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City Manager Alan Flora asked for, and received, the council’s approval to purchase the parcel at 6540 Old Highway 53 from AmeriGas for the appraised value of $110,000.
Flora explained that the property will be used for the construction of a new public roadway and future commercial development at the city’s former Pearce Field airport off of Highway 53.
He referred to the city’s purchase, approved in December but completed early this year, of some old mini storage buildings at 6461 Manzanita Ave. and 6452 Francisco Ave. for $550,000.
The parcels are located to the west of the Highway 53 and 18th Avenue intersection, on the edge of the Pearce Field property. A new road will be constructed through one of those parcels.
As part of that development, Flora said city staff had been trying to negotiate for the property for quite some time.
He said it had been a challenge to get responses from AmeriGas, which is located on the East Coast. “We believe we’re on the right track at this point.”
The city had performed an appraisal and got a title report to speed up the process, Flora said.
“This piece of property is necessary for the 18th Avenue road construction that we’re trying to finalize the plans on right now and hope to initiate construction on that project yet this year,” he said.
He said that AmeriGas had agreed to sell property to the city for $110,000. He hadn’t yet received the final agreement from them, which he said the company had been promising for a couple of weeks by that point.
In order to keep things moving, Flora said he wanted the council to authorize him to execute the documents needed to purchase the property as soon as he gets the documents from AmeriGas.
There was no public comment before Councilman Russ Cremer moved to approve the purchase, which was seconded by Councilman David Claffey and approved in a 5-0 vote.
The council on Thursday also held the first introduction for the first reading of an ordinance to update the municipal code to reflect the city’s migration from a traffic engineer to a city engineer model, approved the use and retention of the development impact fees for fiscal year 2021-22, and discussed the proposed bylaws amendments for the 2022 League of California Cities Annual Conference.
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The commission will meet beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 23, in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.
The agenda can be found here.
Submit comments and questions in writing for commission consideration by sending them to Administrative Services Director/City Clerk Melissa Swanson at
Community members also can participate via Zoom.
Community members also can participate via Zoom. The meeting also can be watched on the city’s YouTube account.
To give the planning commission adequate time to review your questions and comments, please submit written comments before 4 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 23.
On the agenda is a proposal to build a new adult residential care facility for mentally ill adults at 14139 Konocti St.
The property previously was the location of the San Sousee adult residential facility, which was destroyed in January 2017 due to a fire set by a resident, as Lake County News has reported.
Gary Shimotsu, a representative of property owner Be April Importante, is applying for a
conditional use permit and associated environmental filing, categorical exemption in accordance with Section 18-18.020 to allow the development and operation of a residential care facility in the medium density residential land use district.
A public hearing on the city’s Burns Valley Development Project that was scheduled for Tuesday is being continued to the meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 13.
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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.
The following cats at the shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Male orange tabby
This young male orange tabby is described by staff as a “lovebug.”
He’s ready for an indoor only home. He came to the shelter with an injury to his right front leg that required an amputation, “however that has not stopped his purring or loving personality. He can be shy at first, but the minute he sees your lap, he curls up and turns on the best purr machine you have ever heard,” according to the post by shelter staff.
Stop by and meet him and see why he has everyone at the shelter wrapped around his paws.
He is in cat room kennel No. 57, ID No. LCAC-A-3709.
Domestic shorthair kitten
This handsome male domestic shorthair kitten is waiting to meet his new family.
He has an all-black coat.
He is in cat room kennel No. 84c, ID No. LCAC-A-3616.
‘Olive’
“Olive” is a female domestic medium hair kitten with a black coat.
She is in cat room kennel No. A117, ID No. LCAC-A-3742.
‘Willow’
“Willow” is a female domestic shorthair cat with a gray and white coat.
She is in cat room kennel No. 47, ID No. LCAC-A-3762.
Male domestic shorthair kitten
This male domestic shorthair kitten has a gray tabby coat with white markings.
He is in cat room kennel No. A1b, ID No. LCAC-A-3663.
Female gray tabby
This 2-year-old female gray tabby has a short coat with white markings.
She is in cat room kennel No. 28, ID No. LCAC-A-3661.
