LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has several new dogs available to new homes.

Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of border collie, Chihuahua, husky, Labrador Retriever, pit bull, shepherd and terrier.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).

Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm for information on visiting or adopting.

Male pit bull

This male pit bull terrier has a short white coat.

He is in kennel No. 15, ID No. 13790.

Male pit bull terrier

This male pit bull terrier has a black coat.

He is in kennel No. 18, ID No. 13772.

Male husky

This male husky has a medium-length red and white coat.

He is in kennel No. 20, ID No. 13774.

Female Chihuahua

This female Chihuahua has a short black and brown coat.

She is in kennel No. 21, ID No. 13792.

Shepherd mix

This female shepherd mix has a brindle and white coat.

She is in kennel No. 22, ID No. 13776.

Female terrier

This female terrier has a coarse tan coat.

She is in kennel No. 23, ID No. 13784.

Female pit bull

This female pit bull has a short black and white coat.

She is in kennel No. 24, ID No. 13777.

‘Socci’

“Socci” is a female Labrador Retriever-border collie mix with a black and white coat.

She has been spayed.

She is in kennel No. 25, ID No. 4924.

Female pit bull

This female pit bull has a short black coat.

She has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 27, ID No. 13783.

Female pit bull

This female pit bull has a short blue coat.

She is in kennel No. 28, ID No. 13778.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

Best Friends Animal Society has released its 2020 pet lifesaving findings, which gives a national overview of the number of dogs and cats that enter shelters each year in the United States, and the number of dogs and cats that are leaving those shelters alive.

The year-over-year data shows that the number of dogs and cats killed annually nationally has dropped from about 733,000 in 2018 to 625,000 during 2019 (or about 1,700 killed per day). Across the U.S., about 5.4 million dogs and cats entered shelters in 2019, and 4.2 million were saved making the national save rate 79.02 percent (2018 was 76.6 percent).

“We are seeing continued momentum and progress towards the goal of ending the killing of dogs and cats in U.S. shelters by the year 2025, with the overall number of pets being killed in the U.S. continuing to go down and the number of shelters that are no kill going up,” said Julie Castle, chief executive officer, Best Friends Animal Society.

In addition, this year, Best Friends is releasing an inaugural state-by-state ranking that shows where the most dogs and cats need to be saved, and where the most dogs and cats are being killed.

Currently, the state in the country with the most shelter deaths is California, with 100,239 dogs and cats killed in 2019. Cats are getting killed in California at the rate of nearly four to every one dog, reflecting outdated laws, ordinances and road blocks in some communities that prevent the implementation of effective trap-neuter-return programs that are proven to save lives and reduce the free-roaming cat population.

Overall, California has a 76 percent save rate, with 90 percent considered to be the benchmark for no-kill.

However, there are strong signs of progress and commitment across California, with the number of dogs and cats dying in shelters declining from 110,239 in 2018 to 100,239 in 2019, an approximate 10 percent decrease. Additionally, California saved 540,248 dogs and cats in 2019, the most of any state in the country. And recently, California Governor Gavin Newsom and the state legislature agreed to provide $5 million to fund lifesaving work in California by the pioneering experts at the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program.

The top five states where the most dogs and cats need to be saved are California, Texas, North Carolina, Florida and Louisiana, who together make up more than 50 percent of the nation’s shelter killing of dogs and cats.

Over the past three years, Best Friends has spearheaded a first-of-its-kind extensive data collection process that involved coordinated outreach to every shelter in America followed by additional research, data analysis, and technology development.

To create the most comprehensive data set on animal welfare ever published, Best Friends collected data directly from shelters, state and local coalitions, government websites, and even FOIA requests.

The Best Friends 2020 dataset – consisting of statistics collected during 2019 – of U.S. shelters has a total net intake of 5,360,060 animals representing 4,850 known shelters.

Of this intake total, 92 percent of the data is based on collected information from 3,608 brick and mortar shelters. The remaining 8 percent is estimated to cover the uncollected shelters and their respective counties.

