Join PARC, the Canyon Keepers, the Auburn State Recreation Area and your river friends for the American River Cleanup and enrichment activities, at the American River Confluence on Saturday, April 12th, 2025 from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm.
This year’s Cleanup will include invasive weed removal at the Confluence and along popular Confluence trails.
A massive lineup of rock legends will be rolling through Discovery Park in Sacramento for Aftershock 2025.
The lineup for this year’s Aftershock festival was announced on Wednesday. More than 115 bands will be playing across the four stages from Oct. 2-5 for the festival.
Opening night honors will go to Blink-182, with All Time Low, Taking Back Sunday and Alkaline Trio also listed as top acts for the day.
Guided Tour of the Nimbus Fish Hatchery, 11 a.m., Nimbus Fish Hatchery Visitor Center, 2001 Nimbus Road, Gold River (95670).
Join CDFW for a free, family-friendly guided tour to explore the Nimbus Fish Hatchery and neighboring American River on the second Saturday of each month!
Learn about the amazing life cycle of salmon and steelhead, walk along the American River and discuss hatchery operations.
Participants may see fish and other wildlife, such as migratory birds, signs of mammal activity and cool insects.
Tours are cancelled in heavy rain and the maximum group size is 25 people (first-come, first-served). The tour is ADA accessible and suitable for all ages.
For more information, call (916) 358-2884 or email molly.shea@wildlife.ca.gov.
In February 2025, Folsom unveiled an interactive scale model as part of its River District Master Plan, aiming to enhance public engagement and awareness. This model, measuring approximately 7 feet tall, 6 feet long, and 2.5 feet wide, was designed to familiarize residents with the development plans along the over six-mile stretch of the American River and Lake Natoma.
The River District Master Plan focuses on several key objectives: increasing public access to the river and lake, expanding recreational opportunities, fostering economic development, ensuring high-quality design, preserving Folsom’s heritage, protecting environmental, cultural, and historical resources, recognizing city gateway opportunities, and integrating both old and new areas of the city.
Rob Ross, a 20-year Folsom resident and member of the River District Organizing Committee, emphasized the importance of enhancing river access and enjoyment for the community. The portable model, equipped with lights and screens, serves as a tool to inform and involve residents in the city’s development plans, ensuring that Folsom maintains its small-town charm amidst growth.
This initiative reflects Folsom’s commitment to thoughtful urban planning and community involvement, aiming to balance development with the preservation of natural and cultural assets.
Thousands of salmon make the grueling journey from the Pacific Ocean up the American River each fall. The spawning run ends for many with a whack on the head at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery, where salmon eggs are gathered and fertilized.
The salmon would normally die a slow death after spawning. But at Nimbus, they’re quickly dispatched in a process viewed annually by hundreds of children and adults through big glass windows at the hatchery in Gold River.
What becomes of the dead salmon is less well known. While the ending isn’t happy for the adult fish, their offspring repopulate the oceans, and tens of thousands of pounds of salmon fillets feed hungry families in northern and central California during the winter months.
More at SacBee.com >>>
The Nimbus Hatchery Fish Ladder on the American River will open on Monday, Oct. 9 at 10:45 a.m. The ladder is opening unusually early in the season to accommodate the arrival of returning adult fall-run Chinook salmon that hatched in the Coleman National Fish Hatchery (CNFH) in Battle Creek in 2014. Eggs from fall-run Chinook salmon that stray to Nimbus Hatchery will be returned to CNFH to ensure a healthy population of these fish for commercial, recreational and ecological purposes.
“These fish were born at the height of the drought in 2014,” said Jay Rowan, California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) North Central Region Senior Environmental Scientist. “They were trucked to the Delta as fry and released near Rio Vista and the San Pablo Bay as part of a massive effort to improve their chances for survival in a year of poor river conditions.”
Returning now as adults, many of these salmon will stray into the American River and not return to their home waters to spawn. The lack of returning fish will make it extremely difficult for the CNFH to reach their goal of producing 12 million fall-run Chinook salmon this fall to release in the waters below Lake Shasta.
CDFW is partnering with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), with the support of the Bureau of Reclamation, to collect eggs at Nimbus Fish Hatchery to assist CNFH in meeting its production goals and maintaining a stable salmon population on Battle Creek and the upper Sacramento River.
When the salmon reach Nimbus Hatchery, staff will separate out the fish that have had their adipose fin removed, indicating that they carry a tiny coded wire tag that records their hatchery of origin. Fish identified as being of CNFH origin will be spawned with one another, and their fertilized eggs returned to CNFH. Fish that have not had their adipose fin removed will be spawned and their eggs held until it is determined if they will be needed to meet CNFH production goals. Fish that are not yet ready to spawn will have a colored tag attached to their dorsal fin and will be returned to the American River, where they will be available to anglers until they either spawn naturally or climb the ladder again and are spawned at the hatchery to meet the Nimbus Fish Hatchery egg collection goals. While anglers are able to catch and keep fish marked with these tags, the tags have no monetary value and do not need to be returned to CDFW.
From >>> cdfgnews.wordpress.com
Rafting Gone Wild wasn’t quite as wild as it was last year.
Last year, one of the organizers of Rafting Gone Wild jumped off a bridge to avoid law enforcers. Park rangers made six arrests at the 2016 event on suspicion of everything from public intoxication to battery on a police officer.