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PFAS chemicals seemed like a good idea at first. As Teflon, they made pots easier to clean starting in the 1940s. They made jackets waterproof and carpets stain-resistant. Food wrappers, firefighting foam, even makeup seemed better with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances.
Then tests started detecting PFAS in people’s blood.
Today, PFAS are pervasive in soil, dust and drinking water around the world. Studies suggest they’re in 98% of Americans’ bodies, where they’ve been associated with health problems including thyroid disease, liver damage and kidney and testicular cancer. There are now over 9,000 types of PFAS. They’re often referred to as “forever chemicals” because the same properties that make them so useful also ensure they don’t break down in nature.
Scientists are working on methods to capture these synthetic chemicals and destroy them, but it isn’t simple.
The latest breakthrough, published Aug. 18, 2022, in the journal Science, shows how one class of PFAS can be broken down into mostly harmless components using sodium hydroxide, or lye, an inexpensive compound used in soap. It isn’t an immediate solution to this vast problem, but it offers new insight.
Biochemist A. Daniel Jones and soil scientist Hui Li work on PFAS solutions at the Michigan State University and explained the promising PFAS destruction techniques being tested today.
How do PFAS get from everyday products into water, soil and eventually humans?
There are two main exposure pathways for PFAS to get into humans – drinking water and food consumption.
PFAS can get into soil through land application of biosolids, that is, sludge from wastewater treatment, and can they leach out from landfills. If contaminated biosolids are applied to farm fields as fertilizer, PFAS can get into water and into crops and vegetables.
For example, livestock can consume PFAS through the crops they eat and water they drink. There have been cases reported in Michigan, Maine and New Mexico of elevated levels of PFAS in beef and in dairy cows. How big the potential risk is to humans is still largely unknown.
Scientists in our group at Michigan State University are working on materials added to soil that could prevent plants from taking up PFAS, but it would leave PFAS in the soil.
The problem is that these chemicals are everywhere, and there is no natural process in water or soil that breaks them down. Many consumer products are loaded with PFAS, including makeup, dental floss, guitar strings and ski wax.
How are remediation projects removing PFAS contamination now?
Methods exist for filtering them out of water. The chemicals will stick to activated carbon, for example. But these methods are expensive for large-scale projects, and you still have to get rid of the chemicals.
For example, near a former military base near Sacramento, California, there is a huge activated carbon tank that takes in about 1,500 gallons of contaminated groundwater per minute, filters it and then pumps it underground. That remediation project has cost over $3 million, but it prevents PFAS from moving into drinking water the community uses.
Filtering is just one step. Once PFAS is captured, then you have to dispose of PFAS-loaded activated carbons, and PFAS still moves around. If you bury contaminated materials in a landfill or elsewhere, PFAS will eventually leach out. That’s why finding ways to destroy it are essential.
What are the most promising methods scientists have found for breaking down PFAS?
The most common method of destroying PFAS is incineration, but most PFAS are remarkably resistant to being burned. That’s why they’re in firefighting foams.
PFAS have multiple fluorine atoms attached to a carbon atom, and the bond between carbon and fluorine is one of the strongest. Normally to burn something, you have to break the bond, but fluorine resists breaking off from carbon. Most PFAS will break down completely at incineration temperatures around 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,730 degrees Fahrenheit), but it’s energy intensive and suitable incinerators are scarce.
There are several other experimental techniques that are promising but haven’t been scaled up to treat large amounts of the chemicals.
A group at Battelle has developed supercritical water oxidation to destroy PFAS. High temperatures and pressures change the state of water, accelerating chemistry in a way that can destroy hazardous substances. However, scaling up remains a challenge.
Others are working with plasma reactors, which use water, electricity and argon gas to break down PFAS. They’re fast, but also not easy to scale up.
The method described in the new paper, led by scientists at Northwestern, is promising for what they’ve learned about how to break up PFAS. It won’t scale up to industrial treatment, and it uses dimethyl sulfoxide, or DMSO, but these findings will guide future discoveries about what might work.
What are we likely to see in the future?
A lot will depend on what we learn about where humans’ PFAS exposure is primarily coming from.
If the exposure is mostly from drinking water, there are more methods with potential. It’s possible it could eventually be destroyed at the household level with electro-chemical methods, but there are also potential risks that remain to be understood, such as converting common substances such as chloride into more toxic byproducts.