The solution to getting to no-kill lies within individual communities and its residents, as Castle illustrated.

“Best Friends has always believed that anyone can help homeless pets. You don’t need a rescue label, special credentials or permission to help save animals. Individual community members are the no-kill movement’s greatest resource,” she said. “Putting this data directly into the hands of the public allows individual community members and advocates like the members of our 2025 Action Team to gain a better understanding of exactly which shelters and types of pets are most in need of help and helps to connect them to those shelters.”

To view the 2020 lifesaving findings and find out about adopting, fostering, volunteering, donating, or spaying/neutering in your community, visit http://bestfriends.org .

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has started a road trip that will continue through the summer across roughly a mile of terrain.

By trip's end, the rover will be able to ascend to the next section of the 3-mile-tall Martian mountain it's been exploring since 2014, searching for conditions that may have supported ancient microbial life.

Located on the floor of Gale Crater, Mount Sharp is composed of sedimentary layers that built up over time. Each layer helps tell the story about how Mars changed from being more Earth-like – with lakes, streams and a thicker atmosphere – to the nearly-airless, freezing desert it is today.

The rover's next stop is a part of the mountain called the "sulfate-bearing unit." Sulfates, like gypsum and Epsom salts, usually form around water as it evaporates, and they are yet another clue to how the climate and prospects for life changed nearly 3 billion years ago.

But between the rover and those sulfates lies a vast patch of sand that Curiosity must drive around to avoid getting stuck.

Hence the mile-long road trip: Rover planners, who are commanding Curiosity from home rather than their offices at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, expect to reach the area in early fall, although the science team could decide to stop along the way to drill a sample or study any surprises they come across.

Depending on the landscape, Curiosity's top speeds range between 82 and 328 feet per hour. Some of this summer road trip will be completed using the rover's automated driving abilities, which enable Curiosity to find the safest paths forward on its own. Rover planners allow for this when they lack terrain imagery. (Planners hope for more autonomy in the future; in fact, you can help train an algorithm that identifies Martian drive paths.)

"Curiosity can't drive entirely without humans in the loop," said Matt Gildner, lead rover driver at JPL. "But it does have the ability to make simple decisions along the way to avoid large rocks or risky terrain. It stops if it doesn't have enough information to complete a drive on its own."

In journeying to the "sulfate-bearing unit," Curiosity leaves behind Mount Sharp's "clay-bearing unit," which the robotic scientist had been investigating on the lower side of the mountain since early 2019. Scientists are interested in the watery environment that formed this clay and whether it could have supported ancient microbes.

Extending across both the clay unit and the sulfate unit is a separate feature: the "Greenheugh Pediment," a slope with a sandstone cap. It likely represents a major transition in the climate of Gale Crater.

At some point, the lakes that filled the 96-mile-wide crater disappeared, leaving behind sediments that eroded into the mountain we see today. The pediment formed later (though whether from wind or water erosion remains unknown); then windblown sand blanketed its surface, building into the sandstone cap.

The northern end of the pediment spans the clay region, and though the slope is steep, the rover's team decided to ascend Greenheugh back in March for a preview of terrain they'll see later in the mission. As Curiosity peeked over the top, scientists were surprised to find small bumps along the sandstone surface.

"Nodules like these require water in order to form," said Alexander Bryk, a doctoral student at University of California, Berkeley who led the pediment detour. "We found some in the windblown sandstone on top of the pediment and some just below the pediment. At some point after the pediment formed, water seems to have returned, altering the rock as it flowed through it."

These bumps may look familiar to Mars rover fans: One of Curiosity's predecessors, the Opportunity rover, found similar geologic textures dubbed "blueberries" back in 2004.

Nodules have become a familiar sight throughout Mount Sharp, though these newly discovered ones are different in composition from what Opportunity found.

They suggest water was present in Gale long after the lakes disappeared and the mountain took its present shape. The discovery extends the period when the crater hosted conditions capable of supporting life, if it ever was present.

