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MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. – Water at the Letts Lake Campground on the Grindstone Ranger District of the Mendocino National Forest was turned back on, restoring drinking water availability for campers and recreational visitors.
“After further consultation with State Water Board Officials, including discussion and review during a field visit to Letts Lake, we are happy to be able to restore drinkable water at Letts Lake Campground for our visitors,” said Grindstone District Ranger Eduardo Olmedo.
The initial water shutoff was in response to a list of sites submitted by the State Water Board for water curtailment as a result of ongoing drought conditions.
Forest employees are continuing to verify locations listed for curtailment and will be equally responsive if additional rounds of water curtailment notices are issued in the coming months at other locations.
“Letts Lake is one of our most popular recreation sites during the summer and we truly appreciate our visitors’ understanding during the past few weeks as we further investigated this issue,” said Olmedo. “We appreciate their understanding as we continue to comply with state water regulations and work to do our part conserving valuable water resources in the upper watershed during this drought.”
The Mendocino National Forest has been impacted by the drought with extremely dry fuel conditions and higher fire danger.
The forest is currently under fire restrictions and asking visitors to be careful with fire or anything that can throw a spark and ignite a wildfire.
For more information, please contact the Mendocino National Forest at 530-934-3316 or visit www.fs.usda.gov/mendocino .
The European Space Agency's Rosetta probe is approaching Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for a historic mission to orbit and land on the comet's nucleus.
As Rosetta approaches the comet (now less than 9,000 kilometers away), the form of the nucleus is coming into focus, and it is extraordinary.
This week's images of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko reveal an irregular shape.
There were hints of that in last week's images and in the unscheduled previews that were seen a few days ago, and in that short time it has become clear that this is no ordinary comet.
Like its name, it seems that comet 67P/C-G is in two parts.
What the spacecraft is actually seeing is the pixelated image shown at right, which was taken by Rosetta's OSIRIS narrow angle camera on July 14 from a distance of 12,000 kilometers.
A second image and a movie show the comet after the image has been processed. The technique used, called “sub-sampling by interpolation,” only acts to remove the pixelisation and make a smoother image, and it is important to note that the comet's surface features won't be as smooth as the processing implies.
The surface texture has yet to be resolved simply because we are still too far away; any apparent brighter or darker regions may turn out to be false interpretations at this early stage.
But the movie, which uses a sequence of 36 interpolated images each separated by 20 minutes, certainly provides a truly stunning 360-degree preview of the overall complex shape of the comet.
Regardless of surface texture, we can certainly see an irregular shaped world shining through. Indeed, some people have already likened the shape to a duck, with a distinct body and head.
Although less obvious in the 'real' image, the movie of interpolated images supports the presence of two definite components. One segment seems to be rather elongated, while the other appears more bulbous.
Dual objects like this – known as 'contact binaries' in comet and asteroid terminology – are not uncommon.
Indeed, comet 8P/Tuttle is thought to be such a contact binary; radio imaging by the ground-based Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico in 2008 suggested that it comprises two sphere-like objects.
Meanwhile, the bone-shaped comet 103P/Hartley 2, imaged during NASA's EPOXI flyby in 2011, revealed a comet with two distinct halves separated by a smooth region.
In addition, observations of asteroid 25143 Itokawa by JAXA's Hayabusa mission, combined with ground-based data, suggest an asteroid comprising two sections of highly contrasting densities.
Is Rosetta en-route to rendezvous with a similar breed of comet? The scientific rewards of studying such a comet would be high, as a number of possibilities exist as to how they form.
One popular theory is that such an object could arise when two comets – even two compositionally distinct comets – melded together under a low velocity collision during the Solar System's formation billions of years ago, when small building blocks of rocky and icy debris coalesced to eventually create planets.
Perhaps comet 67P/C-G will provide a unique record of the physical processes of accretion.
