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LAKEPORT – Officials have reported that an inquest into the death of a Nice man has found he was the victim of a homicide.
Paul “Joe” Womachka, 39, of Nice was found in his submerged Hey Taxi minivan in the Konocti Vista Casino marina last Friday afternoon. He'd been reported missing two days earlier when he didn't return from an early morning taxi run to Robinson Rancheria Bingo & Casino.
Lake County Sheriff Rod Mitchell confirmed earlier this week that his office was investigating Womachka's death as a homicide, even before the results of Tuesday's autopsy were made public.
Lt. Cecil Brown, the sheriff's office press officer, said earlier Tuesday that three sheriff's detectives were to be present for the autopsy in order to report back immediately on the findings.
Late Tuesday, an official sheriff's office statement on the autopsy results that was to be released to all area media was, inexplicably, not made available to Lake County News or posted on the sheriff's Web site for public viewing.
As of Wednesday night, Lake County News had still not seen the release, and the sheriff's office was unable to explain the oversight.
However, Mitchell was contacted Wednesday morning, and he confirmed the homicide conclusion.
“We are confirming the manner of death as homicide but we are not yet releasing the cause of death,” Mitchell said.
“We are better able to prioritize investigative leads when those leads contain information consistent with what we know but have not yet made public,” he said.
“We are actively working many different leads and seeking out additional sources of information,” Mitchell added.
The man Womachka was called to give a ride to early Wednesday, Morgan Matthew Jack, 30, is in the Lake County Jail on a parole violation. He was arrested June 29 by Det. Corey Paulich, one of the sheriff's office's key homicide investigators, just hours after Womachka's body was found.
One of many questions in the case is why Womachka took Jack to Lakeport in the first place.
The sheriff's office reported this week that Womachka had been called to give Jack a ride to his home at Big Valley Rancheria in Lakeport from Robinson Rancheria.
However, on his booking sheet, Jack's home is listed as Nice. When asked about this discrepancy, Brown said the Nice address would have come from information Jack gave to officials at the jail during his booking.
Jack remains in jail on a no-bail parole hold. Officials said he has been interviewed as part of the homicide investigation.
Brown said Jack was known to sheriff's officials, having spent time in the jail on and off over the last few years.
Mitchell urged anyone with information to call the sheriff's office at 262-4200 and ask to speak to Det. Corey Paulich or Det. Brian Kenner.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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VALLEJO – A U.S. Fish & Wildlife official told a congressional panel on Monday that an investigation is under way into whether a Department of Interior official used political influence to manipulate scientific evidence that forms the basis of the Bay-Delta's management.
Steve Thompson, manager of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife's California/Nevada Operations Office – which is part of the US Department of the Interior – gave that testimony during a hearing by the House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Water and Power.
During a question-and-answer session, Rep. Mike Thompson – who was invited to sit as a guest member of the subcommittee – asked Steve Thompson several pointed questions about political influence on the science used to make policy decisions regarding endangered species.
In the Bay-Delta, the delta smelt has become a focus of concern. Considered a species that is an indicator of the delta's overall health, during the past two years the smelt's population has begun to crash.
Thompson and 35 other members of Congress from California and Oregon last week called for hearings into Vice President Dick Cheney's part in an illegal water diversion that killed an estimated 70,000 salmon in the Klamath River.
Referencing the Klamath investigation, Mike Thompson asked Steve Thompson if his agency had been similarly pressured to change science based on politics.
The exchange went like this.
Mike Thompson: Have there been any communications between the White House and interior on the issue of science in the delta and water flows?
Steve Thompson: Between the White House and Interior? Not that I'm aware of.
Mike Thompson: That sounds like you're trying to split hairs. Has there been some political influence that has been focused towards you folks and what we should be doing there?
Steve Thompson: I get political influence from everyone, Congressman. If you're asking …
Mike Thompson: Steve, we go back a long time, OK?
Steve Thompson: Yes.
Mike Thompson: You know what I'm getting at, and you know what happened in the Klamath and you know the direct influence that the White house exerted in order to get their water policy put in place. Has there been anything similar to that in regard to the delta?
Steve Thompson: Not similar to Klamath but we have had interests from the assistant secretary's office on a regular basis on delta smelt.
