Category Archives: Water

Fire, safety, Water, Wildlife

Forest service officials assess trails in American Fire area

American_Fire

Now that fire activity within the American Fire area has diminished, Tahoe National Forest officials have assessed conditions on two popular trails: the Western States Trail and OHV Trail Loop 6, also known as Forest Service Trail 11E44 (Loop 6).

The Western States Trail between Michigan Bluff and Deadwood Cemetery is open, and Loop 6 is open west of Deadwood Ridge Road. The entire fire area, including all roads and trails, is closed under Forest Order 17-13-08, which is in effect until May 1, 2014.

Therefore, the Western States Trail and Loop 6 within the fire area east of Deadwood Ridge Road remain closed. These trails will be returned to acceptable standards before being considered safe for recreationists.

The American Fire affected approximately 25 miles of the trail. To date, roughly 18 of those miles have undergone rehabilitation through fire suppression and/or burned area emergency rehabilitation efforts.

More at TheUnion.com >>>

Events, Fish, safety, Water, Wildlife

1964 Highway 49 Bridge Rubble Remains A Cleanup Quandary

HWy49Bridge

By most accounts, the Highway 49 bridge blowout of December 1964 was spectacular.

The Dec. 23, 1964, bridge washout put traffic on the Mountain Quarries Railroad Bridge for four months, and a new Highway 49 bridge was in place by spring of 1965. That year was also when the Auburn dam project was authorized by Congress. Though the dam was never built, the possibility that it would be constructed left the option of doing nothing open. The downstream rubble and steel the washout left behind would soon be under hundreds of feet of water.

Almost 50 years later, the dam has yet to be built and the remains of the bridge have yet to be cleared away – leaving a quandary for several levels of government, as well as environmentalists advocating greater use of the Auburn State Recreation Area as a park.

During fall days like Wednesday, when the American River flows are down to their lowest levels of the year, the mangled steel can be seen clearly in the river bed, some of the pieces poking up above the water line. The broken concrete – giant gray chunks weighing several tons – litters the canyon shoreline.

Elias Silver of the Lake Tahoe area was at the shoreline skipping stones with friends as their dogs romped in the calm, meandering waters at the confluence below the newer Highway 49 bridge.

“It’s definitely noticeable,” Silver said. “With all the state budget problems, it would be expensive to fish out. It’s not a small project.”

More at FolsomTelegraph.com >>>

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.

More at SacBee.com >>>

 

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.”

More at CapRadio.org >>>

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.

More at News10.net >>>

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.

More at StateHornet.com >>>

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.

More at ModBee.com >>>
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)

More at SacBee.com >>>

Rafting, safety, Water

American River rafter’s body is recovered

The body of a man who drowned in a rafting accident on the American River Sunday has been recovered.

Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District personnel first conducted a search and rescue mission and then a recovery operation for the man who fell off a raft at the San Juan rapids on the American River in Rancho Cordova.

The body was recovered about 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

Crews were called to the rapids at around 11:20 a.m. Sunday for a water rescue. The man, wearing a life vest, was rafting with his family before he fell off the watercraft.

More at SacBee.com >>>