"Curiosity was designed to go beyond Opportunity's search for the history of water," said Abigail Fraeman of JPL, who has served as deputy project scientist for both missions. "We're uncovering an ancient world that offered life a foothold for longer than we realized."

For more about Curiosity visit https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/home/ or https://nasa.gov/msl/ .

Biodiversity hotspots are regions where species numbers are unusually high. Most but not all are in the tropics. One that isn’t is the California region.

In a 2000 Nature Conservancy inventory of state biodiversity, California stood out dramatically. Its 5,653 species of animals and plants – non-vascular plants and most invertebrate animals were not included because of insufficient state information – was the most of any state.

Its 1,480 endemics, species that only occur in one state and nowhere else, were also more than in any other state.

California was No. 1 by far in vascular plant species (4,389) as well as in endemic plants (1,416). The state’s 804 vertebrate animal species were only fifth among states, but it led all states in endemic animals with 62.

California led all states in mammal species with 185 as well as with its 18 endemic mammals. Its 418 bird species were only fourth among states, but its two endemic birds brought it to second among states despite being far behind Hawaii’s 52.

The state’s 83 reptiles tie it for sixth, but the five endemics among these are only slightly exceeded by two states with six.

California’s 50 amphibians tie it for twelfth, but it still leads by far in endemic amphibians with 17.

California is only 30th in freshwater fish species with 68 but is back to No. 1 with 20 endemic fish.

What accounts for our great biodiversity? One factor leading to high endemism is mountains and deserts isolating us from states to the east.

Another that sets us apart from eastern states is a Mediterranean climate. It may not be accidental that several other nontropical hotspots on other continents also have such climates in which most rain falls when it’s coldest.

Since most plants grow fastest when it’s warmest, the gap between when water arrives and when it’s used makes these ecosystems very sensitive to where it’s stored below ground.

That’s evident in California, where vegetation can shift within meters from deeply rooted chaparral shrubs on steep rocky slopes in full sun to shallowly rooted wildflower prairies in flatter areas where clay accumulates and holds water near surfaces.

Shadier slopes intermediate between these extremes may support oak woodland with an herb understory not far away. Species diversity thrives in such diverse conditions.

California is also a place of climate extremes with annual rainfall from 64 inches at Crescent City along the northwest coast to 2.3 inches at Death Valley.

California temperatures are also very diverse with a July mean of 58 degrees Fahrenheit at Crescent City and 101 at Death Valley, one of the world’s hottest places.

Most of our wet places are cool in summer but not Shasta Dam, where a 81.4 degree July mean and precipitation of 60.4 inches provides habitat for the endemic rare plant Shasta snow-wreath (Neviusia cliftonii).

Cool summer fogs extending down the coast to Santa Barbara County and reappearing in the Channel Islands provide a corridor for species from much farther north to enter California and add to its diversity. So do the forests of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada Mountains. Some northern species or their near relatives reappear in isolated forest islands on high peaks in southern California.

These Southern California peaks are among our ecological islands, places very different from surrounding landscapes. They can result from climate as at Shasta Dam or relatively wetter isolated desert ranges like the Providence and White mountains.

Redwood forests in the Santa Cruz and Santa Lucia mountains, which are oriented to intercept the full force of winter storms arriving from the southwest, are ecological islands in the otherwise relatively dry southern Coast Range, where some interior valleys are so shadowed from rain that they’re drier than much of the Mojave Desert and provide a corridor for some of its species to move northwest to the Bay Area.

Many of California’s ecological islands are caused by the state’s very active geology. Outcrops of serpentine, a mantle rock only exposed at sites of violent tectonic plate collisions, and limestone provide isolated areas with unique soils. Geomorphic basins where water accumulates to form vernal pools are another important kind of California ecological island.

Ever since Charles Darwin described how the Galapagos archipelago promoted evolution, it’s been known that isolation increases biodiversity, which is definitely true of California’s many ecological islands.

