Bike Trail, Boating, Rafting, safety, Water

American River Parkway Life Vest Stations Open Two Months Early

The Sacramento region’s current run of unseasonably warm weather has prompted the American River Parkway Foundation to launch its Kids Don’t Float life vest program two months early.

The foundation announced that it began providing life vest stations at several locations along the parkway Monday.

The Kids Don’t Float program allows individuals to borrow a life jacket while enjoying the Sacramento area’s waterways. In 2008, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors adopted an ordinance requiring life preservers to access public waters within the county. The ordinance specifies that it is unlawful for parents to permit children younger than 13 years old to enter public waters unless the child is wearing a life preserver. Violation of the ordinance is punishable by a fine of $500 and/or six months in jail.

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, safety

Folsom Bike Trail Safety Brought Into Question

Bright red and bruised, Mia Gaytan’s entire right side now shows off all that she thinks is wrong with what’s going on on some Folsom trails.

“I shouted out to him because I knew. He looked at me but just kept going,” Gaytan, 16, told FOX40.

“We were gonna T-bone so I swerved off and I landed in the ditch,” she said.

Doctors say her right shoulder has a possible fracture.

The peace and freedom Gaytan, an avid mountain biker, usually finds riding around Lake Natoma bottomed out in that ditch as well.

The trail has been a conflict zone between runners and cyclists.

Folsom firefighter Eric Williams is still battling back from major head trauma after a cyclist hit him from behind during a January jog.

His blog boasts his practice at walking from early last month.

Gaytan feels there is an even bigger problem developing on the trail between mountain bikers like her, and those on the kind of road bike that forced her off the road.

“I definitely think a lot of cyclists need an attitude adjustment because I feel like they think that they’re going for the Olympics or something and this is their training ground. I definitely don’t feel like it’s a family oriented place,” Gaytan said.

“There’s a lot of traffic out there now in the last seven years. I’ve seen it increase twice as much, if not more,” Folsom cyclist Ken Ruth said.

Ruth rides around Lake Natoma six days a week and has had run-ins with other bikers and pedestrians.

“Some people walked right in front of me so I hit the brakes and stood, basically stood it up, and slammed into the bridge. Almost went over it,” he recalled.

So how do folks out to enjoy a good time avoid hurting each other?

“I think everybody needs to be courteous, number one. Everybody needs to be educated how to use the trail. I think the county needs to put some signs up showing the rules,” Ruth said. “They have some written on the pavement but they don’t have a sign and advertisement of the importance of this.”

County park rules stipulate that both riders and pedestrians in groups need to stay in a single file line in order to share the trails safely.

Both Gaytan and Ruth say that’s a big problem because people want to be side by side to talk.

More at Fox40.com >>>

Bike Trail, safety

Body With Multiple Gunshot Wounds Found Near American River

Sacramento police were called in Thursday morning after a body with multiple gunshot wounds was discovered near the American River according to Sacramento police spokesperson Doug Morse and Sacramento officer Traci Trapani.

Police received the call around 10:24 a.m. in the 7900 block of La Riviera Drive. Morse said they had enough information gathered to initiate a call to homicide detectives.

More at News10.net >>>

Boating, Fish, Rafting, safety, Water, Wildlife

Assured Flows Keep American River Whitewater Rafting Afloat In Drought

Assured flows from upstream reservoirs are providing the promise of an active rafting season for American River whitewater outfitters – even in the face of a fourth year of drought.

Nate Rangel, owner of Coloma’s Adventure Connection and president of the California Outdoors rafting organization, said that while the north fork American River may have a shorter whitewater season because it doesn’t have water-storage reservoirs, prospects for a whitewater summer on the south and middle forks are expected to be good.

The state is in a fourth year of drought conditions and snowpack measurements in the Sierra showed levels far below normal on Tuesday and moving toward being the lowest on record in more than two decades.

“We may see a short season on the north fork because of lack of much snowpack,” Rangel said. “I’m hoping we’ll see a couple of weeks some time in April and May. It hasn’t been great the last couple of years.”

Rafting companies have gravitated to the higher flows on the middle and south forks. The middle fork American River flows are controlled by the Placer County Water Agency and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District controls flows from its upstream dam on the south fork American River.

Norm Schoenhoff, owner of Whitewater Excitement, said Wednesday his business is getting ready for the first trip of the season in mid-March.

More at AuburnJournal.com >>>