Bike Trail, Events, Fish, Rafting, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Volunteers Will Clean Up American River Parkway This Weekend

It’s going to be a beautiful weekend, and you can get out and enjoy the weather while helping the American River Parkway Foundation with its  “Spring Clean Up.”

Sacramento County Supervisor Susan Peters says the clean-up is an important activity.

“The annual effort helps maintain the American River Parkway as a sustainable, natural resource for everyone to enjoy,” she said.

It’s not too late to join in tomorrow morning.

“It’s very easy to sign up if you go to the website of the American River Parkway Foundation, it’s ARPF.org,” she said.

More at KFBK.org >>>

Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Recent Rain, Snow Bring Surge Of Water To Folsom Lake

After days of rain in the Valley and snow in the Sierra, California reservoirs are getting a much needed surge of water.

In the last seven days, Folsom Lake has risen 4.34 feet, according the California Department of Water Resources statistics.

As of midnight Wednesday, Folsom Lake’s surface elevation was 409.42 feet.  The lake hit its lowest point this season in early February when it was at 357.06 feet, according to the state’s data exchange.

Even with the surge of water, Folsom Lake remains just 45 percent of capacity and 69 percent of normal for this date.

More at KCRA.com >>>

Bike Trail, Fish, History, Rafting, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Outdoors: Wealth Of New Information In American River Guidebook

american_river_cover500

A ceramist by profession, and by passion, Eric Peach often leaves his home studio in Auburn to venture down into the American River Canyon, looking for inspiration in the rushing white water, the winding trails, the abundant wildlife and bountiful flora of a thriving ecosystem.

You can see the result in his works, ranging from playful river otters to fish sculptures to those psychedelically hued fire belly newts.

But you can also see Peach’s love for the American River and its foothills in bookstores and at outdoor retailers. The third edition of “The American River: Insider’s Guide to Recreation, Ecology and Cultural History of the North, Middle and South Forks” ($24.95, Protect American River Canyons, 416 pages) recently was released, all proceeds going to the nonprofit Protect American River Canyons, the organization that sponsors the American River Confluence Festival and other fundraising events.

Peach, 64, and wife Paula enlisted no fewer than 44 writers and editors, and 30 photo and graphics contributors, to completely revamp the second edition, published a decade ago. This time around, 15 trails were added, as were scores of new and updated rafting routes, including a new stretch from the confluence down to Rattlesnake Bar. There’s also a complete digest of plants and trees, birds, reptiles and mammals, as well as an exhaustive history of the area, from the Indian settlements up to the now-revived attempts to dam the river.

More at SacBee.com >>>
Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Trucking Of Sacramento River Salmon Starts Monday

More than 12 million juvenile hatchery salmon will get a truck trip downstream starting Monday to help them circumvent the harmful effects of drought on the Sacramento River.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the plan Friday, as a way of bolstering survival rates for the fish. The Sacramento River, compromised by California’s persistent drought, is too low to provide adequate food and protection from predators, potentially jeopardizing a crop of fish that supports the state’s commercial and recreational salmon fishing industries.

Agency spokesman Steve Martarano said it will take 22 days to transport all the fish in tanker trucks from Coleman National Hatchery near Red Bluff. The first salmon will be trucked in a trial run on Monday, with additional shipments continuing Tuesday, if all goes well. Each delivery will deposit the fish back into the Sacramento River near Rio Vista.

Each truck holds about 2,800 gallons of water and 130,000 salmon smolts – juveniles 4 to 6 inches long – and is climate-controlled to maintain a water temperature between 55 and 60 degrees.

The agency owns only two such trucks, so it will borrow five from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The state agency also plans to truck its salmon production from four hatcheries, including Nimbus Hatchery on the American River, starting April 4.

More at ModBee.com >>>

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/2014/03/21/3252063/trucking-of-sacramento-river-salmon.html#storylink=cpy
safety, Water

Folsom Lake Water Levels On The Rise

Folsom Lake is on the rise. The lake has risen 43-feet in the last month, stretching above the 400-foot mark and that means the current five-miles-per-hour speed limit for boats is being lifted.

California State Parks officials say the speed restriction was in place because of lower lake levels with rocks and sandbars much closer to the water’s surface.

From KFBK.com >>>
Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

In Severe Drought Plan, California Salmon May Be Moved By Truck

Starting next month, millions of young California salmon could be migrating to the ocean in tanker trucks instead of swimming downstream in the Sacramento River.

