Category Archives: Wildlife

Boating, Fish, History, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Folsom Lake Water Level Shrinks To New Historic Low

The water level of Folsom Lake has dipped to a new historic low.

On Sunday the lake level was measured at 140,410 acre feet. The previous record was set in November 1977 when the lake decreased to 140,600 acre feet.

Recent rain has provided a little help, but there’s still a long way to go.

“We may have a very wet winter, but if we don’t have dramatic snowfall and so forth we’ve got to still be conscious we’re still living through this drought,” he Rep. Ami Bera during a recent tour of the lake.

As has been long discussed, Bera says the state must find better ways to store water and he’s pushing the proposed Sites Reservoir, a potential water storage option west of Colusa. The planned reservoir would hold twice the water of Folsom Lake.

More at CBSLocal.com >>>

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

American River Parkway Cleanup Saturday In Sacramento

A clean-up is planned Saturday along a stretch of the American River Parkway in Sacramento.

The goal is to reduce potential pollution in the region’s two major rivers.

The American River Parkway Foundation is coordinating the clean-up of trash and other debris near the Northgate Blvd. area.

The foundation says some of the material is left by visitors and illegal campers. There’s also a bridge over the river nearby that gets a lot of foot traffic.

From food wrappers and cigarette butts, to large pieces of plywood and discarded barbecues, the trash can end up in the American River, and eventually downstream in the Sacramento River when river levels rise.

More at CapRadio.org >>>

Events, Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Fish Ladder Opens On American River

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is releasing water from the bottom of Folsom Lake in an effort to get the river temperature below 60 degrees.

Laura Drath with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife says that’s the temperature needed for fall-run chinook to spawn.

“We have water running down the ladder from the hatchery to the river,” she says. “And when the salmon feel that current their instinct is to swim up river. So, they’ll jump up the steps of the ladder, make their way up the ladder from the river to the hatchery where we can  take bring them inside and start spawning them and collecting those eggs.”

The Nimbus Hatchery on the American River will open its fish ladder Monday morning for spawning salmon.

Drath says it’s too early to say how many salmon will return to spawn.

More at CapRadio.org >>>

Bike Trail, Boating, Rafting, safety, Water, Wildlife

Appeals court says Folsom can go ahead with improvements for Lake Natoma

A state appeals court has cleared the way for Folsom to add and enhance facilities on the shore of Lake Natoma.

The city plans a project that it says will make the shore more accessible to the disabled.

On Thursday, Folsom won a court victory over the Save the American River Association, a citizens’ group dedicated to safeguarding the natural environment of the American River Parkway. The group argued that the city was using the improvements to attract more people to the Folsom Historic District, a zone of shops, bars, restaurants and some historic locations adjacent to the lake.

The city’s true intent is “to increase access and intensity of use … so that Folsom can realize an economic benefit to the Folsom Historic District,” the association argued in a lawsuit to force an environmental impact review by the city in accord with the California Environmental Quality Act.

The association also argued that Folsom’s intent is inconsistent with land-use plans that cover the area.

A three-justice panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal said in Thursday’s unanimous opinion that the project was not inconsistent with adopted plans covering management of the parkway.

The Save the American River Association “has not shown the existence of any substantial evidence giving rise to a fair argument that the project is inconsistent with either plan,” the justices concluded, affirming Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny’s earlier rejection of the association’s plea for an environmental study.

The association pressed its argument that the project will destroy the “natural” quality of the area, changing it “from one appropriately assigned to the low-intensity recreation/conservation designation” to one with a higher-intensity designation that has no conservation element.

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 >>>
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 >>>