, Pasadena, Perris, Petaluma, Pico Rivera, Pomona, Poway, Rancho Cucamonga, Red Bluff, Redding, Redondo Beach, Redwood City, Rialto, Richmond, Riverside, Sacramento, Salinas, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Fernando, San Francisco, San Jose, San Leandro, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo.

Santa Ana, Santa Barbara, Santa Clarita, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sierra Madre, Simi Valley, Sonoma, Sonora, South Gate, South Lake Tahoe, South San Francisco, Stockton, Sunnyvale, Tehachapi, Temecula, Thousand Oaks, Torrance, Tracy, Turlock, Ukiah, Vacaville, Vallejo, Ventura, Victorville, Visalia, Vista, Walnut Creek, Watsonville, West Hollywood, Woodland, Yuba City.

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Using a precision formation-flying technique, the twin GRAIL spacecraft will map the moon's gravity field, as depicted in this artist's rendering. Radio signals traveling between the two spacecraft provide scientists the exact measurements required as well as flow of information not interrupted when the spacecraft are at the lunar farside, not seen from Earth. The result should be the most accurate gravity map of the moon ever made. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft, on a mission to study the moon's gravitational field, are nearing their New Year's Eve and New Year's Day main-engine burns to place the duo in lunar orbit.

Named Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), the spacecraft are scheduled to be placed into orbit beginning at 1:21 p.m. Pacific Time for GRAIL-A on Saturday, Dec. 31, and 2:05 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday, Jan. 1, for GRAIL-B.

"Our team may not get to partake in a traditional New Year's celebration, but I expect seeing our two spacecraft safely in lunar orbit should give us all the excitement we need," said David Lehman, project manager for GRAIL at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

The distance from Earth to the moon is approximately 250,000 miles.

NASA's Apollo crews took about three days to travel to the moon. Launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Sept. 10, 2011, the GRAIL spacecraft are taking about 30 times that long and covering more than 2.5 million miles to get there.

This low-energy, long-duration trajectory has given mission planners and controllers more time to assess the spacecraft's health.

The path also allowed a vital component of the spacecraft's single science instrument, the Ultra Stable Oscillator, to be continuously powered for several months. This will allow it to reach a stable operating temperature long before it begins making science measurements in lunar orbit.

"This mission will rewrite the textbooks on the evolution of the moon," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. "Our two spacecraft are operating so well during their journey that we have performed a full test of our science instrument and confirmed the performance required to meet our science objectives."

During their final approaches to the moon, both orbiters move toward it from the south, flying nearly over the lunar south pole. The lunar orbit insertion burn for GRAIL-A will take approximately 40 minutes and change the spacecraft's velocity by about 427 miles per hour.

GRAIL-B's insertion burn 25 hours later will last about 39 minutes and is expected to change the probe's velocity by 430 miles per hour.

The insertion maneuvers will place each orbiter into a near-polar, elliptical orbit with a period of 11.5 hours.

Over the following weeks, the GRAIL team will execute a series of burns with each spacecraft to reduce their orbital period from 11.5 hours down to just under two hours.

At the start of the science phase in March 2012, the two GRAILs will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 34 miles.

When science collection begins, the spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them as they orbit the moon.

As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity, caused both by visible features such as mountains and craters and by masses hidden beneath the lunar surface. they will move slightly toward and away from each other.

An instrument aboard each spacecraft will measure the changes in their relative velocity very precisely, and scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the Moon's gravitational field.

The data will allow mission scientists to understand what goes on below the surface. This information will increase our knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds we see today.

For more information about GRAIL, visit www.nasa.gov/grail.

Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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