safety, Water

Woman pulled from American River on Saturday expected to survive

A 35-year-old woman who went into the water at Discovery Park while trying to avoid an altercation with a group of transients is expected to survive, the Sacramento Fire Department said Saturday.

The woman was seen floating Saturday morning in the American River at Tiscornia Beach, at the confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers, and was reached quickly because a boat from Sacramento Fire Station 2 already was on the river about a quarter-mile away when she went into the water, said fire spokesman Chris Harvey.

A county ranger recognized her as being part of a group of transients in that area and called for help after seeing her enter the water from shore, he said.

The unidentified woman was transported to a local hospital. No additional medical details were released.

“She was trying to get away from somebody,” Harvey said. “There was a little bit of a transient group of people, and she was perhaps intoxicated or under the influence and went into the water.

“She was floating on the top and she was breathing, but she wouldn’t have been floating much longer. She was kind of unresponsive.”

The area has been the scene of multiple drownings in recent years, and this year’s tally of drownings has been especially bad. Authorities estimate 13 people have died in incidents in the American and Sacramento rivers in Sacramento County this year, twice the normal amount.

More at SacBee.com >>>

Boating, Fish, History, Rafting, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Folsom Lake hits lowest depths in 20-plus years

Even as Sacramento waits for the soaking El Niño forecast to hit this fall, Folsom Lake continues to lose water and will almost certainly fall Thursday to its lowest level in more than 20 years, government data show.

Folsom Lake provides drinking water to hundreds of thousands of residents in the Sacramento region. Releases from the federal reservoir also serve as a bulwark against Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta saltwater intrusion, and are critical to maintaining the delicate ecosystem of the lower American River.

Folsom Lake became the face of California’s drought early last year when aerial photos of its moonscape lake bed were broadcast nationwide. At its lowest point last year, the lake level was the same as what the reservoir contained Wednesday. By Thursday, the reservoir is expected to fall to levels last seen in 1992, at the tail end of a five-year drought. And by month’s end, the depth likely will approach levels not seen since the great drought of 1977.

Area water officials said they are concerned about the dwindling supply but expressed relief that lake depths are not even lower. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the reservoir, initially warned that the lake could fall to 120,000 acre-feet by the end of September.

“The situation has been so rough,” said bureau spokesman Shane Hunt. “We are doing everything we can to make sure we maintain water supplies to homes.”

Still, he added, “We are better than a worst-case scenario.”

More at SacBee.com>>>
Bike Trail, Fire, safety, Wildlife

Authorities arrest alleged parkway arsonist

Brian Larue Sacramento Police Department
Brian Larue – Sacramento Police Department

A man suspected of starting several of this summer’s fires on the American River Parkway has been arrested, the Sacramento Fire Department said in a news release Friday.

Brian Larue, 31, was arrested by fire investigators working with Sacramento police officers and Sacramento County park rangers, it said. He’s suspected of setting several fires that burned on the morning of Aug. 27 south of the American River and a quarter-mile west of the Howe Avenue bridge

More at SacBee.com >>>
safety, Water

Swimmer drowns at Sacramento River confluence

Authorities say a 19-year-old man has drowned after being submerged in Sacramento river waters near Tiscornia Beach.

The Sacramento Bee reports (http://bit.ly/1P9SdL6 ) that Jagjit Basra disappeared Sunday afternoon in the confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers for almost an hour before his unconscious body was recovered.

More at SacBee.com >>>

 

Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Drought could make salmon fishing conditions even worse

They also said they don’t think there were more than just a few fish in the water.

October is typically the most active time of year for salmon fishing, but that activity has slowed to a trickle because of the ongoing drought — and it could be about to get worse.

The Bureau of Reclamation last week reduced water flows into the river in an effort to store what little water remains at Folsom Lake. Less water typically means warmer water, and anglers say it has gotten too warm for the fish.

“We’ve been up and down the river, all the spots that we fish, they’re so low, you can’t even fish them,” said Rodney Durrett, who had his fishing line in the water at Sailor Bar Park. “We’re talking like, 6 inches of water, where we should have 2 feet of water. I mean, it’s kind of sad.”

The flow was reduced from 800 cubic feet per second to 700 in late September, then ultimately to 600 on Oct. 1, said Shane Hunt, a spokesman for the bureau, and, it might be reduced even further, Hunt said.