The big challenge of remediation is making sure we don’t make the problem worse by releasing other gases or creating harmful chemicals. Humans have a long history of trying to solve problems and making things worse. Refrigerators are a great example. Freon, a chlorofluorocarbon, was the solution to replace toxic and flammable ammonia in refrigerators, but then it caused stratospheric ozone depletion. It was replaced with hydrofluorocarbons, which now contribute to climate change.
If there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that we need to think through the full life cycle of products. How long do we really need chemicals to last?
A. Daniel Jones, Professor of Biochemistry, Michigan State University and Hui Li, Professor of Environmental and Soil Chemistry, Michigan State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Firefighters continued to work through the night to fully contain the Point fire burning new Lower Lake.
The fire was first reported shortly before 5:45 p.m. Saturday.
Cal Fire said it is located in the area of Anderson Road and Panorama Road, near Point Lakeview Road, west of Lower Lake.
It resulted in evacuation orders in two zones, KEL-E146-A and LOW-E154, that officials said remained in effect overnight.
Early estimates of the fire’s size put it at around 25 acres.
By Saturday night, Cal Fire had rolled back that estimate to 14 acres, with 20% containment.
There had been concerns about an area flaring up due to the fire, and firefighters remained assigned to the fire.
More crews and teams are due to report to the fire on Sunday, according to radio reports.
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Clearlake City Council to hold special meeting on council appointments, finance director recruitment
The council will meet at 3:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 22, in closed session to discuss a potential case of litigation before the public portion of the meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at Clearlake City Hall, 14050 Olympic Drive.
The meeting will be broadcast live on the city's YouTube channel or the Lake County PEGTV YouTube Channel. Community members also can participate via Zoom or can attend in person.
The agenda can be found here.
Comments and questions can be submitted in writing for City Council consideration by sending them to City Clerk Melissa Swanson at
To give the council adequate time to review your questions and comments, please submit your written comments before 1:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 22.
Each public comment emailed to the city clerk will be read aloud by the mayor or a member of staff for up to three minutes or will be displayed on a screen. Public comment emails and town hall public comment submissions that are received after the beginning of the meeting will not be included in the record.
On Monday, city staff will ask the council to discuss and provide direction on whether to appoint nominated councilmembers to serve another term in lieu of holding an election for those seats.
City Clerk/Administrative Services Director Melissa Swanson’s report explains that incumbent council members Russ Cremer and Dirk Slooten were the only ones to file to run for election in November.
“Because there are the same number of available offices and candidates, Elections Code § 10229 gives the City the option to appoint these candidates in lieu of holding an election,” Swanson wrote.
“Government Code 36512(d) prohibits an appointment that would result in a majority of councilmembers serving by way of appointment. For this reason, if the Council chooses to appoint the incumbents in lieu of election, if any future seat would become unfilled before the next election, the City Council would not have the option to fill the available council seat via appointment and would have to hold a special election at that time,” Swanson sadi in her report.
She said there were no nominations for city treasurer. Likewise, the city has the option to appoint a qualified elector to the city treasurer seat in lieu of holding an election or authorize the election for city treasurer to move forward, which allows for a candidate to be nominated during the write-in candidate period of Sept. 12 through Oct. 25.
Swanson said that city municipal code requires that whenever a vacancy occurs in the office of city treasurer, the city manager is automatically appointed to fill the vacancy until a successor is appointed or elected.
There has been no elected city treasurer filling the vacancy since 2006, Swanson said.
Swanson said the options include holding an election for all three seats, appointing Cremer and Slooten while holding an election in November for city treasurer, and appointing a qualified elector to the city treasurer seat and appoint the two qualified City Council candidates to the Council seats.
Also on Monday, City Manager Alan Flora will ask the council to consider hiring an executive recruiter to fill the upcoming finance director vacancy.
Flora’s report said that last week the city’s current finance director accepted a position out of state.
The city’s finance director, Kelcey Young, was hired in June 2021.
“Staff would like to move forward expeditiously to fill the upcoming vacancy,” said Flora, who is requesting authorization to select and contract with an executive recruiting firm to fill the vacancy.
Flora is asking to spend up to $30,000 on the recruitment.
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