Category Archives: Salmon

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

American River Parkway Spring Clean Up Is Set For This Saturday

There’s still time to volunteer to work at The Annual American River Parkway Spring Clean Up.

For the 9th year in a row, a spring clean-up of the 23-mile American River Parkway will happen this Saturday, April 11.

“With the water levels so low we have access to so much of the riverbed where so much trash is and if we can help remove that when it does rain and we get a normal precipitation the waterways will not be dirty.”-Dianna Poggetto with the American River Parkway Foundation says.

Poggetto says it goes from 9 to Noon and they’ll provide food and water:

More at KFBK.com >>>

Bike Trail, Boating, Fire, Fish, Rafting, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Governor Issues Mandatory Water Cuts As California Snowpack Hits Record Low

Standing in a dry brown meadow that typically would be buried in snow this time of year, Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday ordered the first mandatory water cutbacks in California history, a directive that will affect cities and towns statewide.

With new measurements showing the state’s mountain snowpack at a record low, officials said California’s drought is entering uncharted territory and certain to extend into a fourth straight year. As a result, Brown issued sweeping new directives to reduce water consumption by state residents, including a mandatory 25 percent cut in urban water use.

On Wednesday, Brown attended a routine snow survey at 6,800 feet in the Sierra Nevada, near Echo Summit on Highway 50 along the road to Lake Tahoe. The April 1 survey is an annual ritual, marking the end of the winter season, in which automated sensors and technicians in the field strive to measure how much water the state’s farms and cities will receive from snowmelt.

The measurements showed the snowpack at just 5 percent of average for April 1, well below the previous record low of 25 percent, which was reached last year and in 1977.

California’s mountain snowpack is crucial to determining summer supplies, normally accounting for at least 30 percent of total fresh water available statewide. The poor snowpack means California reservoirs likely already have reached peak storage and will receive little additional runoff from snowmelt, an unusual situation.

“We’re standing on dry grass, and we should be standing in five feet of snow,” Brown said. “We’re in an historic drought, and that demands unprecedented action.”

Brown’s executive order directs California’s more than 3,000 urban water providers to collectively cut their water use by 25 percent compared with 2013. The State Water Resources Control Board is expected to impose the new restrictions by mid-May, setting a different target for each agency depending on how much water its customers use per capita and conservation progress since last year.

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

Drought Threatens American River Fish

Endangered steelhead about to hatch in the American River could soon be killed by low flows and warm temperatures caused by the drought, a sign of the ongoing struggle over scarce water supplies.

The fish, which are protected by the Endangered Species Act, are beginning to hatch from eggs in riverbed gravel. They require water cooler than 57 degrees to survive. Temperatures are already warmer than that due to record-breaking heat this month and low river flows caused by a fourth year of drought in California.

As hatchlings – also known as alevins – the fish have not yet matured into fully formed fish and are unable to swim.

“It’s the most sensitive life stage. They can’t go elsewhere and they’re highly sensitive to flows,” said Tom Gohring, executive director of the Sacramento Water Forum, a coalition of Sacramento water agencies and environmental groups that monitors the river. “If things continue to be bad … they will perish in the gravel.”

The problem is a shortage of water in Folsom Reservoir caused by the drought. Although the reservoir now holds more water than at this time last year, it is expected to be in worse shape by the end of summer.

That’s because the Sierra Nevada snowpack is at its lowest level in recorded history – just 8 percent of average as of Thursday. As a result, it will provide little runoff to refill the reservoir in the months ahead. Weather patterns diverted storms away from California most of the winter, leaving January and March as the driest in more than 100 years of record keeping.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates Folsom and Nimbus dams on the American River, dropped water flows in the river to 500 cubic feet per second on Thursday. That falls below a flow standard negotiated with the Water Forum to protect the river environment, but it is allowed in cases of severe drought, Gohring said.

“That was primarily an effort to help conserve water based on the persistent drought conditions,” said Reclamation spokesman Louis Moore. “Everything is being done to make sure the water supply we have is being used to the best of our ability, and we’re working with others to stretch it.”

Water stored in Folsom Reservoir serves a number of urban water suppliers in the Sacramento region, as well as farm irrigation districts in the San Joaquin Valley.

Reclamation has a limited ability to monitor temperatures in the river on its own. So the Sacramento Water Forum, which is funded mainly by local water agencies, hired a consultant to install temperature probes at strategic locations in the river. Those revealed that water temperatures have already exceeded 57 degrees, Gohring said.