On Monday, state and federal wildlife officials announced a plan to move hatchery-raised salmon by truck in the event the state’s ongoing drought makes the Sacramento River and its tributaries inhospitable for the fish. They fear the rivers could become too shallow and warm to sustain salmon trying to migrate to sea on their own.

Shrunken habitat could deplete food supply for the young fish, and make them easier prey for predators. It also would make the water warmer, which can be lethal to salmon.

“The conditions may be so poor as to produce unacceptable levels of mortality for the out-migrating juveniles,” said Bob Clarke, fisheries program supervisor at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Clarke’s agency operates Coleman National Fish Hatchery on Battle Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River near Red Bluff. It is the largest salmon hatchery in the state, producing about 12 million fall-run Chinook salmon. The hatchery was built to atone for habitat losses caused by construction of Shasta Dam.

Coleman hatchery salmon are usually released into Battle Creek in April and May. Fishery experts prefer to release young fish into rivers so they imprint on the location as “home” and are better able to migrate back from the ocean for spawning three to four years later.

Fall-run Chinook salmon from the Sacramento River and its tributaries compose the bulk of the wild-caught salmon available in California markets and restaurants, and also feed a lucrative sport-fishing industry. In total, these fish represent a multibillion-dollar slice of the state’s economy each year.

California is experiencing one of its driest winters on record. Despite the recent storms, the Sierra snowpack that the state relies on to replenish its reservoirs remains depleted. Without an unusually wet March – and the long-term forecast calls for predominantly dry weather – officials fear rivers may be so diminished in April and May that young salmon will not survive their migration to the ocean.

They are also concerned that water diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta during a low-water year could slaughter many of these young salmon, which measure about 6 inches long. Water pumped out of the Delta by state and federal agencies serves 25 million people from Napa to San Diego.

The trucking plan, devised by the state and federal fisheries agencies, includes a series of triggers, based on river and water supply conditions, that would launch a massive operation to haul the salmon in tanker trucks on a nearly three-hour drive from Red Bluff to San Pablo Bay near Vallejo. There, the salmon would be released into floating net pens to acclimate to new salinity and temperature conditions, then set free to swim for the ocean.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is adopting similar plans for its hatcheries on the Feather, American and Mokelumne rivers. Each produces several million young salmon every year.

More at ModBee.com >>>

Bike Trail, safety, Water

$150 Million For Sacramento Region Flood Control Projects

Nicole Ortega-Jewell with the Corps’ Civil Works Branch says more than $25 million will ensure the completion of levee work along the American River.

“These will actually be the last remaining sections. They’re scattered throughout the American River and actually this will complete all of the work that was authorized back in 1996 and ’99.”

The work is scheduled to be finished next year.

$69 million will go to Folsom Dam projects.

Marysville and Hamilton City levee projects will also be funded.

For the first time, money was allocated for project engineering and design work for the Natomas Levee Improvement Project.

Nearly $11 million will go to improvements in South Sacramento at Florin Creek.

From CapRadio.org >>>

 

Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Flows Increase In American River

The American River is flowing higher through Sacramento today, part of a federal effort to help young salmon at risk during the drought.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation doubled water releases from Nimbus Dam from 500 cubic feet per second to 1,000 cfs. The increase began Wednesday night and is expected to reach 1,000 cfs before returning to 500 cfs just before midnight today.

Biologists call the release a “pulse flow.” It is intended to help some of the wild-spawned fall-run chinook salmon eggs that became dewatered in their gravel nests, or redds, when Reclamation reduced flows in January. That action was taken to conserve water stored in Folsom Reservoir for Sacramento-area communities.

It turns out that not all of those stranded salmon eggs perished as the river shrank. Tom Gohring, executive director of the Sacramento Water Forum, said many were able to survive on the small amounts of water and oxygen that remained within the gravel and hatched into “alevins,” a kind of embryo life stage. The pulse flow is intended to wash those alevins into the river so they can transform into fry, the first finned stage of salmon life.

More at SacBee.com >>>

Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

California Snowpack Still Well Below Normal

California’s Department of Water Resources said Thursday its latest survey shows the Sierra Nevada snowpack is still well below normal — which is bad news for the drought-stricken state.

The survey was done as the first of two back-to-back Pacific storms lightly blanketed the Sierra with fresh snow.

The department said manual and electronic readings show the snowpack’s statewide water content at 24 percent of average for the date.

