Inyo County

From doughnut shops to grocery stores, the talk of Inyo County this week is the former sheriff turned bad guy and the judge who gave him probation for seven felony convictions, including embezzlement of county funds. "People aren't over O.J. [Simpson]," said one man in this small Eastern Sierra community, "and now their own official has gotten off with a slap on the wrist."

On a cool, crisp morning, Scott Kemp's battered white pickup truck was the only vehicle in sight along a long, narrow lane lined with desert daisies and curious cows on the eastern flanks of jagged, gray Mt. Whitney. The road streaked across the historic Lubken Ranch, a spread that Kemp and his three sisters inherited from their father, Sandy Kemp, after he died in 2004. Against a backdrop of rippling meadows and sagebrush rising up to the Sierra Nevada, the tall, lean cowboy shook his head and said, "It won't be easy leaving this ranch.

The Inyo County Planning Commission is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to recommend approval of a permit that would allow a geothermal plant to pump water from an aquifer that is the lifeblood of a 50-year-old hunting club, Little Lake Ranch, and its wetlands along U.S. 395. Coso Operating Co.

A 13-year-old mystery involving the disappearance of four German tourists in the sweltering desert of Death Valley may have ended Friday, when authorities announced that bones that may be their skeletal remains had been found. In a statement, Inyo County Undersheriff Jim Jones said that personal identification belonging to one of the tourists was found near the skeletal remains, which were discovered by two hikers Thursday in a remote area of Death Valley National Park. The four tourists -- Cornelia Meyer, 28; her 4-year-old son, Max; Egbert Rimkus, 33; and his son, Georg Weber, 10 vanished in July 1996, when temperatures at the park reached 115 degrees.

A magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck Monday in the Coso range in Inyo County east of U.S. 395, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The shallow 3:08 p.m. temblor was centered 31 miles north of Ridgecrest and 27 miles east of Olancha. It caused neither damage nor injuries.

Two small earthquakes rattled portions of California on Wednesday: a magnitude 4.1 tremor in a remote desert section of Inyo County 40 miles northeast of Lone Pine and a 3.3 aftershock of the 1994 Northridge quake centered a mile northeast of San Fernando. The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the Inyo County quake occurred at 8:50 a.m., while the San Fernando Valley aftershock took place at 1:46 p.m. Neither caused any reported damage or injuries.

Caltech seismologists reported 45 earthquakes greater than magnitude 2.0 on Thursday as vigorous seismic activity continued in the Inyo County desert north of Ridgecrest. The strongest quake was magnitude 3.8. Two others were magnitude 3.6. Scientists have warned that there will probably be a large number of aftershocks in coming weeks from Wednesday's moderately strong 5.0 temblor in the Coso Volcanic Range, 30 miles north of Ridgecrest.

Supervisor District 1 100% Precincts Reporting: votes (%) H.B. Irwin*: 593 (38%) Warden Allsup: 591 (38%) Liz Blackwell: 386 (25%) Sheriff 100% Precincts Reporting: votes (%) Allan B. George: 3,273 (53%) Don Dorsey*: 2,876 (47%) Public Administrator 100% Precincts Reporting: votes (%) SallieCline*: 3,711 (66%) Caroll J.

On a recent weekday morning, Tom and Jo Heindel strode to the top of a hill at the edge of town and held hands, savoring the panoramic views below of elk grazing in alfalfa fields, strips of willows along streams and elm trees glistening with the remnants of rain. Then Tom, 73, and Jo, 71, got down to business. "A few dozen scaup, 10 eared grebes, 12 Clark's grebes, 20 canvasbacks and a Northern harrier gliding low and fast," Jo said, peering through a spotting scope. "Got it," said Tom, transcribing the information on a tally sheet spread across the hood of their aging white mini-pickup truck.

A magnitude 4.1 earthquake hit the Eastern Sierra region of the state Tuesday, but there were no reports of damage or injuries. The quake struck about 11:06 a.m. near the town of Keeler in Inyo County. The quake hit in the same general area as a swarm of temblors last week that rattled Inyo County. Scores of mostly tiny temblors have been recorded in the region over the last week. -- Shelby Grad

`The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research has revised an earlier study detailing severe shortages of dentists in several California counties. A technical error -- which arose because some ZIP Codes span two counties -- caused an underestimate in the total number of active dentists and the ratio of dentists to population in some areas. The overall remain largely the same: Some counties are experiencing a severe shortage and others may soon see shortages when aging dentists retire.

Have a toothache in Alpine County? Tough luck. There are no active dentists there, making it the most underserved dental population in California, according to a report released Thursday by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The 700-square-mile mountainous region is one of several counties with severe dentist shortages. San Benito and Inyo counties have less than one dentist per 5,000 people; Imperial and Colusa counties have less than one dentist per 4,000.

It puts out enough electricity to light 250,000 homes and generates a large portion of the tax revenue that funds school districts, a hospital and emergency response in rural Inyo County, east of the cresting Sierra Nevada. With its own wells in decline, Coso Operating Co.'s geothermal plant was granted a county permit Wednesday to pump water from an aquifer that nourishes a 50-year-old private hunting club, Little Lake Ranch, and its spring-fed wetlands adjacent to U.S. Highway 395.

The Inyo County Planning Commission is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to recommend approval of a permit that would allow a geothermal plant to pump water from an aquifer that is the lifeblood of a 50-year-old hunting club, Little Lake Ranch, and its wetlands along U.S. 395. Coso Operating Co.

John Smith knows sidewalks. He is, after all, the former Inyo County director of public works. So it's with a growing sense of frustration that Smith is trying to prevent Caltrans from ripping out trees on and near his property to build what he calls "sidewalks to nowhere." His lifelong domain has been a wood-frame house in a grove of elms and sycamores at the north end of this isolated burg on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada.

LONE PINE, Calif. -- In an arid Eastern Sierra region where people have had a keen appreciation for water since Los Angeles raided their supplies nearly a century ago, a new water war is brewing. But this time the combatants are locals: A hunting club is battling a geothermal plant for control of an aquifer beneath the southern Owens Valley's lava flows and desert scrub.