This year, that level of mayhem was not equaled as of late Saturday afternoon.
At the Clay Banks off El Manto Drive in Rancho Cordova, hundreds of kayaks, rafts and other floatation devices moved across the American River early Saturday.
Participants varied widely in age, from the very young to the elderly. They also varied widely in their levels of public intoxication. Although there were signs around the river indicating that alcohol was banned, some did not heed the warning. While many rafts featured large families out to have outdoor fun on a hot day, others had large coolers, flasks and drink cups.
As of 6 p.m., there was no official report of the number of arrests made and citations issued.
While the event’s Facebook page describes the area as “the biggest party on the shores,” there wasn’t much obvious public drinking, likely influenced by the park rangers who were stationed right off the river.
“People are trying (to party) but they’re just staking it out,” said one female rafter. When her group was asked if they had been drinking, all but one smiled and shook their heads no. One member, however, gave two thumbs up.
Bill Thomas, one of the rafters, led a group of family and friends that came from as far as Santa Rosa, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco and even Florida.
For Thomas, Rafting Gone Wild is a yearly tradition. For past events, he has made a PVC pipe water-shooter and a cross-beam water balloon slingshot, the latter of which was later banned from the event. He said the number of revelers has decreased over the years.
“Each year there are fewer and fewer people here,” he said. “I think that has a lot to do with tablets and other forms of entertainment that we didn’t have back in the day.”
Still, Thomas and his group still enjoy the event. “We really love it,” he said.
More at SacBee.com >>>
Alcohol will be banned this weekend along the American River from Hazel Avenue to Watt Avenue in anticipation of crowds for Rafting Gone Wild.
For safety, the Sacramento County Regional Parks director issued the restriction for Saturday and Sunday in an effort to prevent problems associated with the unpermitted event.
“The event being advertised for Saturday and Sunday has a strong focus on alcohol consumption, which contributes greatly to public safety concerns,” states a county news release.
Rafting Gone Wild, which has been coordinated on social media over the years, has drawn thousands of people to the American River. County officials estimated about 3,000 showed up last year.
More at SacBee.com >>>
Construction of the second phase of Folsom’s Johnny Cash Trail begins this week at East Natoma Street and Folsom Prison Road and is scheduled for completion by early fall.
The current portion of the project includes 1.25 miles of Class I paved trail, an undercrossing beneath Folsom Prison Road allowing trail users to avoid motor vehicle traffic, and a 190-foot wooden arched bridge providing views of the American River and Lake Natoma, according to a city news release.
The project also includes a paved trail spur for Folsom prison employees between Natoma Street and the prison employee parking lot. Two-way traffic will be maintained on Folsom Prison Road during construction, although minor delays can be expected, according to the news release.
When this phase is completed, the Johnny Cash Trail will connect to an existing trail at Rodeo Park, providing runners, walkers and bicyclists a route to Folsom’s historic district and the American Parkway Trail.
Funding for the $3.23 million project comes from various federal grants and local transportation funds, according to the news release.
Like the first section of the trail, completed in 2014, this phase will be built by Westcon Construction Inc. The firm also built the Johnny Cash Bridge. Designed to resemble Folsom State Prison’s East Gate guard tower, which is featured in a photo of Cash taken before his 1968 Folsom prison concert, the bridge spans Folsom Lake Crossing Road.
More at SacBee.com >>>
“Sacramentans will recall how the operators of the Folsom Lake dam dumped billions of gallons of water last year at this time into the American River, never mind that the region was gripped by drought and a heat wave. The reservoir was down to 40 percent of capacity, under clear skies. But dam operators had no choice.”
The Oroville Dam crisis was about infrastructure. The scare this week stemmed from rickety spillways, not dam management.
But if other aspects seemed familiar, it may be because it again highlighted the gap between modern science and the antique flood-control manuals governing major dams in California. As The Bee’s Ryan Sabalow and Andy Furillo reported, the guiding document determining how full Lake Oroville can be in a rainy season hasn’t been updated since the Nixon administration, and is almost as old as the dam itself.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manual, they reported, was last revised in 1970, two years after Oroville Dam’s completion. A lot can change in 47 years.
Science has advanced, in meteorology and engineering. Weather satellites, computer models and research into atmospheric rivers have made it possible to forecast storms with an accuracy previously unimagined. Climate change has upended assumptions.
Two of the biggest floods ever to hit the region have occurred since the Oroville Dam manual was written; on its sepia pages, it’s as if they never happened. The story is the same for all 54 of the state’s primary flood-control dams, whose manuals are 30 years old or older.
“California’s flood infrastructure is based on the hydrology of the past,” Jeffrey Mount of the Public Policy Institute of California told The Bee. “I don’t know a scientist anymore who thinks the future is going to look anything like the past.”
This isn’t just some clerical issue. The owners of those 54 dams cannot deviate from the manuals’ old models in determining water levels. That inflexibility has become a problem in both wet and dry years.
Sacramentans will recall how the operators of the Folsom Lake dam dumped billions of gallons of water last year at this time into the American River, never mind that the region was gripped by drought and a heat wave. The reservoir was down to 40 percent of capacity, under clear skies. But dam operators had no choice.
The installation of a new spillway at Folsom this year has triggered an update, finally, to its manual. Oroville’s problems, and ensuing repairs, could eventually mean a new and improved manual for it, too.