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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – A new program at Coyote Valley Elementary School is giving children a chance to learn about fish both in the classroom and in the creek.

The first trout release program for Coyote Valley Elementary School third grade class began Feb. 28.

That’s when sponsor Tony Blyleven, a director of the Resource Conservation District, or RCD, brought 60 rainbow trout eggs to two classes at the school.

The trout eggs came from the Mt. Shasta Hatchery.

Blyleven attended a Sportsman Expo and learned about trout release programs, deciding to make the project happen at Coyote Valley Elementary School.

It took $400 for each set up but, “the most trying part of the project was building fish tanks with the protective styrofoam around it,” said Blyleven.

Eric Schaffer and Jon Prather’s third grade classes were involved in the six-week long project.

The students kept a daily journal on the progress: from eggs to alevin (still with yolk attached) to fry to juvenile to adult. The trout released were in the fry stage.

Sierra Cude, 9, wrote in her journal: “We have three baby fish. One egg keeps moving too. The babies have egg yolk on their belly. The baby fish is hiding from big fish.” She went on to describe the food fed to the fish as well as a drawing of the food ingredients.

Students monitored the temperature of the tanks and noted the health of each batch daily.

Schaffer said the most difficult part of the project for him was “arriving in the morning and finding several dead fry at the bottom of the tank. This did, however, open the door for hypothesizing why some of the fish died.”

On Tuesday, the day set for the release, the two classes walked to Putah Creek, a 1.4-mile round trip from their classrooms.

Along the walk both teachers reminded students to respect their surroundings and to make as little noise as possible so as not to upset the area’s wildlife.

At the creek, students paired up and received one fry in a freshly washed cup, which they then released and watched where the fry swam off to. Most of the fry sought shelter under rocks.

Hoping the temperature of the creek was near optimal temperature for survival, Schaffer took along a thermometer to test the water, which was 57.4 degrees Fahrenheit, mid-range for survival.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife was also involved, sending Game Warden Mike Pascoe to answer students’ questions about the relationship of habitat and environment.

“He put on a very informational slideshow and did activities with our classes to help them understand conservation and game/species management,” said Prather.

Pascoe also happily released a fry.

“The best thing about raising rainbow trout was releasing them. It was really cool watching them swim away and hide under rocks,” said student Dylan Caviness, 9.

Elizabeth Davis, also age 9, felt the opposite. “I worry about the fry being eaten by larger fish and predators.”

“It has been an awesome project. We are planning on doing it for years to come,” said Prather.

Schaffer also feels the same. “I will definitely do this project again. I get to keep the aquarium and equipment for next year. Having Fish and Wildlife Officer Pascoe with us was a huge bonus. I hope to have him accompany us next year as well.”

At the end of Pascoe’s visit, he proclaimed each student Junior Wardens, presenting them with their own sticker badge.

On the walk back from the creek, students picked up trash along the route, making it a great ending to a great project.

Lucy Llewellyn Byard is a Lake County News correspondent. She lives in Lucerne.

Every year in October, Americans of Italian ancestry gear up to do battle. It’s part of a decades-long war to ensure the recognition of and respect for the integral role Italian Americans have played in this country.

As a proud Italian American, or IA, myself, I can bear witness to the atrocious and dehumanizing stereotyping of my people. We don’t all have family spaghetti recipes, or like cannolis or speak with our hands. We are more than the sum of those stereotypes.

Like most immigrant groups in the United States, we IAs are proud of our heritage. As Natale Marcone, the president of the Italian-American Civil Rights League, once said at a rally in 1971: “Go home, but never forget, be proud to be an Italian all the time!”

Like a clarion call, Mr. Marcone’s words rang out through our community. And we’ve never forgotten to be proud of being Italian, ever.

Marcone and the founder of the organization, Joseph Colombo Sr., were trailblazers in the fight for IA equality.