Or maybe it is the other way around – that is, a single comet could be tugged into a curious shape by the strong gravitational pull of a large object like Jupiter or the Sun; after all, comets are rubble piles with weak internal strength as directly witnessed in the fragmentation of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and the subsequent impacts into Jupiter, 20 years ago this week.
The two parts of comet 67P/C-G may one day separate completely.
On the other hand, perhaps comet 67P/C-G may have once been a much rounder object that became highly asymmetric thanks to ice evaporation.
This could have happened when the comet first entered the Solar System from the Kuiper Belt, or on subsequent orbits around the Sun.
One could also speculate that the striking dichotomy of the comet's morphology is the result of a near catastrophic impact event that ripped out one side of the comet.
Similarly, it is not unreasonable to think that a large outburst event may have weakened one side of the comet so much that it simply gave away, crumbling into space.
But, while the interpolated images are certainly brilliant, we need to be closer still to see a better three-dimensional view – not to mention to perform a spectroscopic analysis to determine the comet's composition – in order to draw robust scientific conclusions about this exciting comet.
Rosetta Mission Manager Fred Jansen comments: “We currently see images that suggest a rather complex cometary shape, but there is still a lot that we need to learn before jumping to conclusions. With fewer than 10,000 kilometers to go before the Aug. 6 rendezvous, our open questions will soon be answered.”
This story is reprinted courtesy of the European Space Agency, which is leading the Rosetta mission to Comet 67P.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A vehicle stop earlier this week resulted in two arrests and the seizure of marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin.
Thomas Earl Sheppard, 74, of Chico and 40-year-old Sheri Lynn Hann of Lucerne were arrested following the stop, according to Lt. Steve Brooks of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
At 11:55 p.m. Wednesday a patrol deputy was traveling on Highway 20 in the Clearlake Oaks area when he noticed a Ford Explorer traveling eastbound with a defective rear tail light, Brooks said.
Brooks said the deputy conducted an enforcement stop of the vehicle in the area of Highway 20 and Schindler Street in Clearlake Oaks, identifying the driver as Sheppard. Hann also was in the vehicle.
The deputy requested that Central Dispatch conduct a records check of both Sheppard and Hann. Brooks said Central Dispatch advised that Sheppard was on formal felony probation with a search clause out of Butte County and Hann had an active arrest warrant which was citable.
The deputy had Hann exit the vehicle and when she opened the door, the deputy could smell the odor of marijuana emitting from inside the vehicle, Brooks said.
Hann gave consent to search her person and her property. Brooks said the deputy was unable to locate any contraband and issued Hann a citation for her warrant, which was also out of Butte County.
The deputy conducted a search of the vehicle and located a hypodermic syringe and two glass smoking pipes in the center console. Brooks said the deputy also located a digital scale under the driver’s seat.
In the seat pouch located on the back of the front passenger seat, the deputy located four plastic bags containing processed marijuana. He estimated that each of the bags contained approximately one ounce of marijuana, Brooks said.
Sitting next to Sheppard in the driver’s seat was a black fanny pack and a pack of Camel cigarettes, Brooks said. Inside the cigarette pack was a glass pipe which was coated with a dark residue.
Inside the fanny pack was a plastic bag containing a white crystalline substance believed to be methamphetamine, Brooks said. There also was a pill bottle with Sheppard’s name on it, containing 10 individually wrapped plastic bindles containing a crystalline substance believed to be methamphetamine.
Brooks said the deputy also found inside the fanny pack five individually wrapped bindles, containing a brown substance believed to be heroin and a roll of $20 bills.
Sheppard told the deputy that he sold 2 pounds of marijuana earlier in the day for $2,000. Sheppard said the money located in the fanny pack was from the sale, minus some that he used to pay bills. He also said that he got the heroin and what he believed to be crack cocaine in Oroville, Brooks said.
Brooks said Sheppard believed the methamphetamine was crack cocaine which was for his friend, as he does not use cocaine. Sheppard admitted to smoking heroin but denied selling narcotic substances.