The problem has been aggravated by record-breaking heat in the Sacramento area last week. On Friday, Sacramento Executive Airport saw a high of 83 degrees, breaking the previous record of 79 degrees set in 1986. Downtown reached 85 degrees, which tied the record from 1923.

Reclamation responded by boosting water releases from Folsom Dam. The water is being released from gates in the face of the dam – a rare occurrence – in order to access cold water deeper in the reservoir. That cooler water is expected to reach the lower American River, where steelhead spawn, starting Sundaymorning.

The additional water flows will be temporary, lasting only into the afternoon on Monday. But officials hope it will be enough to help the emerging steelhead. Sacramento temperatures are expected to cool down to a more seasonable 70-degree range on Tuesday.

“If water temperatures become a detriment to fish, they will make an adjustment to try and cool the water a bit,” Moore said. “We are conserving as much as we can, and every little bit counts.”

The tight scheduling of water flows indicates how precious supplies have become.

More at SacBee.com >>>
Fire, Fish, Rafting, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

California Drought Prompting Extraordinary Measures To Shield Salmon

State and federal wildlife officials this month are preparing extraordinary measures to shield Chinook salmon returning to spawn in California’s drought-depleted rivers.

Sacramento River fall-run Chinook salmon are producing their way upstream from the Pacific Ocean to start their annual spawning ritual. These fish, mainly created in hatcheries, make up the most abundant salmon run in California and are the principal catch for an ocean fishery that sustains thousands of jobs.

But the species has had wild population swings over the previous decade due to the fact of droughts, poor ocean circumstances and loss of habitat. Officials are hoping to prevent a different wild swing by taking action to support this year’s run, like some measures that have in no way been attempted in California.

At the American River Hatchery near Sacramento, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is installing water chillers at a expense of almost $1 million to guarantee water coursing via the hatchery doesn’t come to be lethally warm for salmon and other species hatched and raised there. The chillers, primarily giant refrigeration units, are in location at a couple of hatcheries about the state but had in no way ahead of been used on the American River.

And in case Sacramento River flows grow to be too low or as well warm, state and federal agencies are thinking about a different new tool: egg injection. In this approach, salmon eggs would be preserved in a hatchery until river temperatures cool off later this fall, then moved to the river and injected with a hose into gravel beds, where they theoretically would hatch on their own. Egg injection has been prosperous in Oregon and Alaska but has never been used in California.

Kevin Shaffer, salmon plan manager at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said egg injection is getting “seriously regarded as.” But it would be used experimentally, not as a broadly applied tool to shield the salmon run.

“We consider that’s the very best strategy, mainly because it is something definitely new to California,” Shaffer mentioned. “We could see some substantial die-off of organic eggs (due to the drought). But we could also see significant die-off of the injected eggs. We just don’t know.”

More at ChronicleBulletin.com >>>

Boating, Events, Fire, Fish, News from Other Watersheds, Rafting, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Spring To Arrive Rain-Free In Sacramento And North State, Much Like Winter

The official arrival of spring today brings with it the realization that Sacramento and the Sierra Nevada have again been abnormally dry for the fourth straight winter.

The rainy season began in the fall with hope that the drought would be broken, but that was not to be.

With the exception of one big “Pineapple Express” in December and a good rain in February, Sacramento has been dry – and, lately, warm.

On Thursday, Sacramento set a record when the high temperature reached 81 degrees at Executive Airport, topping the previous mark of 80 degrees set in 2004, according to the National Weather Service.

The lack of rain was especially stark in usually soggy January when just 0.01 of an inch was recorded in Sacramento.

The winter also did not deliver a great deal of snow to the Sierra Nevada. California’s water supplies are reliant on mountain snowpack that melts in the spring and fills reservoirs for summer use in cities and on farms.

The most recent snowpack survey showed that statewide the mountains have just 13 percent of the snowpack normal for this time of year.

“Generally our snowpack accounts for about a third of our state water supply,” said Brooke Bingaman, weather service meteorologist. “Not all of the 13 percent snowpack will end up in the reservoirs, some of it will soak into the ground. So the level our reservoirs are at now is essentially what we will have for the rest of the summer.”

The culprit behind the snowfall shortfall is a familiar meteorological villain – a high-pressure ridge that has shunted snowy storms to the north, Bingaman said.

In addition, the northern part of the state usually gets five to seven atmospheric rivers, large storms that can drop several inches of rain. This year, Sacramento got two such storms.