As is often the case in the history of oppression, our primary oppressors at the time were goonies of the federal government – the Federal Bureau of Italian-American-Oppression, or F.B.I. (the A.O. was silent).

For decades, the FBI perpetuated the most heinous of all stereotypes: that all IAs are mobsters. They rounded up innocent IA businessmen and harassed IA communities with impunity.

Seeing what they were doing to his people, and becoming a target of their unlawful attentions himself, Mr. Colombo created the Italian-American Civil Rights League as a means of highlighting the plight of IAs.

For that, the FBI arrested him.

Well, sort of. The FBI claimed that Colombo was the leader (or Don) of a family of mobsters. They said that he himself had ordered several high-profile assassinations that left bloody bodies scattered throughout New York City in the 1960s. So what if they had his underlings on recordings admitting to as much? We all know the FBI has long had the technology to alter tapes (Watergate, anyone?).

Fugetta bout it!

It’s that sort of harassment that we IAs used to face every day of our lives. Back in the day, it was “mafia this” and “mobster that” and “where’d you bury the bodies” and all that nonsense. Really, can anyone be sure that there ever really was a mob to begin with? There’s an actual government conspiracy theory for you.

It’s been quite some time since innocent IAs were accosted on the street by men in black. But the anti-Italian forces in this country have conspired to create another libelous attack on our legacy. They’ve grown smarter over the years, preferring a sneak attack over a frontal assault. This time, they’ve come after our greatest icon: Christopher Columbus.

Last fall the attacks reached a crescendo. Thugs spray-painted the word “murderer” on a statue of the great explorer in Binghampton, N.Y. Another statue of Columbus was beheaded in Columbus Memorial Park in Yonkers. And in Minneapolis, a petition was circulated to replace the Columbus statue at the State Capitol in St. Paul with one of the pop star Prince.

Apparently, there is a segment of our country that claims we as a nation should not celebrate a mass murderer; a cruel, rapacious man who not only brought about the downfall of millions of people by his very discovery, but also saw to the killing of thousands himself. Sounds like an FBIAO conspiracy to me, one led no doubt by Comey.

But for the sake of argument, and lest anyone call IAs contrary, let’s just assume that those slanderous, unfounded, libelous claims on our hero are true.

Let me therefore offer up an alternative to Columbus; a man who, if it’s even possible, is more iconically Italian American than Columbus, certainly a man who is less susceptible to government-funded protests.

His name is Amerigo Vespucci.

Born the son of a humble Italian notary in 1451, Amerigo received a superb education as a child and when he grew up, he began working for the Medici Bank (the Medici of Florence were another saintly family of honest, hard-working Italians who have since been unfairly labelled dictators by pernicious historians).

Amerigo eventually became associated with the outfitting of ships, funded by the city of Florence. We know, for instance, that he helped prepare the ships for Christopher Columbus’ second and third voyages.

After years of seeing others setting sail over the distant horizon, Amerigo himself joined in on the explorations of foreign lands. We don’t know for certain the details of his early career as an explorer, but a few surviving documents tell us for certain that he was a navigator for a 1499-1500 expedition to the New World. Like his fellow Italian, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci’s expedition was funded by the Spanish, but let’s not get bogged down in details.

During his 1499-1500 expedition, Amerigo discovered the mouth of the Amazon River. When he returned to the Old World, he got funds from Portugal to make a second journey, again to what we now know as the coast of South America, near Brazil.

Sure, at the time Amerigo thought he was sailing along a route to Asia, but by his third voyage, in 1501-1502, he realized that the lands he had been mapping were not near Asia, but were instead part of a New World.

In April of 1507 (possibly around April 20, but we don’t know for certain), the scholar Martin Waldseemüller published a pamphlet of Amerigo’s journeys and suggested to posterity that the new lands the great Italian had found be named after their discoverer: America.

You see, our country’s very name comes from an Italian. Take that, Comey.

While I in no way give credence to the mud slung at Christopher Columbus, I think we all can avoid conflict by replacing statues of Columbus with Amerigo – a man both IAs and everyone else can admire.