Mike Thompson: And what sort of influence is that? Has there been a direction that they want, an outcome that they want to see and they're hoping to influence scientific decisions, or even, not just scientific maybe avoidance of the law as it pertains to the endangered species act?
Steve Thompson: That currently is under an active IG (Inspector General) investigation and it would be inappropriate to talk about it at this time.
Mike Thompson: I yield to Mr. Miller.
Rep. George Miller (also sitting on the committee): The assistant secretary there, you're referring to whom?
Steve Thompson: Deputy assistant secretary who is no longer there would be Julie MacDonald.
At that statement, an audible gasp rippled through the gallery of about 100 environmentalists, government officials, interested members of the public and media.
A Bush appointee, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Julie MacDonald resigned April 30 after an Inspector General's investigation found that she had terrorized and bullied Fish & Wildlife staff, interfered with science and violated the Endangered Species Act, according to a report from the Center for Biological Diversity, which helped unearth some of MacDonald's activities.
A second Inspector General's investigation is under way into MacDonald's role in the delta, Steve Thompson said, a fact which prevented him from further discussing the matter.
Miller asked Steve Thompson how they could guarantee that more science wouldn't be compromised in favor of politics in the future.
Steve Thompson told the panel that he's working with his project leaders to identify areas of political interference, and had assured his staff that they can move ahead without fear of further political influence.
"This is exactly the type of situation we are trying to avoid," Congressman Thompson said after the hearing. "We learned the hard way how political manipulation can impact an ecosystem on the Klamath River; when politics trumped science and 80,000 salmon were killed, closing down the entire commercial salmon fishing season to California and Oregon last year."
Last month, eight members of Congress from the Bay Area – including Reps. Mike Thompson and George Miller (D-Martinez) – called for the hearing to explore issues with the Bay-Delta, which has become a crisis point in the state's water supply.
Subcommittee Chair Rep. Grace F. Napolitano (D-Norwalk) responded and in three weeks put together the hearing, which was titled "Extinction is not a Sustainable Water Policy: The Bay-Delta Crisis and the Implications for California Water Management."
Napolitano said no "colleagues from the minority" – i.e., the Republicans – participated in the hearing, despite her calls to Republican members. She said the Republicans aren't happy about the hearing, and said later in the meeting that they had accused her of holding a "dog and pony show."
"We were hoping they would be able to join us and work with us on this issue,” she said at the hearing's beginning.
What the Bay-Delta means to Lake County
In case you're wondering just what the Bay-Delta has to do with Lake County, you might be surprised to find out that it's actually closely linked.
The San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, also known as the Bay-Delta, is an expansive inland river delta in Northern California. It is formed at the western edge of the Central Valley by the Sacramento River at its confluence with the San Joaquin River just east of where the river enters Suisun Bay.
The Bay Delta is the largest estuary on the West Coast, covering 738,000 acres of land interlaced with hundreds of miles of waterways. Much of the land is below sea level and relies on more than 1,000 miles of levees for protection against flooding.
Clear Lake drains into Cache Creek. Both Cache and Putah creeks drain into the Yolo Bypass basin in the Sacramento Valley, which in turn drains into the Bay-Delta. A 2002 report on the Cache Creek Watershed states, “Mercury from Cache Creek Watershed appears to be a major source of mercury entering the Delta.”
The state's Department of Water Resources reports that 25 million Californians – from the south Bay Area to Southern California – get water from the Bay-Delta, for drinking water and other household uses, and for agriculture.
Since World War II, water exports from the Bay-Delta have continued to expand to meet the needs of California's growing population, said former state Assemblyman Phil Isenberg, who now chair's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, at the Monday hearing in Vallejo.
Water is exported from the Bay-Delta by the State Water Project, operated by the Department of Water Resources, and the Central Valley Project, operated by the federal Bureau of Reclamation.
Those projects' pumping stations have been held responsible by many environmental groups for the collapse of delta smelt populations.
The delta smelt is found only in the Bay-Delta. This spring, biologists began noting record low levels of juvenile smelt. Thousands have been killed in the pumps, which have led to lawsuits against both federal and state agencies.