One hit in December, a month when 7.63 inches fell and another in February, when 2.28 inches of rain were recorded.

“Since Oct. 1, we have had 11.73 inches,” Bingaman said. “Normally we should have had 16.64. So we are at 70 percent of normal right now.”

Bingaman said Folsom Lake is 59 percent full, but it won’t get the usual snowmelt from the American River.

“December, January, February and March are typically our wettest months of the year,” she said. “Really, December was the only month that was really wet.”

More at SacBee.com >>>
Boating, Fish, safety, Salmon, Wildlife

Folsom Lake Higher Now Than In All Of 2014

Folsom Lake levels are now higher than they ever were in 2014 – by about 1,000 acre-feet.

“We know we’re in the fourth year of a drought. We know that the snowpack is essentially at a fraction of what it normally is. We know we are going to need water later, so we are holding onto as much as we can now,” said Erin Curtis with the Bureau of Reclamation.

The bureau co-manages the lake with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Folks like Kent Wright knows that conservation mindset is much needed when it comes to managing releases for the water supply.

“Disturbing,” he said, when asked how the lake looked to him.

The lake is now at 572,000-acre feet or 103 percent of the average of what it’s held over the last 15 years.

Still that’s just 59 percent of capacity – something that concerns Wright every time he rides by.

“It scares me. It’s scary,” he said before taking off on a lake trail on his bike.

It’s a situation not lost on Rodrigo Lopez of Sacramento who comes out to the lake often to enjoy what water view is left.

“We need the rain, because we’re in a drought. Everybody’s talking about it, but what can we do?” he asked.

More at Fox40.com >>>

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

City Of Folsom Smokes Out Sewer Leaks

With coffee cup in hand, Dan Oldham calmly watched a thick stream of white smoke rising from a pipe on the roof of his Folsom home Tuesday morning – a sight that normally would have sent him hurrying to call the Fire Department.

Oldham had been warned by the city of Folsom that his house would be included in a program that uses smoke to test the soundness of the sewers. The smoke testing reveals where cracks exist in sewer lines, or where a homeowner has illegally hooked up gutters into the sewer system.

“When people take their downspouts and connect those directly to the sewer, rainwater goes directly to the sewer, and we don’t want that,” said Todd Eising, environmental and water resources manager with the city of Folsom.

Stormwater flowing into the sewer system eats up valuable capacity and can potentially lead to raw sewage spills. It also costs money to treat and convey that extra water.

The smoke testing is simple. Workers open a manhole and attach a lawnmower-sized engine. It powers a fan that blows vaporized water into the sewer system. The water is harmless, more condensation than smoke.

The most noxious part of the process stays at the street, in the form of the smoke that sputters out of the engine at the manhole cover.

In order not to alarm residents, the city alerted homeowners two weeks prior to testing, said Eising.

Some of the homeowners spilled into the street Tuesday to watch smoke trail out of their pipes. “I’m glad they’re doing it,” said Oldham. “I just don’t want any smoke inside my house.”

It takes less than half a minute for the smoke to travel underground from the manhole cover and emerge from a home’s vent pipe. The vents, located on roofs, are part of standard home design. They work with the sewage system to make sure changes in water pressure in the house don’t suck in sewer gases or smells, Eising said.

Smoke rarely enters the home, unless there is a leak – or the homeowner has tied into the system illegally.

Folsom’s sewage collection system consists of more than 267 miles of sewer pipe and nine pump stations. The smoke testing costs the city between $2,000 and $2,500 for each mile of pipe.

The entire system was smoke-tested between 2002 and 2006, said Eising. This year, the city is testing in phases. It’s the kind of testing that feels like it never ends, he said. Once all the 17 basins have been tested, it’s not long until the city needs to start testing again.

Smoke testing also has been employed by such cities as Berkeley and Santa Rosa.

Eising said the testing is part of Folsom’s commitment to water quality – an issue that dogged the city in the past. Between 1995 and 2000, the city had several overflows of raw sewage into the American River and the Folsom South Canal.

The largest overflow occurred in 2000, when the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board fined the city $700,000 after a spill sent 700,000 gallons of sewage into the American River.

More at SacBee.com >>>
Bike Trail, Fish, Rafting, safety, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

American River Parkway Advocates Ask Sacramento County For More Money

Nonprofit leaders concerned about the decline of the American River Parkway and other Sacramento County amenities made a pitch Wednesday for a portion of $4 million in hotel tax revenue.