The 11 baggies containing the white crystalline substance had an overall weight of 2.3 grams and were confirmed to be methamphetamine. The five bindles containing a brown substance had a gross weight of 5.1 grams and was confirmed to be heroin, Brooks said.
The four plastic bags containing processed marijuana had a gross weight of 121.6 grams or 4.29 ounces. Brooks said all of the bags of drugs were seized as evidence.
A total of $1,520 was located in the fanny pack and seized pending asset forfeiture proceedings, Brooks said.
Sheppard was arrested for possession of a controlled substance for sale, possession of marijuana for sale, possession of a narcotic for sale, violating the terms of his probation and possession of controlled substance paraphernalia, Brooks said.
Brooks said Sheppard was transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility and booked. Sheppard's bail originally was set at $25,000. However, he remained on custody on Friday, with bail surrendered on his case and bond set at $35,000, according to jail records.
Hann was arrested for the Butte County warrant and released on a citation, Brooks said.
The Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force can be reached through its anonymous tip line at 707-263-3663.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A Lakeport Police Department investigation has resulted in the arrest of a Lakeport man who is alleged to have sexually assaulted a female teenager in February.
Officers located Joseph Barber Skee, 20, outside a residence in the 4400 block of Oak Avenue in north Lakeport just before 2:30 p.m. Friday and took him into custody, according to Lakeport Police Lt. Jason Ferguson.
The 17-year-old girl who is the alleged victim in the case contacted the Lakeport Police Department late on the afternoon of Feb. 20 to report that she had been sexually assaulted while at a party at an unknown Lakeport residence on the night of Feb. 13, Ferguson reported.
During the interview with the juvenile, officers learned that she was contacted at the party by an acquaintance known to her as “Joe Skee,” and that he propositioned her for sex but she declined, Ferguson said.
Ferguson said the juvenile female told the officers that she recalled waking up the next morning and saw Skee lying next to her with his pants and underwear down, leading her to believe that she was sexually assaulted.
Officers initiated an investigation over the course of the next few months and, with the assistance of the Lake County Victim-Witness Office and District Attorney’s Office, developed information to obtain an arrest warrant for Skee, Ferguson said.
Skee was arrested for rape of an intoxicated person and rape of a person who is unconscious, according to Ferguson.
Ferguson said Skee was transported to the Lake County Jail and booked, with bail set at $100,000.
ANDERSON SPRINGS, Calif. – An early Thursday morning fire destroyed a home in Anderson Springs.
The fire was reported at 2:30 a.m. Thursday on Rose Anderson Road, according to South Lake County Fire Capt. Tony Allegra.
Nine fire units from South Lake County Fire and Cal Fire responded, Allegra said.
He said South Lake County Fire sent a combination of paid and volunteer staff along with resources that included an engine and a water tender from its Cobb station; a medic from Hidden Valley; and a water tender, utility pickup and rescue unit from Middletown. Battalion Chief Mike Wink also was on scene.
Cal Fire sent two engines from its Middletown station and one from the Kelsey-Cobb area, Allegra reported.
The home's occupants were not injured and were offered housing through Red Cross. Allegra said they turned down the assistance and said they would stay with friends.
Cal Fire sent two fire investigators from its St. Helena headquarters to try to determine the cause of the house fire, Allegra said.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, said Allegra, who added that, because of the heavy damage, the investigators may never find the cause.
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KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Friends of Clear Lake State Park are planning a local celebration on Saturday, August 23, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to commemorate 150 years of operation of the State Park system.
They invite local nonprofits, and businesses with a health and wellness focus to join them that day.
Booth space will be available free-of-charge, and admission to the park will be free to those attending the event.
Organizers hope that young and old alike will take part in the self-guided nature walks, bring a picnic lunch, browse the informational booths, and enjoy lemonade and s’mores.
The event will be a great way to showcase your organization or business and at the same time enjoy the beauty of Clear Lake State Park in your own back yard.
Booth space is limited, so please call Madelene Lyon at 707-279-4395, or Julie Berry at 707 245-5046 or email