Category Archives: Bike Trail

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 >>>

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 >>>

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 >>>
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 >>>

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

Bike Trail, Fire, safety, Wildlife

No permit, no barbecuing along American River Parkway

Sacramento County supervisors have approved an ordinance that will make it a misdemeanor to start and use a fire in any regional park without a permit.

The goal of the new ordinance is to prevent fires sparked by barbecues from occurring in regional parks, including along the American River Parkway.

People will still be able to barbecue in designated picnic areas.

More than 50 wildfires have broken out in Sacramento County Regional Parks since May, most of them along the American River Parkway.

“Fires in the American River Parkway are an immediate threat to public safety,” said Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna. “The goal of this ordinance is to protect everyone who uses the Parkway, the neighborhoods surrounding it, and the public safety personnel who respond to the fires.”

The ordinance will go into effect immediately.

More at KCRA.com >>>

Bike Trail, Fire, safety, Water, Wildlife

Sacramento County takes aim at illegal camping, homelessness

The recent rash of brush fires raging across the American River Parkway triggered a strong response Thursday from the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors.

The county is spending about $700,000 to tackle the duel problems of illegal camping and homelessness along the parkway, long considered to be Sacramento’s urban jewel.

“To me, given the tinder-dry conditions on the parkway, the fuel loads out there — combined with the ignition sources or illegal camps — it’s a recipe for disaster,” said Phil Serna, chair of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors.

As KCRA 3 reported, the American River Parkway has been the site of 34 fires since Memorial Day — many of them very near homeless camps.

Serna championed the relief package today that includes $216,850 for three additional park rangers, along with $101,237 for additional patrol resources at the Mather Regional Park/Dry Creek Parkway Patrol. The county will also spend $121,412 for Mather Regional Park Preserve Fencing and $55,000 for a homeless navigator.

“The navigator is the front-line person that brings them in to our system and ultimately into that housing,” said Ryan Loofbourrow, executive director for Sacramento Steps Forward.

The new funding also includes $160,000 for winter sanctuary housing for the homeless — money to help religious organizations find shelter for those in need. But the long-term goal is permanent housing.

“It does in fact keep people off the street and help them start to rebuild their lives,” said Maya Wallace, external affairs director for Sacramento Steps Forward.

On any given night there are between 200 and 300 people illegally camping on the American River Parkway, officials said.

One of them is Angel Tejeda, who is four-months pregnant.

More at KCRA.com >>>

Bike Trail, Fire, safety, Water, Wildlife

34 fires on American River Parkway since late May

Thirty-four fires have burned along the American River Parkway in Sacramento County since Memorial Day weekend during a severe statewide drought.

The drought typically prompts public officials to tell California residents to be fire-safe, but many people whose homes are near the parkway say officials should be doing much more to alleviate fire danger here.

“We need to do something differently,” said J.T. Marcell, who lives near downtown Sacramento. “We need to work smarter, not harder.”

More at KCRA.com >>>

Bike Trail, Fire, safety, Water, Wildlife

Fire burns into trees along bike trail near Discovery Park

Sacramento Fire Department crews were called Tuesday morning to put out a fire along the American River bike trail near Discovery Park.

The fire was reported about 6 a.m. burning in grass about a half-mile east of Discovery Park on the north side of the American River. The blaze spread into underbrush and trees, eventually consuming at least 1 acre.

More at SacBee.com >>>