Events, Fish, Salmon, Wildlife

Salmon leap at a chance to spawn at hatchery

With a swish of its tail, a salmon jumps more than 20 steps – one at a time – to the top of the Nimbus Fish Hatchery ladder Monday as the annual fall migration takes place. Nikolai Andryhoushkin, pictured, of Sacramento photographs the event, vital to the survival of salmon and steelhead in the lower American River.

Once they make their way up the fish ladder, the salmon are sorted and spawned on a table. An average salmon female has more than 5,000 eggs. The eggs are housed in the spawning building and the fish are raised until they are 4 to 6 inches long before being released. Steelhead are also raised at the hatchery, just off Highway 50 in Rancho Cordova.

Since 1958, the Nimbus Fish Hatchery has been successfully providing mitigation for the loss of natural fish habitat in conjunction with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the state Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

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Events, Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Salmon ladder opens at Nimbus Hatchery on Monday

Chinook_Nimbus

The fish ladder at Nimbus Hatchery on the American River opens Monday, and salmon are reportedly piling up waiting to use it.

The Chinook salmon run is an annual spectacle on the American River as the giant fish return each fall from the ocean to spawn. This year, the run that continues into December should be noteworthy, because the salmon population is expected to rebound significantly from recent lows.

The fish ladder leading to the hatchery is a great place to view the run, and visitors can stand alongside the ladder while the big salmon jump into the hatchery. The ladder is scheduled to open at 10:45 a.m. Monday.

“There will definitely be fish,” said Andrew Hughan, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which operates the hatchery.

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safety, Water

Blasting From Folsom Dam Work Underway

The Army Corps of Engineers is excavating sections of the spillway for the new Folsom Dam. The corps will be blasting as it lays the groundwork to connect the American River with the new dam.

Chris Gray with the Army Corps says Folsom Lake Crossing Bridge will be closed from 1:30 to 2:30 in the afternoon for the next two weeks.

“We’ve more or less excavated the chute that’s part of the new spillway,” says Gray.  “That’s where the water will go when it leaves the new dam and connects to the American River. So that’s excavation’s done. Right now, we’re basically building that second dam.”

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Fish, Salmon, Wildlife

Researchers say California salmon experiment a success

Flooded rice fields appear capable of serving as substitutes for now-depleted wetlands and helping California’s Chinook salmon population recover, researchers have concluded.

In a report submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the researchers said salmon raised in replicated rice fields near Sacramento as part of their experiments were the fattest and fastest-growing salmon ever documented in freshwater in the state.

“We’re finding that land managers and regulatory agencies can use these agricultural fields to mimic natural processes,” study co-author Carson Jeffries, field and laboratory director of the University of California, Davis’ Center for Watershed Sciences, said in a news release on Thursday.

The state Department of Water Resources and a nonprofit called California Trout also participated in the report, which is dated Oct. 1.

Juvenile Chinook salmon in California’s Central Valley have traditionally been reared in wetlands, where they fatten up before heading off to the ocean. A salmon’s size is an indicator of its likelihood of returning to spawn as an adult, according to the study.

The goal of the researchers’ experiment was to determine whether rice fields flooded between harvests could stand in for the wetlands that once filled the area.

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Fish, Water, Wildlife

Dry October doesn’t help reservoir water levels

With docks perched on sand and vehicles parked where buoys once floated, anyone heading out to Folsom Lake can see right away that the water level is low.

“We’re getting dangerously low,” said a fisherman who was out at the Lake Tuesday.

The reservoir, which is used for municipal and industrial purposes, is 11 percent lower than is was this time last year, according to the Department of Reclamation.

“Last year we were at about 42 percent of capacity, this time of year; this year we are at about 33 percent in Folsom,” Department of Reclamation’s Lewis Moore said.

Moore said it’s not just Folsom where water levels are low. because of back-to-back below average annual precipitation amounts, all of the region’s reservoirs have dropped from 57 percent capacity last year down to 41 percent this year.

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Bike Trail, safety, Wildlife

American River Parkway Rangers Propose Letting Dogs Back On Bike, Horse Trails

A new effort to protect the American River Parkway would expand where people can walk their dogs, but maintain the strict guidelines on leashes.

Park rangers will present the possible law change to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

Mark Gibbons walks his dog, Charlie, on the bike path often.

“I’ve never had a problem with my dogs, nor have I seen anyone else walking their dog have a problem with bicyclists or walkers,” he said.

But he also strays off the beaten path.

“There’s some secluded areas where I can let her off the leash,” Gibbons said.

But that’s against the law, according to park rangers. Under current law, dogs aren’t allowed on the trails, because they pose a public safety risk, by running  into, or even biting, cyclists.

“There have been times where dogs have been on the bike trail, and I’ve had to brake and swerve out of the way,” said cyclist Daniel Mueller.

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Bike Trail, Fish, safety, Water, Wildlife

Guy West Bridge will undergo restoration project to remove lead-based paint

The city of Sacramento will make numerous restorations to the Guy West bridge during the spring semester, including a removal of the original lead based paint that has deteriorated since the bridge was built.

“Primarily, it’s a bridge paint job,” said Max Katt, an associate engineer at the Sacramento based Quincy Engineering.

Quincy is one of the firms collaborating in the restoration.

“The existing paint has lead based materials and other hazardous materials that need to be fully removed before they can be replaced by a modern paint system. The existing paint is faded, cracked and losing adhesion and is no longer protecting the steel and doing its job to prevent corrosion,” said Katt.

Katt also said if the paint is not restored soon, it will continue to erode the bridge and may become a bigger problem.

The lead based paint will be contained and disposed of using hazardous material standards. The process will be closely monitored to ensure the safety of the surroundings, those working on the bridge and pedestrians who come into contact with the bridge during the restorations.

Other repairs to the bridge include work on the suspension cables, the deck and railings and the loose utility conduit. The entire project carries an estimated cost of $3.2 million.

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Fish, Rafting, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Salmon restoration in American River worries some kayakers, rafters

A project to improve salmon spawning habitat in the American River has some kayakers and rafters concerned that they may lose a favorite area of rapids.

The project, which started Sept. 3, involves using bulldozers to place 6,000 tons of large gravel cobbles in the riverbed near River Bend Park and Arden Way. The gravel is needed to create spawning habitat for wild chinook salmon, which make nests for their eggs in the rocks.

The work is occurring directly downstream from the parkway pedestrian bridge between River Bend Park and William Pond Recreation Area. This stretch of river includes the Arden rapids, an area favored by kayakers and rafters.

“It was a bit of a surprise to see all that rock in there and basically changing the whole flow of the river,” said Sven Lund, organizer of the SacYakkers kayak club. “For people going in it for the first time, it seems like an unnatural flow to the river and they will get caught on the gravel.”

Lund and others eventually learned that the right side of the river has water deep enough to pass.

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

Volunteers needed to help remove trash from American River and other waterways

Whether it’s the ocean you love, the rushing American River or the sparkling Yuba, you’ll have a chance Saturday to help keep the water free of debris.

Saturday is the International Coastal Cleanup, an annual event that last year drew more than 500,000 volunteers who removed 10 million pounds of trash from shorelines worldwide. Conservation groups around the country have scheduled river cleanups to coincide with the coastal effort, begun nearly three decades ago by the Ocean Conservancy. In the greater Sacramento region, these include the Great American River Cleanup, the Annual Yuba River Cleanup, the Great Sierra River Cleanup and Teaming up for the Tuolumne. (See www.arpf.org)

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