But it has real islands as well. The Channel Islands off southern California have many endemic species of their own like island scrub jay (Aphelocoma insularis), island fox (Urocyon littoralis), and island ironwood trees (Lyonothamnus floribundus), but California’s turbulent geologic history produced many former islands that promoted evolution in what’s now its southern Coast Range.

The most recent of these former islands forms the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which became connected to the mainland by sediments washed down from local mountains. It is still the only mainland location of Crossosoma californicum, a shrub otherwise confined to the Channel Islands.

The great UC Davis botanists Ledyard Stebbins and Jack Major once categorized California’s endemic plants as neo-endemics and paleo-endemics.

Neo-endemics like lupines (Lupinus) exploded into many closely related species through recent evolution, while paleo-endemics lack close relatives and hang on in special habitats like ecological islands.

Shasta snow-wreath confined to the hot and wet area around Shasta Dam with nearest relatives in faraway but similarly hot and wet Alabama is an example.

On evolutionary trees neo-endemics are like the many leaves on a single branch while paleo-endemics are like single leaves on an entirely separate branch.

A mammalian example of neo-endemics are chipmunks (Tamias) with 13 California species so similar they’re sometimes difficult to tell apart, while a classic paleo-endemic is mountain beaver (Aplodontia rufa), so distinctive that it’s the only member of its family and definitely not a beaver (although not a California endemic since its range extends north to British Columbia).

Since California is the most populous as well as the most biodiverse state, its conservation challenges are immense.

Dr. Glen Holstein is a retired senior scientist from Zentner and Zentner, a Northern California biological consulting company and the Chapter Botanist for the Sacramento Valley Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. He is also on the board of Tuleyome, a Woodland-based nonprofit conservation organization.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Public Health reported on Friday that several more county residents have tested positive for COVID-19.

The figures posted on Friday showed Lake County’s cases totaled 108.

That’s an increase of 22 cases over the previous week.

By Friday night, county Public Health departments were reporting a total of more than 310,000 cases and 6,945 deaths statewide.

Case totals for neighboring counties are Colusa, 113; Glenn, 164; Mendocino, 113; Napa, 477; Sonoma, 1,650; and Yolo, 839.

Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace confirmed on Thursday that three state prison inmates who tested positive for COVID-19 were released to Lake County earlier this month on a special early release program. They are not counted on the local COVID-19 dashboard but in the county where they were incarcerated.

Of Lake County’s 108 cases, 25 are active and 82 are recovered. Public Health reported one death last week.

Public Health said there are three COVID-19 positive patients currently hospitalized, an increase of one since Thursday. To date, 10 local patients have been treated for the virus in the hospital.

Tests in Lake County to date total 5,309, with the results of 565 of those tests pending.

The California Department of Public Health said Friday that 5,175,737 tests have been conducted in California, an increase of 97,303 over the previous 24 hours.

The state said that local health departments have reported 17,120 confirmed positive cases in health care workers and 98 deaths statewide.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Dozens of seats on local school and special district boards will be up for election in November, and the filing period begins next week.

Lake County Registrar of Voters Maria Valadez said the school and special districts listed below have consolidated with the Nov. 3, 2020, General Election.

She said eligible voters have the opportunity to file for candidacy for the following offices:

– Mendocino-Lake Community College District: Trustee Area No. 7 (Lake County), one vacancy, four-year term.

– Yuba Community College District: Trustee Area No. 7 (Lake County), one vacancy, four-year term.

– Lake County Board of Education: Trustee Area No. 1, one vacancy, four-year term; Trustee Area No. 2, one vacancy, four-year term.

– Kelseyville Unified School District: Three vacancies, four-year terms.

– Konocti Unified School District: Two vacancies, four-year terms.

– Lakeport Unified School District: Three vacancies, four-year terms.

– Lucerne Elementary School District: One vacancy, four-year term.

– Middletown Unified School District: Two vacancies, four-year terms.

