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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – On Friday, the county released detailed water well testing data for the first time following the three-million-gallon sewage spill that began Sunday, Jan. 11, and has impacted part of Clearlake, reporting cleanup work was “nearing completion.”
According to the county’s Friday update, approximately 175 water samples had been collected and analyzed to date.
The update did not specify how many individual wells those samples were drawn from, nor how many tested positive for coliform and E. coli, which are water quality indicators of contamination by fecal bacteria.
During the Wednesday town hall held at Clearlake City Hall, Environmental Health Director Craig Wetherbee said the state’s requirement for a safe public water supply is zero detection for both indicators.
At that meeting, Wetherbee said 94 wells had been tested, with 39 wells found to be contaminated.
As well sanitization continued, the Friday update said 60 private wells had been sanitized, while 10 additional wells remained unsanitized. Of the 60 wells already sanitized, 55 had been tested again following treatment, according to the county.
“Test results from these wells are encouraging, with most samples showing no detectable contamination,” the county update said of the 55 wells being retested after sanitization.
“Eight wells at this time are still showing some level of contamination and will continue to receive follow-up attention, including additional testing and sanitization as needed,” the update said.
It was the first time that these specific data were released and included in the county’s written update for the public, 12 days after the spill began.
The update said Environmental Health will continue “working directly with affected well owners” about next steps and ensuring well water is safe before normal use resumes.
It did not include any language in the update for the public about if any water well in the areas had been proven safe.
As testing continues, the update said, “Results will be shared as they become available to help residents make informed decisions about their water use.”
As of Friday, the impacted area was reported to remain unchanged since Tuesday, encompassing areas east of Smith Lane, west of Old Highway 53, south of Pond Road and north of Bowers Avenue, totaling approximately 297 acres.
All public health advisories – including temporary relocation, a recommended minimum of 60 gallons of clean water per person per day for drinking, food preparation and laundry, as well as guidance to seek medical attention for certain symptoms – remain unchanged.
According to the update, residents may call Lake County Special Districts at 707-263-0119, which is now a 24/7 service line responding to questions and helping connect residents with available resources.
Special Districts: Water tanks to be installed, cleanup ‘nearing completion’
The multi-million-gallon sewage spill was caused by the rupture of a county-operated 16-inch force main near the northern end of Robin Lane. The force main is part of the Lake County Sanitation District system overseen by Lake County Special Districts.
The spill was reportedly stopped at 9:55 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 12 – about 38 hours after it was first reported, according to county officials.
However, residents of the area, including Robin Lane resident Cassandra Hulbert, have disputed that information, posting videos and photographs on social media that they said showed the leak was still active at that time.
Special Districts reported on Friday that work to clean up the area was almost complete.
“Soil removal and remediation work is nearing completion, with crews finishing cleanup activities in impacted locations,” the update said.
The update reported “improved” road conditions and access for residents and response vehicles, as grading and graveling were completed along the route from Garner to Pamela.
Water delivery services are available for residents and animals. “A Water buffalo unit continues to be deployed to provide water for livestock,” the update said.
The county also announced that water tank installation is scheduled to begin on Monday.
On Wednesday, the Board of Supervisors approved a $750,000 budget resolution to purchase 60 water tanks – each holding 2,500 gallons – and to provide refilling services for affected households.
By the end of Wednesday, Special Districts Administrator Robin Borre said an order of 20 tanks was placed. The Friday update did not include numbers of water tanks ordered and received by the county.
Email staff reporter Lingzi Chen at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Two separate traffic crashes on Friday night resulted in fatalities in Kelseyville and Nice.
The first crash, in Kelseyville, was a vehicle rollover while the second, in Nice, involved a pedestrian being hit by a van.
The rollover occurred in the 3000 block of Big Valley Road near Renfro Drive, according to the California Highway Patrol.
As a result of the crash, first reported just after 5:15 p.m., it was reported that a male was stuck under the dashboard on the passenger side.
The CHP said there was major front-end damage, with the tires blown out.
A short time later, it was reported that the crash had resulted in a fatality.
Then, two hours later, just after 7:15 p.m., the CHP said a pedestrian was struck by a vehicle at Howard Avenue in Nice, near the Dollar General store.
A male subject was reported to be lying in the westbound lane after being hit by a silver van, according to the CHP.
The person who reported the incident blocked the roadway with her vehicle, the CHP reported.
CPR was quickly started and an air ambulance requested, however, the pedestrian was reported to have died shortly afterward.
Additional information on both of the crashes was not immediately available on Friday night.
However, on Saturday, the CHP released information that said the pedestrian was, in fact, a female.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional information about the pedestrian crash.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
WOODLAND, Calif. – U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff visited Woodland Community College on Thursday for a campus tour and an in-depth discussion with students, highlighting the essential role community colleges play in workforce preparation, educational access and civic engagement.
Sen. Schiff was welcomed to campus by Woodland Community College President Lizette Navarette, who shared an overview of the college’s mission and its impact on students throughout Yolo, Lake and Colusa counties, and the surrounding region.
Officials said the visit underscored WCC’s commitment to student opportunity and economic mobility.