On May 31, the Department of Water Resources shut down their pumping for a 10-day stretch because juvenile delta smelt coming into the delta for the first time were being killed in the pumps. The Bureau of Reclamation also curtailed pumping, although both have now returned to more normal pumping levels.
Of the original 29 indigenous fish species in the Bay-Delta, 12 have either been entirely eliminated or are currently threatened with extinction, according to a report by Congressman Mike Thompson's office. Once one of the most common and abundant of the pelagic, or oceanic, fishes in the delta, the delta smelt population is estimated to have declined approximately 90 percent in the last 20 years.
"If there really is an Inspector General's investigation going on, it calls into question the data being used for future delta management," said Thompson. "As a government, we need to work together to fix the Delta's deteriorating levees, recover its endangered species and provide safe drinking water.”
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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NICE – Fireworks – both the professional and safe and sane kinds – caused two separate, small fires at Robinson Rancheria Monday night.
Robinson Rancheria was putting on its annual fireworks display Monday at dusk, with the fireworks provided by a pyrotechnic company.
Northshore Fire Protection Chief Jim Robbins said Tuesday that the fireworks were shot off from a green, marshy area across the highway from the casino, beginning at about 9:30 p.m.
“Everything was fine until about a third of the way through the show,” said Robbins.
At that point, which Robbins estimated was about 9:45 p.m., the wind shifted, and started coming from the west.
The result was that a small fire ignited on a hilltop to the east of where the fireworks were being ignited. Robbins said it burned about an acre and a half.
Getting the three fire units to the blaze was a difficulty, said Robbins, with hundreds of cars blocking the way.
The fire, said Robbins, spread and scared people, many of whom are thinking still of the recent Tahoe fire. “It looked worse that what it was,” Robbins said of Robinson's fire.
Afterward, with additional units on scene, an estimated 1,000 people waiting for a show and $16,000 in unused fireworks, Robbins said he made the decision to let the show go on.
He reported that the professional fireworks technician said he had worked with fireworks for 27 years and had never had anything like this happen before.
Robbins said he intends to work with the rancheria next year to come up with some additional plans to avoid fire, including mowing down grass in the area. “I'd rather work with hem and mitigate the problem,” he said.
Another, separate fire broke out about 1 a.m. in a manzanita tree on Flicker Circle near Pomo Way, at the rancheria entrance, said Robbins.
That fire burned only a small patch of ground, less than 10 feet by 10 feet, said Robbins. Firefighters found the cause at the scene – burned safe and sane fireworks.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED.
LAKEPORT – A Tuesday morning report from sheriff's officials sheds more light on the case of a Nice man found dead in his taxi last week, and notes that one of the people who last saw Womachka alive is now in jail on a parole violation.
Lt. Cecil Brown of the Lake County Sheriff's Office issued a report that stated that the death of Paul “Joe” Womachka, 39, of Nice, is being treated as a “criminal homicide.”
Womachka's ex-wife and business partner, Erica Womachka, reported him missing last Wednesday after he didn't return from a run for their Hey Taxi business, as Lake County News previously reported.
Brown's report explained that Womachka had received a call from Robinson Rancheria at about midnight early on Wednesday morning to drive Morgan Matthew Jack, 30, to his home at Big Valley Rancheria in Lakeport.
Two days later, at 3 p.m. Friday, sheriff's deputies received a call about a vehicle under water in the Big Valley Rancheria marina, Brown reported. Divers from the North Shore Dive Team responded to the scene, where they recovered the van and discovered Womachka's body inside.
Brown said sheriff's investigators have interviewed Jack about his contact with Womachka early on Wednesday as part of the homicide investigation.
Sheriff's Det. Corey Paulich arrested Jack, who works as a handyman, for a felony parole violation Friday evening, just hours after Womachka's body was found, according to jail records. He remains in jail on a no-bail hold.
Jack was known to sheriff's officials, said Brown, and had been in and out of the Lake County Jail in recent years.
A call to the California Department of Corrections office in Ukiah to ask about Jack's parole was not returned Tuesday.
Sheriff Rod Mitchell reported on Monday that Womachka's autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday. There's no word yet on when the results of the inquest will be ready.
Anyone with information regarding the Womachka case is asked to call Det. Nicole Costanza, 262-4236.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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