– Upper Lake Unified School District: Two vacancies, four-year terms.

– Kelseyville Fire Protection District: Two full terms, one two-year unexpired term.

– Lake County Fire Protection District: Three full terms, one two-year unexpired term.

– Lake Pillsbury Fire Protection District: Two full terms, two two-year unexpired terms.

– Northshore Fire Protection District: Clearlake Oaks Zone, one full term; Upper Lake Zone, one full term.

– South Lake County Fire Protection District: Three full terms, one two-year unexpired term.

– Anderson Springs Community Services District: Two full terms, two two-year unexpired terms.

– Butler-Keys Community Services District: Three full terms.

– Hidden Valley Lake Community Services District: Three full terms, two two-year unexpired terms.

– Redbud Health Care District: Zone 1, one full term; Zone 3, one full term; Zone 5, one full term.

– Buckingham Park Water District: Two full terms.

– Callayomi County Water District: Two full terms, one two-year unexpired term.

– Clearlake Oaks County Water District: Three full terms.

– Cobb Area County Water District: Two full terms, one two-year unexpired term.

– Konocti County Water District: Two full terms.

– Upper Lake County Water District: Three full terms.

– Villa Blue Estates Water District: Three two-year unexpired terms.

Official declaration of candidacy forms for eligible candidates desiring to file for the elective offices enumerated above may be obtained from the Lake County Registrar of Voters office, located in Room 209 of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N Forbes St., Lakeport, during regular business hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday.

The first day a candidate may file for office is Monday, July 13; the last day for filing is Friday, Aug. 7, at 5 p.m.

The Registrar of Voters Office will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7, to facilitate filings.

For more information call the Registrar of Voters Office at 707-263-2372.

SOUTH LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – On Monday, July 13, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services will conduct a test of the emergency warning sirens in the Loch Lomond, Cobb Mountain, Anderson Springs and Middletown areas.

The test will begin at 11 a.m.

Officials said the test is being conducted to assure the functionality of the warning sirens.

During the test, additional messaging will be sent out as a reminder.

Should there be an active response to local fires in progress, the test will be canceled, and resume the following month.

The Sheriff’s Office encourages you to make sure that your e-mail address is entered into the LakeCoAlerts system.

Visit the website and sign into your account or establish a new account to receive notifications.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe was at the right place at the right time to capture a unique view of comet NEOWISE on Saturday, July 5.

Parker Solar Probe’s position in space gave the spacecraft an unmatched view of the comet’s twin tails when it was particularly active just after its closest approach to the Sun, called perihelion.

The comet was discovered by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or NEOWISE, on March 27.

Since then, the comet — called comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE and nicknamed comet NEOWISE — has been spotted by several NASA spacecraft, including Parker Solar Probe, NASA’s Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory, the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, and astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

The image above is unprocessed data from Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument, which takes images of the Sun’s outer atmosphere and solar wind in visible light. WISPR’s sensitivity also makes it well-suited to see fine detail in structures like comet tails.

Parker Solar Probe collected science data through June 28 for its fifth solar flyby, but the availability of additional downlink time allowed the team to take extra images, including this image of comet NEOWISE.

The twin tails of comet NEOWISE are seen more clearly in this image from the WISPR instrument, which has been processed to increase contrast and remove excess brightness from scattered sunlight, revealing more detail in the comet tails.

The lower tail, which appears broad and fuzzy, is the dust tail of comet NEOWISE — created when dust lifts off the surface of the comet’s nucleus and trails behind the comet in its orbit. Scientists hope to use WISPR’s images to study the size of dust grains within the dust tail, as well as the rate at which the comet sheds dust.

The upper tail is the ion tail, which is made up of gases that have been ionized by losing electrons in the Sun’s intense light.

These ionized gases are buffeted by the solar wind — the Sun’s constant outflow of magnetized material — creating the ion tail that extends directly away from the Sun.

Parker Solar Probe’s images appear to show a divide in the ion tail. This could mean that comet NEOWISE has two ion tails, in addition to its dust tail, though scientists would need more data and analysis to confirm this possibility.