During the campus tour, Sen. Schiff explored several of the college’s key programs and facilities.
At the WCC Greenhouses, he met with agriculture faculty who discussed hands-on, career-technical education and the importance of agriculture to the local economy.
He also visited Student Services, where he learned how WCC provides comprehensive, wraparound support to help students navigate enrollment, persist in their studies, and complete their educational goals.
The tour continued through the Performing Arts and Culinary Center and the eLearning Studio, where instructional design faculty highlighted the college’s investment in online learning and innovative teaching practices.
Throughout the visit, college officials said Sen. Schiff engaged in informal discussions with faculty and campus leaders, gaining insight into academic programs and services that support student success.
Following the tour, Sen. Schiff met with students for a conversation with a political science class.
In his opening remarks, he reflected on his background and service in Congress, including his role as the first California U.S. Senator in decades to serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee.
He also spoke about the responsibilities of public office, emphasizing the importance of upholding the U.S. Constitution and protecting democratic institutions.
The discussion highlighted the value of civic education, informed participation in democracy, and the vital role community colleges play in preparing engaged and informed citizens.
Students took part in a lively question-and-answer session, raising topics such as access to higher education, concerns surrounding immigration enforcement, the protection of democratic norms, and the essential role individuals play in sustaining a healthy democracy.
“This visit gave our students a meaningful opportunity to engage directly with a U.S. senator and share their perspectives,” said President Navarette. “Sen. Schiff’s time on campus underscored the vital role community colleges play in expanding opportunity, and we are grateful that he chose a rural-serving institution to learn more about the value we bring to our state and communities.”
For more information about Woodland Community College and its programs, visit www.wcc.yccd.edu.
Some stars appear to defy time itself. Nestled within ancient star clusters, they shine bluer and brighter than their neighbours, looking far younger than their true age.
Known as blue straggler stars, these stellar oddities have puzzled astronomers for more than 70 years.
Now, new results using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope are finally revealing how these “forever young” stars come to be and why they thrive in quieter cosmic neighbourhoods.
Blue straggler stars stand out in old star clusters because they appear hotter, more massive and younger than stars that should all have formed billions of years ago. Their very existence contradicts standard theories of stellar ageing, prompting decades of debate over whether they are created through violent stellar collisions or through more subtle interactions between pairs of stars.
A new study provides some of the clearest evidence yet that blue stragglers owe their youthful appearance not to collisions, but to life in close stellar partnerships, and to the environments that allow those partnerships to survive.
An international research team analysed ultraviolet Hubble observations of 48 globular clusters in the Milky Way, assembling the largest and most complete catalogue of blue straggler stars ever produced. The sample includes more than 3,000 of these enigmatic objects.
Their host clusters span the entire range of possible environmental conditions, from very loose to very dense systems (as illustrated in Image A). This vast dataset allowed astronomers to investigate the long-suspected links between blue straggler stars and their surroundings.
Rather than finding more blue stragglers in the most crowded, collision-prone clusters, the team was surprised to discover the opposite: dense environments host fewer blue stragglers. Instead, these stars are most common in low-density clusters, where stars have more space and where fragile binary systems are more likely to survive.
“This work shows that the environment plays a relevant role in the life of stars,” says Francesco R. Ferraro, lead author of the study and professor at the University of Bologna in Italy. “Blue straggler stars are intimately connected to the evolution of binary systems, but their survival depends on the conditions in which they live. Low-density environments provide the best habitat for binaries and their by-products, allowing some stars to appear younger than expected.”
The team found that blue stragglers are closely linked to binary star systems, in which two stars orbit one another. In such systems, one star can siphon material from its partner or merge with it entirely, gaining fresh fuel and shining more brightly and blue (effectively resetting its stellar clock).
However, these observations show that denser environments host less binaries, suggesting that in densely packed clusters, frequent close encounters between stars can break binaries apart before they have time to produce a blue straggler. In calmer environments, binaries survive and blue stragglers flourish.
“Crowded star clusters are not a friendly place for stellar partnerships,” explains Enrico Vesperini from Indiana University in the United States. “Where space is tight, binaries can be more easily destroyed, and the stars lose their chance to stay young.”
This discovery marks the first time that such clear and opposite-to-expectation relationships have been observed between blue straggler populations and their environments. It confirms that blue stragglers are a direct by-product of binary evolution and highlights how strongly a star’s surroundings can influence its life story.
“This work gives us a new way to understand how stars evolve over billions of years,” said Barbara Lanzoni, co-author of the study from the University of Bologna in Italy. “It shows that even star lives are shaped by their environment, much like living systems on Earth.”
By resolving individual stars in crowded clusters and observing them in ultraviolet light, Hubble was uniquely suited to uncovering this long-hidden pattern. The findings not only solve a long-standing astronomical mystery, but also open new paths for understanding how stars interact, age and sometimes find ways to start anew.
These results have been published in Nature Communications.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A Kelseyville man has been charged with murder after his wife died from injuries she suffered in a brutal assault last week.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said Travis Ryan Bonson, 45, has been charged with first-degree murder for the death of 44-year-old Ayano Bonson.
