Category Archives: Water

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

Hundreds Of Volunteers Join In 18th Annual American River Cleanup

 

Hundreds of volunteers were out scaling the American River on cleanup patrol.

The annual Great American River Cleanup in Rancho Cordova had thousands of volunteers on land and water Saturday.

“It’s mostly people dropping their stuff and not bothering to pick it up,” said a volunteer.

For 18 years in a row, the Great American River Cleanup covered a 23-mile span along the river in efforts to beautify the parkway.

“We have roughly 2,500 volunteers today,” said Stacy Springer, a volunteer manager.

More at CBSLocal.com >>>

Bike Trail, Events, safety, Water, Wildlife

American River Parkway Foundation offers ways to give back

On Saturday, Sept. 15, about 2,500 volunteers are expected to take part in the American River Parkway Foundation’s annual Great American River Clean Up.

According to Stacy Springer, volunteer manager for the American River Parkway Foundation, which is based in Carmichael, these volunteers will spend three hours that morning cleaning up 20 site locations along the American River of trash and other debris. “And that does not even include the huge kayak and dive teams that go out and address the shoreline and deeper water channels,” she said.

Springer said it’s easy to volunteer for the Great American River Clean Up – volunteers just need to register on the Foundation’s website, www.arpf.org, and then show up on the day of the clean-up wearing closed-toe shoes and long pants, plus sunblock and hat if the day is sunny and warm.

More at ValComNews.com >>>

Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Fishermen Frustrated As Sea Lions Steal Fish At Discovery Park

There’s a problem lurking right where the American and Sacramento rivers meet, a problem the fishermen would like to hook.

Something is lurking in the waters near Discovery Park.

“They look like they’re hungry,” said Daniel Cabera.

You may notice a ripple, an awkward change of current in an otherwise still spot.

So what has one woman so scared?

“I’m not going in that water ever again, they’re gonna eat me,” said Daniela Blackwell.

It’s highly unlikely they want Blackwell for a snack. It’s the slippery swimmers splashing under the water that sea lions are after.

“They snag up our lines, steal our fish, and get caught in cross currents,” said Blackwell.

That is where the problem lies.

Fishermen are casting line after line, sweating in the sun, teased by tugs, hoping for that prized pull, only to have a sea lion swoop right in and snag their salmon.

More at CBSLocal.com >>>

Events, Rafting, safety, Water

Alcohol Ban Keeps American River Calm Over Holiday Weekend

Hundreds headed to local waterways on this Labor Day holiday, but it was a lot quieter than many weekends. River patrol crews say the alcohol ban has limited crowds and trouble.

“We just want to float down the river,” rafter Angie Rincon said Monday.

And this Labor Day, she didn’t have to fight much raft traffic.

“It’s just a nice, mellow weekend for families to enjoy the river,” said Dave Hill with American River Raft Rentals.

American River Raft Rentals had 80 rafts on the river Monday. The company is capable of renting out hundreds.

More at CBSLocal.com >>>

Bike Trail, Events, Rafting, safety, Water

Alcohol prohibited on American River, parkway over Labor Day weekend

Sacramento County Regional Parks rangers are gearing up for the last of the summer holiday weekends.

Folks planning to celebrate Labor Day along the American River and adjoining parkway are reminded that an alcohol ban will be in effect Saturday through Monday between Hazel and Watt avenues. John Havicon, supervising ranger, said rangers will be checking for alcohol at various access points.

The Labor Day weekend crowds along the river and parkway typically are lighter than those during the Fourth of July and Memorial Day holidays, he said.

“Labor Day is like a busy Saturday,” Havicon said, noting that school has started for most youngsters and families are involved in other activities this time of year.

River flows are scheduled to drop to 2,000 cubic feet per second beginning Friday, which means more rocks will be exposed.

More at SacBee.com >>>

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

More gravel to be dumped into American River

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plans to dump approximately 14,000 tons of gravel into the lower American River to help improve spawning grounds for steelhead trout and Chinook salmon.