Sarah Frazier works for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – County officials have confirmed that a recently implemented state prison early release program has resulted in three COVID-19 positive inmates being returned to Lake County.

Lake County Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace on Thursday confirmed the release of the three inmates to Lake County from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“They were not released to jail, but into the community,” Sheriff Brian Martin told Lake County News.

In response to a COVID-19 outbreak across the state prison system, CDCR said it was implementing a community supervision program meant to increase capacity and space to help with inmate movement, physical distancing and isolation efforts.

The program releases eligible inmates who have 180 days or less to serve on their sentences and are not currently serving time for domestic violence, or a violent or serious crime as defined by law, or are a person required to register as a sex offender, CDCR reported.

The program began on July 1.

CDCR said inmates set for release are offered testing for COVID-19 within seven days of their anticipated release.

“For those who test positive, CDCR will work with state and local public health and law enforcement officials to find housing where the incarcerated person can be safely isolated and monitored,” the agency said.

Inmates who are released are given five reusable cloth barrier masks provided by the department with appropriate precautionary measures taken during transportation.

As of Thursday night, CDCR reported that there were approximately 5,747 state prison inmates with COVID-19, of which 2,269 were active, 3,324 were resolved and 31 have died.

CDCR’s COVID-19 dashboard also noted that 123 inmates with active COVID-19 infection were released.

Pace said that all three inmates received by Lake County were COVID-19 positive. However, at the same time, he said two of the individuals had completed their isolation prior to CDCR release and the other was released into the community prior to completing the self-isolation protocol. That third individual’s isolation period has now been completed.

“These three cases are attributed to the county where the correctional facility that previously housed these inmates is located. To avoid double-counting, they are not added to Lake County’s totals,” Pace said.

“Contact with these people has been minimal due to various logistical problems. These miscommunications carry risk to public health, and meetings are ongoing with CDCR officials to ensure more effective communication in the future,” said Pace.

Sheriff Martin said the names of the three individuals are confidential but the sheriff’s office has them flagged in its system in the event law enforcement or the Probation Department comes in contact with them.

Martin said his office received prior notification of early releases from CDCR but the medical information is only shared with Public Health.

“Public Health now shares it with us when they get the information,” he said.

That’s different from what occurred earlier this year, when CDCR had similarly implemented an early release program that resulted in a COVID-19 positive male prisoner from the California Institution for Men in Chino being released back to Lake County on April 6, as Lake County News has reported.

Public Health had been notified but didn’t inform the sheriff’s office until Martin pressed Pace on whether any inmates set for early release had tested positive for the virus.

“I’m not too happy about the practice of early releasing prisoners, particularly COVID-positive ones,” Martin said.

Adding to the frustration for Martin is the fact that the state has stopped accepting people from county jails who are sentenced to prison, such as Alan Ashmore, the Clearlake Oaks man sentenced on Tuesday to 140 years in prison for an October 2017 shooting spree that killed two people and wounded two others.

It’s not just Ashmore who is awaiting transfer to the state prison system. Lt. Corey Paulich told Lake County News that 18 inmates at the Lake County Jail are waiting to be transported to CDCR.

CDCR said that, between the suspension of county jail intake as well as the expedited parole of approximately 3,500 incarcerated persons in April, it has reduced the incarcerated population by more than 8,000 since mid-March.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Local businesses are facing challenges not just in trying to avoid COVID-19 but also in adjusting when a case impacts their operations.

This week Rainbow Ag’s Lakeport store, located at 1975 Argonaut Road, enacted a brief closure in order to sanitize the facility after a member of an employee’s household tested positive.

Also this week, the owners of the Lakeport McDonald’s said the restaurant closed temporarily after finding out one of its employees had tested positive for COVID-19. Following cleaning, the restaurant has reportedly reopened.