Of course, the relentless work of the FBIAO has already begun to gather lies about Amerigo Vespucci.

Their agents in academia have claimed that Amerigo usurped the merits of others, and that he really didn’t discover those routes himself. Preposterous, of course, but we must keep soldiering on with the knowledge that truth will win out eventually.

In the meantime, I trust the IA community will take into serious consideration my modest proposal.

Antone Pierucci is curator of history at the Riverside County Park and Open Space District and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – By the age of 5, 90 percent of human brain capacity has developed.

These early years – prenatal through age 5 – are when a foundation is being laid for language, literacy, social skills, critical thinking, gross and fine motor skills, problem solving, empathy, and every vital capacity that a person will need to build a healthy and rewarding life.

The vision of First 5 Lake County is that all of Lake County’s children will receive the best possible start in life and thrive.

Each quarter in 2018, the First 5 Lake Commission will be recognizing Children’s Champions in our community – people who are going above and beyond to make sure that our youngest citizens are protected, nurtured, and prioritized.

The First 5 Children’s Champions for the first quarter of 2018 are: Christopher Veach, director of Lake County Libraries; Jeff Smith, District 2 supervisor; Kari Donley, LVN at Adventist Health Clear Lake; and the IMPACT/QRIS Team at Lake County Office of Education, consisting of: Angela Cuellar-Marroquin, LPC/QRIS coordinator; Angel Coppa, QRIS Coach; and April Strait, QRIS coach.

Christopher Veach reached out to First 5 Lake to find out how he could bring needed information about parenting, community resources, and the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, to the parents and caregivers of young children attending the Lake County Library story times.

Since that initial brainstorming meeting, local agencies have joined the collaboration and have committed to send staff to story times throughout the year to share with parents about their programs, how their services can be accessed and to answer any questions.

Conversations have also begun regarding how to capitalize on the comfort level community members already have when visiting the libraries by bringing in educational programs about ACEs and parenting to those trusted spaces.

Jeff Smith served as a First 5 Commissioner from 2010-2018 as a representative from the Board of Supervisors.

As he prepares to end his tenure as District 2 supervisor, he has now passed the First 5 baton to the capable hand of Supervisor Tina Scott, but the commission would like to honor his many years of service and his ongoing care, concern and advocacy for Lake County children and families.

Kari Donley is a licensed vocational nurse working in the Bright Start OB program at Adventist Health Clear Lake.

Donley recently contacted First 5 after running into roadblocks in obtaining immediate drug treatment services for a pregnant patient in her care.

She then brought the issue to the Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Advisory Board who invited key government contacts to the table to discuss what systems changes could be implemented to make sure that pregnant patients would be sure to receive a seamless referral for needed treatment during the critical prenatal period of child development.

Donley’s passionate advocacy on behalf of her patient has resulted in systems changes and stronger working relationships between agencies that will benefit many more Lake County mothers and babies in the future.

The IMPACT/QRIS, or Quality Rating Improvement System, Team at Lake County Office of Education, led by Angela Cuellar-Marroquin, is in the process of implementing several multi-year grants aimed at increasing the quality of childcare and early education in Lake County.

Angel Coppa and April Strait serve as quality improvement coaches and work with 30+ different daycares, preschools, family childcare homes and other non-traditional sites where children are cared for and educated in the County.

Their one-on-one coaching covers everything from curriculum to the classroom environment, knowledge of child development and the quality of student-teacher interactions, to working with parents effectively.

The team also provide trainings for all Lake County early educators regardless of their participation in the IMPACT/QRIS program and recently hosted a Quality Care Counts Conference which provided a full day of free professional development for early childhood professionals from around the Lake.

The First 5 Lake Commissioners are honored to bring these Children’s Champions and their efforts to the attention of our Lake County friends and neighbors.