To be targeted are existing spawning habitat that consists of large rocks and fine sediment that reduces the ability for fish to construct nests and may reduce the number of eggs surviving and emerging as juvenile fish.

The first load of gravel is scheduled to be deposited in the lower American River on Monday, Sept. 10. All work is expected to be completed by Friday, Sept. 30. All work will be within the confines of the Sailor Bar Recreation Area, near Hazel Avenue and Winding Way in Fair Oaks.

More at CentralValleyBusinessTimes.com >>>

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

Sacramento levees’ failure of federal standards declared

Levees protecting most of the city of Sacramento and 15 other areas of the Central Valley were declared today to have failed federal maintenance criteria. As a result, they are no longer eligible for federal rebuilding funds in the event of a levee breach.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made the declaration today. It did so after concluding that a new state plan to improve Central Valley levees does not provide enough detail to ensure maintenance problems — such as erosion and intrusion by structures — will be fixed.

The affected levee systems include 40 miles of levees wrapping most of the city of Sacramento on the American and Sacramento rivers. This system of levees, known on flood-control maps as “Maintenance Area 9,” includes the south bank of the American River from about Bradshaw Road downstream to the confluence with the Sacramento River, then downstream from there nearly to Courtland.

More at ModestoBee.com >>>

Bike Trail, safety, Water

Volunteers search American River for missing teen

Hundreds of volunteers on Sunday were taking part in a search along the American River in Sacramento for a missing University of California,Davis student.

The search for Linnea Lomax comes as Marc Klaas, who founded the KlaasKids Foundation after his 12-year-old daughter was kidnapped from her Petaluma home and murdered in 1993, said he was getting involved in the efforts to find her.

More at SacBee.com >>>

Water, Wildlife

UC Merced plans research project in American River basin

The American River basin is set to host a large-scale research project involving wireless sensors that will help flood-control managers, farmers and scientists get a much more detailed picture of the amount of water in the basin for homes, businesses, crops and power generation.

The unique project marks a big step toward a statewide water-monitoring system, according to the University of California Merced, whose researchers are working on the American River basin system.

The project involves installing low-cost wireless sensors throughout the basin, which serves the Sacramento metro area. The sensors will give continuous information about how much water is available to users.

The system, which is being used in the Sierra Nevada, could go live as early as January 2013, according to the university.

“Our research provides a template for the next-generation water system for California,” UC Merced lecturer and researcher Robert Rice said in a news release. “We will be able to accurately know the amount of snow across the Sierra Nevada, as well as the timing and magnitude of snowmelt, which provides our water.”

Early research was conducted by professor Roger Bales, director of UC Merced’s Sierra Nevada Research Institute, near Shaver Lake. The American River basin project will be much larger.

“We’re going from monitoring a 5-square-kilometer area to a 5,000-square-kilometer area in one big jump,” engineering professorMartha Conklin said in the news release. “It’s a full-basin hydrologic observatory, and a prototype water information system.”

The National Science Foundation granted $2 million for the monitoring systems’ construction and installation. The data will be streamed online and available to the public.

More at BizJournals.com >>>

Fish, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Sacramento gains more funding to aid salmon

Since 2006, Sacramento city officials have received $1.78 million from the U.S. government to help salmon spawn in the summer, and they’re about to get $650,000 more.

The City Council approved funding last week from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to continue the Lower American River Salmonid Spawning Gravel Augmentation Project.

Tom Gohring, executive director for the City-County Office of Metropolitan Water Planning, the office in charge of the program, said the dams and reservoir on the American River stop the “natural movement of sediment and gravel.” He said those items are necessary for successful salmon spawning.

Salmon, like humans, need oxygen to survive, said Lisa Thompson, director for the Center for Aquatic Biology and Aquaculture at UC Davis. That means their eggs need to have access to oxygen, as well, which they get from flowing water.

In the egg-laying process, a female salmon will turn on her side and move her tail up and down to lift out some of the finer materials in the gravel while leaving the larger pieces to fall back down. Eggs are then laid in a nest and covered up with the remaining gravel.

More at SacBee.com >>>