Rainbow Ag reported that the employee whose family member tested positive had last worked on Monday, loading hay and feed. He was masked and distanced during his work time. He’s now in isolation and getting tested.

Rainbow Ag’s procedures ensure that high touch surfaces have been sanitized multiple times per day and all staff members have passed a health check before working.

Out of an abundance of caution, Rainbow Ag owner Jim Mayfield told Lake County News that they chose to close the Lakeport store on Wednesday afternoon and hired West Coast Fire & Water to professionally sanitize the entire store facility. That work was completed on Thursday.

At the same time, he said all 20 Lakeport store staffers are on paid leave, isolated and getting tested – with up to a seven-day wait for results – and won’t return to work until they have been cleared.

He said his staff at the Middletown and Ukiah stores are rallying to send team members over to help cover the Lakeport store, which will reopen on Friday, with slightly reduced hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Creating a plan for moving forward

Before COVID-19, Mayfield said Rainbow Ag has had to make adjustments to closures due to wildland fires – such as what occurred in the summer of 2018 – and purchased a generator in order to remain open during the public safety power shutoffs in the fall.

Since the pandemic started, Mayfield said work has continued at his five stores in Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma counties.

“We’ve been essential so we’ve never been closed,” he said.

While the stores’ hours initially were reduced, over the last month they’ve turned to regular hours, he said.

Mayfield said that over the last several months he’s tried to stay ahead of the situation, with his company writing the procedure for keeping his staff and customers safe as they went along. Mayfield said he told his staff they were practicing a three-month fire drill.

Outside of those efforts, “there is no playbook,” Mayfield said. “The state doesn’t tell you what to do, the county doesn’t tell you what to do,” and even the industry is vague on protocols.

He said his “team behind the masks” has done a phenomenal job of maintaining heightened awareness, developing a protocol for giving people masks or, if they won’t take them, asking them to social distance or offering to load up their vehicles.

So when the COVID-19 test in his employee’s household was reported, Mayfield said he had a plan for what to do.

He said he called Lake County Public Health about the case.

“They didn’t have a clue,” he said. “It was a very disappointing phone call, to tell the truth.”

He said all that Public Health could do was refer him to the public testing site. As for contact tracing of cases, he said on Thursday that Public Health hadn’t contacted his company.

At the same time, Mayfield – an early adopter of social media – used Facebook to communicate the situation with customers and the community.

“I was almost in tears at the response,” said Mayfield, calling it “incredibly supportive.”

He said it’s a great testament to the people he works with in his company.

When the Lakeport store reopens on Friday morning, Mayfield said the store will be sanitized, the staff will be masked and customers will meet a crew they haven’t seen before.

“We have to be more diligent now than we have ever,” Mayfield said.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Police Department is advising community members to be aware of a recurring scam that has surfaced relating to utility billings in the city of Lakeport.

The scam, which recently resurfaced, consists of a robo-style telephone call advising that it represents the city of Lakeport and references a late utility payment.

The "caller" directs the unwitting resident to either return a call to a 1-800 number or directs them to an online payment option.

Police ask community members to be cautious if they receive this call as it may be a scam.

The city of Lakeport does utilize a third party online payment collector, officials said.

If you have any doubt as to the credibility of any payment you are going to make on your utility service, the trusted online payment collection service can always be accessed directly from the city of Lakeport website. Look for "Online Bill Pay" on the big blue toolbar.

MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. – Firefighters on Thursday continued work to contain a fire on the Mendocino National Forest’s Grindstone Ranger District.

Forest officials said the Nail fire was up to 75 percent containment as of Thursday.

The fire started on Tuesday, approximately 30 miles west of Willows near Fouts Springs.

The size of the fire has been adjusted to 13 acres.

There are two crews, two engines, two water tenders and several overhead – or supervisory personnel – assigned to the fire.

On Thursday, firefighters continued to reinforce firelines and extinguish hot spots.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Forest officials said the primary wildfire response strategy for 2020 is aggressive initial attack and rapid containment to minimize the number of large wildfires.