Members of the community are encouraged to nominate worthy Champions for Children in Lake County, by filling out a nomination form at: www.firstfivelake.org/childrens-champions.php . New Champions will be selected and honored each quarter.

Using funds derived from CA Proposition 10’s voter-mandated tax on tobacco products, the First 5 Lake County Commission funds programs and services that benefit the health and development of young children and educate parents, grandparents, caregivers and teachers about the critical role they play during a child’s first five years.

Since its inception in 2000, First 5 Lake has supported thousands of families with programs and services designed to help Lake County children grow up healthy and ready to succeed in school and life.

Current First 5 Lake Commissioners are Pam Klier, Denise Pomeroy, Brock Falkenberg, Tina Scott, Crystal Markytan, Susan Jen, Laurie Daly, Carly Swatosh and Allison Panella.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control is featuring a number of big dogs needing homes this week.

Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of boxer, chow chow, German Shepherd, Labrador Retriever, pit bull, rat terrier and shepherd.

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.

If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.

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”).

Shepherd mix

This young male shepherd mix has a medium-length brown and black coat.

He’s in kennel No. 3, ID No. 9819.

Labrador Retriever puppy

This male Labrador Retriever puppy has a short chocolate coat.

He’s in kennel No. 4, ID No. 9814.

Rat terrier

This female rat terrier has a short black and white coat.

She’s in kennel No. 6, ID No. 9793.

Female chow chow

This female chow chow has a long black coat.

She’s in kennel No. 9, ID No. 9810.

Male German Shepherd

This male German Shepherd has a medium-length brown and black coat.

He’s in kennel No. 14, ID No. 9813.

Male boxer mix

This male boxer mix has a short brown and white coat.

He’s in kennel No. 19, ID No. 9811.

‘Camilia’

“Camilia” is a female German Shepherd mix with a long black and brown coat.

She’s in kennel No. 20, ID No. 9694.

‘Onyx’

“Onyx” is a female shepherd mix.

She has a medium-length black coat with white markings, and already has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 22, ID No. 4174.

Female Labrador Retriever

This young female Labrador Retriever has a short chocolate coat.

She is in kennel No. 24, ID No. 9812.

Female German Shepherd

This female German Shepherd has a medium-length tan and black coat.

She’s in kennel No. 25, ID No. 9708.

Female German Shepherd

This female German Shepherd has a medium-length tan and black coat.

She’s in kennel No. 27, ID No. 9706.

Female German Shepherd

This female German Shepherd has a medium-length tan and black coat.

She’s in kennel No. 28, ID No. 9710.

Female German Shepherd

This female German Shepherd has a short black and tan coat.

She’s in kennel No. 29, ID No. 9709.

Labrador Retriever-Great Dane

This female Labrador Retriever-Great Dane mix has a short black coat.

She’s in kennel No. 30, ID No. 9797.

Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.

Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm.

For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.

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.

Two thirds of Earth's surface are covered by water — and two thirds of Earth's atmosphere reside over the oceans, far from land and the traditional ways that people measure the gases and pollutants that cycle through the air and around the globe.

While satellites in space measuring the major gases can close some of that gap, it takes an aircraft to find out what's really happening in the chemistry of the air above the oceans. That's where NASA's Atmospheric Tomography, or ATom, mission comes in.

Since 2016, a team of scientists with 25 advanced instruments aboard NASA's DC-8 research aircraft has sampled over 400 different gases and a broad range of airborne particles on month-long excursions from Alaska down the Pacific to New Zealand, then over to South America and up the Atlantic to Greenland, and across the Arctic Ocean.

Far from land, the atmosphere above the ocean is where to find the cleanest air on the planet – at least in theory.

Over the course of three deployments, and with their fourth and final trek beginning in late April, the team has found surprising levels of pollutants above the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

"It is astounding to see such dense pollution in the middle of the ocean, so far from the source regions," said ATom's principal investigator Steve Wofsy of Harvard University, recalling their flight up the center of the Atlantic and their stop at Ascension Island halfway between Africa and South America, just south of the equator.