“It’s just a reflection of the fact that what storms do come through are fairly modest,” snow survey chief Frank Gehrke said. “And then the blocking high-pressure ridge sets back in almost as soon as they’ve left the state.”

The northern and central Sierra snowpack provides about a third of California’s water supply.

More snow is expected from the week’s second and more powerful storm, which is expected to arrive late Thursday and last into Saturday.

Gehrke said such storms are still far from enough to end the drought.

“We’d need 15 or 20 of them — and that’s just not in the cards,” he said.

Rainwater streamed across the parking lot and down the boat ramp at Folsom Lake on Thursday afternoon.

The lake level has risen by more than 6 inches in the past 48 hours, but the reservoir remains about 70 percent empty.

More at KCRA.com >>>

Bike Trail, Wildlife

Estimate To Acquire Private Land, Construct Sacramento Riverfront Trail — $14.5 million

Hop on a bike at Discovery Park just north of downtown Sacramento, and it’s clear riding along the scenic banks of the American River all the way to Folsom.

Heading south along the Sacramento River? You’d better bring a map.

But after years of debates and delays, Sacramento city officials said Tuesday they have finally identified 110 pieces of private land they need to acquire in the Pocket, Greenhaven and Little Pocket neighborhoods to create a riverfront trail stretching from downtown to the city’s southern border. The city also has an estimate for how much that property acquisition and construction of the path would cost: $14.5 million.

“I believe in public access,” said Councilman Darrell Fong, who represents the Pocket and has worked to develop the riverfront plan for three years. “You can’t tell me having access on the rivers all the way to Folsom wouldn’t be an attribute for people who live here.”

This is a debate that has raged in the city’s riverfront neighborhoods for decades. The discussion was resurrected at City Hall every few years, only to be shelved when the attention turned toward the controversial task of purchasing easements along the river levee from property owners who have staked claims to the waterfront.

Even today, many homeowners are defiant of the plan, saying they would rather move than sell a part of their backyards for a riverfront trail. City officials said they may use eminent domain to acquire land from the holdouts.

“No one is selling,” said Rosie Walker, who has lived in a home backing up to the Sacramento River in the Pocket for 50 years. “I don’t want to live here with people looking down into my kitchen windows or living room. Who wants people looking into their home?”

Other neighborhood residents support the concept.

“It’s a beautiful walk along the river and then you hit those gates,” said Greenhaven resident Chris Thoma. “I realize there were a lot of reasons things were set up the way they were, but it’s odd.”

More than a dozen supporters of the plan attended a City Council hearing Tuesday night, describing a neighborhood that is eager to reclaim access to a natural amenity.

“We’re concerned that the progress has been painfully slow,” former Mayor and Councilwoman Anne Rudin told the council.

Mary de Beauvieres, a principal planner with the city’s parks department, said the city will begin contacting homeowners along the river over the next two months to determine how many are willing to sell.

For now, public riverfront access in south Sacramento is broken into clusters of fenced-off stretches and unpaved levee trails. A paved bike path runs from downtown to the Westin Sacramento on Riverside Boulevard, where it suddenly ends.

From there, cyclists, joggers and walkers are forced to maneuver into the quiet Little Pocket neighborhood or travel along Riverside Boulevard for nearly a mile before a paved riverfront trail starts up again. But that path ends again after a short stretch in Greenhaven, blocked to the public by gates and chain-link fences.

Councilman Steve Hansen, who represents the Little Pocket, said public safety is the chief concern of his constituents who live along the river. Hansen said one longtime resident was attacked on the levee behind his home.

As a result, Hansen said he wants the riverfront trail to bypass Little Pocket and instead has proposed creating a two-lane protected bike path along Riverside Boulevard from the Westin to Greenhaven.

“I know some people feel righteous about wanting this, but it has to meet the reality of the facts on the ground,” Hansen said in an interview. “We need to investigate whether there’s an alternate route that’s a better use of public resources. If we really wanted this, we should have long ago purchased those properties.”

Fong said the city would try to ease public safety concerns. He said the park would be closed at night and that the city would explore increasing patrols by park rangers.

In the meantime, city officials are confident they’ll succeed in coming up with the funding for the trail.

De Beauvieres, the city parks planner, said the California State Lands Commission administers grants for local governments building access to waterways. That money can be used only to buy property from willing sellers.

More at MercedSunStar.com >>>