In the past seven years, the county’s “transient occupancy tax,” a 12 percent fee on hotel rooms, has declined from almost $7 million to just under $4 million. The recession reduced other county funds, which led county supervisors to tap the hotel tax for services once funded by other means.

Some supervisors would like to see a dedicated amount of the hotel tax revenue set aside for specific uses, such as civic amenities and economic development. The board held a workshop Wednesday to discuss funding possibilities but could not agree on how much should be dedicated for specific uses.

Most organizations seeking funding Wednesday are connected to the American River Parkway or advocate for its improvement. They also emphasized the need to improve existing county resources, instead of spending money on developing new amenities.

Specifically, the Save the American River Association and other groups criticized the county for dedicating $100,000 a year for the Powerhouse Science Center. The county plans to pay that amount over 20 years for the museum planned for Sacramento’s riverfront.

SARA representatives want the county to spend more money maintaining the parkway, “the crown jewel of Sacramento.” While the organization did not submit a spending proposal, representatives said it was a good use of hotel tax revenue.

Two nonprofits running county property also asked for assistance. Shawn Harrison, founder and co-director of Soil Born Farms, said the organization needs help maintaining the American River Ranch. The urban farming organization is based on the historic 55-acre ranch owned by the county and located on the parkway in Rancho Cordova.

More at SacBee.com >>>

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

NorCal Reservoirs Expected To Get Boost From Storm

Reservoirs in Northern California are expected to rise as much as 10 percent during a wet and powerful storm that began impacting the state Thursday, state officials said.

As dark clouds rolled over Lake Oroville, people pulling their boats from the water said they were hopeful about the storm’s effect on the reservoir.

“If it comes up a little more, that would be great. It would be great. It would be great,” said Salley Rainey, of Yuba City. “We need more rain.”

Officials at the California Department of Water Resources said unfortunately, the storm is expected to be quite warm and will drop more rain than snow.

However, it is hitting a region where the state is most equipped to capture the runoff.

“On the positive side, we’re receiving rain at our biggest reservoir in the state,” said Boone Lek, a state hydrologist. “That’s Lake Shasta.”

Lek said Shasta is expected to rise from 44 percent to 53 percent of capacity.

He said Lake Oroville will rise from 41 percent to 48 percent full and Folsom Lake from 46 percent to 53 percent full.

“We’ll take what we can,” Lek said. “We went through such a dry January. This is going to be a good start to the month of February.”

However, people in the Butte County town of Palermo said they are worried the storm could be a repeat of one they saw in December.

Heavy rain caused a creek to spill over its banks and flooded the town center, including a post office and a convenience store.

“It was fast,” resident Shari Atkison said. “I was here (at the store) and then I went up to the fire station. And some guys helped me load some (sand)bags and came back. And it was over my boots.”

At the post office, sandbags are still piled near the front door.

More at KCRA.com >>>

Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Steelhead Numbers Alarmingly Low At American River Hatchery

The upper section of the American River that has been closed to fishing since Nov. 1 reopened to steelhead fishing on Jan. 1, but the outlook for the fishing is not very promising, based on a very low fish count to date at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery.

This stretch of river is from the U.S. Geological Survey gauging station cable crossing about 300 yards downstream from the Nimbus Hatchery fish rack site to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) power line crossing at the southwest boundary of Ancil Hoffman Park.

Only 10 adult steelhead were reported at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery as of Dec. 29, an alarmingly low number for this time of year. By contrast, the hatchery had trapped 335 adults to date last year, according to Gary Novak, hatchery manager.

Normally there are hundreds and sometimes thousands of steelhead showing at the facility at this time of year.

Hopefully, the steelhead are late in their migration, just as the fall run Chinook salmon were. The main body of the fall Chinook salmon run arrived over a month late this fall on the American River.

Few anglers have been fishing on the American River lately. The salmon fishing closed Dec. 31, but most anglers have already put down their rods.

“Opening day is going to be SLOW if the action at the basin is any indication,” reported Roland Aspiras, an avid American River steelhead fisherman. “I fished both yesterday and today for barely a sniff. I floated eggs, swung spoons, tossed jigs for zilch. I saw one fish follow a spoon in to the bank. The fish seem confused with the new channels they (state and federal governments) created at the basin.”

One angler, Leo Salcido of Sacramento Pro Tackle, reported landing two steelhead in the 4-pound class while tossing out Little Cleos in the basin on Dec. 23.

Releases to the lower American below Nimbus Dam continue to be 900 cfs, very low for this time of year.

More at WillitsNews.com >>>