He said the agency is keeping a close eye on water temperature changes.

More at KCRA.com >>>

Boating, Fish, Rafting, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Emergency drought measures move forward at Folsom Lake

Plastic pipes that will go over Folsom Dam and connect to pump barges were rolled out Thursday as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation continues to work on a temporary emergency floating pump system.

The floating pump system will be used if water levels at Folsom Lake drop below the city’s regular intake. The bureau said this system is an insurance policy.

The barges would pump water through 10 18-inch diameter pipes, each a quarter of a mile long, to a pipeline that provides water to the city of Folsom. The barges, which were built on site, will be rolled out within the week.

More at KCRA.com 

Bike Trail, safety, Water, Wildlife

Livestock to aid fire prevention on American River Parkway

Livestock soon will be grazing in the American River Parkway as part of an effort to reduce vegetation that could fuel fires.

In response to the drought and increasing damage from fires along the parkway, Sacramento County’s Department of Regional Parks announced that grazing animals will be added to the fuel reduction program, beginning in Discovery Park.

More at SacBee.com >>>

Events, Wildlife

Migration takes turkey vulture flocks through Auburn area

With wingspans of six feet prominent in the clear early fall sky, turkey vultures are paying their annual migratory visit to Auburn.

On their way from areas in an around Washington State to final wintering destinations as far south as Brazil and Argentina, the majestic birds typically hunker down in the evenings in the American River Canyon and then take off in a swirl of feathers and flight to soar farther southward.

This year, the birds have flocked to Auburn in the hundreds, according to counts taken over the past week, mostly from a lookout knoll at Overlook Park in Auburn.

Deren Ross, an  Auburn birdwatcher, has been one of the group of spotters scanning the skies above Auburn from the Pacific Avenue park perch in late morning to count the vultures.

The count was up to 950 winged visitors by Tuesday, with 500 migrant turkey vultures spotted on Monday and  400 on Sunday. That was up from 40 on Saturday and another down day on Tuesday with no “kettles” of birds circling skyward and then taking off to the south.

Watchers spotted several vultures on Tuesday morning’s vigil but no confirmed migrants. Ross said that the skyway takes vultures through the Sacramento Valley and then left at the Sutter Buttes to move through Auburn for the turn south into the Sierra and toward Central America.

More at AuburnJournal.com >>>

Bike Trail, Fire, safety, Water, Wildlife

Rangers enforce burning ban along American River Parkway

Sacramento County park rangers have started using a new enforcement tool to crack down on illegal camping, hoping to prevent grass fires along the American River Parkway.

Starting Thursday, rangers are confiscating barbeques, grills and propane tanks — any incendiary device generating an open flame.

The new ban on burning comes after the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, led by Supervisor Phil Serna, adopted an urgency ordinance on Tuesday, making it a misdemeanor to generate campfires on the American River Parkway.

The only exceptions are designated picnic areas at county parks. Sgt. A.J. Bennett found his first illegal campfire today within three minutes of beginning his patrol, with KCRA 3 riding along.

Five homeless campers received citations and lost their barbeque grill.

More at KCRA.com >>>

Bike Trail, Fire, safety, Water, Wildlife

Online petition drums up support for ending Sacramento’s camping ban

An online petition to halt an anti-camping ordinance that mostly affects Sacramento city homeless residents had gathered 77 signatures and counting by Sunday evening, four days after its release.

The campaign was launched by the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, which called for an immediate moratorium on the local law until a separate plan to build 1,500 rapid rehousing units for homeless people was completed.

That won’t happen right away. The rehousing units are one component of a downtown housing initiative the Sacramento City Council approved last month. The initiative calls for 10,000 new housing units to be built in the central downtown corridor over the next 10 years. Sixty percent of those would be sold or rented at market rate, 25 percent intended for working class residents and the remaining 15 percent to immediately house those without shelter.

The rabid rehousing strategy has been gaining steam in numerous cities, and employs a housing-first model that connects unsheltered individuals with whatever services they need once they are housed.

In a release announcing the petition drive, the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, or SRCEH, cited two shifts in national policy to make its case for suspending the city’s camping prohibition on non-recreational campers, a.k.a. people with nowhere else to go.

More at NewsReview.com