"As we descended the first time, we were stunned to find ourselves in a thick haze of smoke and dust that originated in Africa, thousands of kilometers to the east. The haze had an unappealing yellow-brown hue and was so thick we couldn't see the ocean. All of the hundreds of pollutant chemicals we measure had very high amounts. On each revisit since that first one, we have found a similar pall extending for thousands of kilometers, spanning the entire tropical Atlantic Ocean," he said.

Computer models that simulate the movement of the major gases such as carbon monoxide, created by incomplete combustion from fires, are one of the tools used by the ATom team to get an idea of what they might see on each leg of their flight. It's also one of the tools they are evaluating.

"One of the great things about ATom is showing how well the model generally works," said Paul Newman, chief scientist of Earth science at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The model combines weather forecasts with known atmospheric chemistry to tell them where and when a pollution plume will intersect the flight path.

"But it misses a lot of the detail. It’s giving you an understanding of where the stuff is coming from, and that allows you to refine your science,” said Newman. “So we’re not out there discovering uncharted lands, but it’s like, I have a map of Iowa, and I’ll drive around there, and that map is probably, depending on how old it is, 95 percent right. It’s the 5 percent wrong that’s interesting."

One of those interesting deviations occurred over the Arctic, according to atmospheric scientist and ATom team researcher Róisín Commane at Columbia University in New York City.

"One of the largest pollution plumes we've seen wasn't predicted by the models, which came from fires in Siberia. So ATom has given us a snapshot of what we might be missing," she said.

Tracking plumes is only the first step. The next is getting a better understanding of how they change as they linger over the ocean.

For example, the hydrocarbons from smoke plumes react in sunlight with other gases to form ozone, a greenhouse gas and air pollutant best known as the main ingredient in city smog.

The instruments aboard the DC-8 can detect both ozone itself and all the gases that produce ozone by chemical reactions. This means that in addition to tracking ozone in plumes from land, the ATom team can also determine how much is produced from other gases over the ocean.

The center of the Pacific Ocean is much farther from land than the Atlantic. There, ATom observed generally low ozone levels, but the production of new ozone over the ocean based on the measured suite of ingredient gases was higher than the models predicted.

"This implies that the remote Pacific is a larger source of tropospheric ozone than we previously understood," said ATom's deputy project scientist Michael Prather at the University of California, Irvine. "It's a preliminary result, and we have yet to analyze whether this produced ozone is natural or related to pollution, but it does mean we'll need to rethink what we believe about how much ozone is produced over the remote oceans, and what that means for the climate and our efforts to reduce ozone pollution on land."

ATom's final deployment will take place this spring. With the atmospheric data they've collected during flights from each season of the year, the science team will continue to analyze the data and improve the atmospheric models that help us understand our home planet.

ATom is funded by NASA's Earth Venture program and managed by the Earth Science Project Office at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

The DC-8 research aircraft is managed by NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in building 703 in Palmdale, California.

A team of over 100 people – scientists, engineers, flight crew and staff – across government agencies and universities support the mission both in the air and from the ground.

To learn more about the ATom mission, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/content/earth-expeditions-atom.

Ellen Gray is part of NASA's Earth Science News Team.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Police said the search for a missing Lakeport teenager has ended with the girl being found safe out of county.

Lia Long, 16, had last been seen by her family on Tuesday afternoon, as Lake County News has reported.

Police believed she had been transported out of county by unknown male subjects, and were concerned for the teen’s safety.

The Lakeport Police Department has been working around the clock on the case, following up on numerous leads with help of the FBI, numerous state and local law enforcement agencies and the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children, according to Chief Brad Rasmussen.

On Saturday, the effort to bring the girl home reached a positive conclusion when police reported that she had been found in Stockton and was safe.

“Family members are currently with her and will be in the process of bringing her back to her home in Lakeport,” police said in the late Saturday afternoon report.

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.