Travis Bonson was arraigned for the homicide charge before Judge J. David Markham on Wednesday afternoon.
At 8 a.m. Jan. 16, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Dispatch responded to a residence in the 5900 block of Single Spring Drive after receiving a call from Travis Bonson.
He told authorities he had physically assaulted a female adult, who the sheriff’s office confirmed on Thursday was Ayano Bonson.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to the residence and located Ayano Bonson, who was in critical condition. She was transported to an out of county hospital for medical treatment.
The sheriff’s office said Ayano Bonson died of her injuries on Tuesday.
The Lake County District Attorney’s Office charged Travis Bonson with first-degree murder on Wednesday, the same day that he was arraigned, according to court records.
The sheriff’s office said Travis Bonson remains in custody and is being held without bail.
Travis Bonson’s criminal record includes a 2005 conviction for misdemeanor assault and battery that occurred in August 2004.
In 2012, he was convicted of a felony, committing lewd or lascivious acts on a child under age 14, and sentenced to three years in state prison. State records show he was actually released from prison in 2014.
In 2015 he was sentenced to six months in county jail after his felony probation was revoked.
Bonson is listed as a registered sex offender on the Megan’s Law website.
The sheriff’s office said the investigation into Ayano Bonson’s murder is ongoing.
Anyone who believes they may have information related to this case is asked to contact the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit at 707-262-4088 or Sgt. Jeff Mora at 707-262-4224.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — County officials on Thursday said their response to the massive Clearlake sewage spill “fully aligned” with protocols as residents remain under public health advisory to relocate and avoid using water from their wells.
The county’s daily update — comprising contributions from Environmental Health, Special Districts and the Public Health officer — offered few concrete details on new developments, claims of protocol alignment, as well as "encouraging" lab results on sanitized wells.
This multi-department response work has been prompted by a three-million-gallon sewage spill that began on Sunday, Jan. 11, caused by the rupture of a 16-inch force main operated by Lake County Sanitation District, which is overseen by Lake County Special Districts.
The spill was reportedly stopped at 9:55 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 12, according to county officials.
As of the county’s Thursday update, the affected area remained at 297 acres.
Work to sanitize, test and retest wells, along with cleanup and remediation efforts remain actively underway, according to the update. However, it did not provide any aggregated data on well sanitization or testing progress, nor on test results.
In the meantime, all public health guidance for the impacted area remains in effect, including temporary relocation; avoiding use of water from private wells until they are tested safe; and the recommendation of a minimum of 60 gallons of portable water per person per day for drinking, food preparation, cleaning and laundry.
Public Health Officer Dr. Robert Bernstein also advised residents who develop symptoms including diarrhea, vomiting, stomach cramps, fever or flu-like symptoms, skin rashes or infections, and eye, ear or wound infections to seek medical care.
“Out of an abundance of caution,” the county update warned, residents in the immediately affected area are advised not to consume free-range eggs or livestock for 30 days, effective from Jan. 11.
The county said that clean hay has been provided to livestock to reduce potential exposure to the sewage.
The next town hall-style informational event regarding the spill is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 28, at 6 p.m. at Clearlake City Hall.
County officials: response actions ‘fully aligned’ with protocol and ‘encouraging’ lab results
The Environmental Health section of the update stated there have been “ongoing discussions with the State Water Resources Control Board” and that those discussions “have confirmed that response actions taken to date are fully aligned with established protocols.”
The update did not specify the nature of those discussions, or which departments participated in the discussion. Nor did it identify who confirmed the claim of full alignment.
Furthermore, it said "regulators have expressed confidence in the steps implemented so far and have commended the coordinated team effort.”
“Work is continuing to establish clear guidance for when it will be safe to resume normal water use and lift existing Do Not Use notices,” said the update, which means water in the affected area remains unsafe to use for now.
The update also stated that a “defined standard” has been established to guide future steps and estimate timelines, though it did not detail the specific metrics of that standard.
It also described recent laboratory results as “encouraging,” noting that initial post-sanitization samples from “several wells” showed non-detect results.
At Wednesday’s town hall meeting, Environmental Health Director Craig Wetherbee said that of the 94 wells tested, 39 were found to be contaminated with E. coli and coliform. Of those, four returned levels so “astronomically high” they were outside of the scope of the test.
Beginning this weekend, Wetherbee said drillers and pump teams were in the spill area, shocking — or treating — 51 wells.
The county’s Thursday update did not specify how many wells, out of the total tested and sanitized, produced the “encouraging” non-detect results.
The update noted these initial "non-detect" findings are not a green light for residents. Officials stated that additional samples must be collected after "flushing the systems to confirm consistency" before discussions can begin about restoring well use.
Rainfall cited as potential factor
The county update also introduced a caveat regarding the reliability of future testing, warning that environmental factors such as rainfall “are also being carefully considered.”
It said that significant rain events producing runoff “can affect aquifer conditions and may appear in testing results.”
“Importantly, the presence of contaminants following such events does not necessarily indicate a connection to the recent incident,” the update stated.
Officials noted that clarifying guidance from the State Water Board on this distinction — determining whether contamination is from the massive spill or normal runoff — is being documented.
Email staff reporter Lingzi Chen at