Category Archives: Boating

Boating, Rafting, safety, Water

Lifejacket Thefts Leave American River Drowning Prevention High And Dry

A program meant to save lives is proving too popular, with thieves looting most of the lifejackets meant for children and their families who visit the north and middle forks of the American River.

The Placer Foothills Women’s Club delivered another 48 lifejackets Thursday to the Auburn State Recreation Area, replacing some but not all of 50 to 60 that have gone missing since the start of the summer season.

The lifejackets – free to anyone who needs one – are left on pegs near the river.

The club, which has members from Rocklin to Auburn, buys the lifejackets for $5 each to be placed in several areas of the American River canyon. They can be used for swimming and shoreline activities. Those areas include the confluence, the Quarry Trail leading to the middle fork, near Mountain Quarries Railroad Bridge and Upper Lake Clementine.

Over the past six years, about 600 lifejackets have been donated, with most replacing ones that have been stolen or damaged. On Thursday, club members walked down to a peg board near the confluence that held one remaining lifejacket. On a nearby pole, all hooks were empty. This spring, there were about 20 lifejackets there.

Club member Gail Remington of Auburn said the group looked for a need in the community six years ago and saw a similar program in the Sacramento area. The club has been making regular donations since then and it seems to be helping, she said.

“We don’t have as many drownings and for me, this is the reason,” Remington said.

Remington and other club members removed bright orange lifejackets from boxes and placed them on the hooks, preparing for an influx of park visitors this coming warm weekend and Labor Day weekend.

The club buys the lifejackets “at cost” for $5 apiece and has worked with contractors and lumber suppliers to erect billboard-type signs to install the pegs and hang the life-saving flotation devices.

More at AuburnJournal.com >>>

Bike Trail, Boating, Fish, safety, Water, Wildlife

Drought Raises Pollution On Folsom Dam Spillway Project This Year

Low water levels at Folsom Lake are causing an increase in air pollution from the $900 million Folsom Dam auxiliary spillway project.

The lake is filled to just 40 percent of capacity, which has allowed construction to proceed without the use of marine excavation equipment this year. The land equipment used instead has emitted more nitrogen oxide, said Katie Huff, spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The corps is working with the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation on the project.

Nitrogen oxide is formed by fuel combustion of automobiles, trucks and non-road vehicles like construction equipment.

Studies have linked short-term nitrogen oxide exposure, ranging from 30 minutes to 24 hours, with adverse respiratory effects, including airway inflammation in healthy people and increased respiratory symptoms in people with asthma.

Increased construction this year will cause the project to exceed federal threshold guidelines for nitrogen oxide emissions.

The annual federal threshold for such emissions is 25 tons per year. In 2014, the Folsom Dam Project is expected to emit 31.2 tons.

More at SanLuisObisbo.com >>>

 

Boating, Fire, Fish, Rafting, Salmon, Water, Wildlife

Drought-Busting El Niño Getting Less Likely

Average sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies (°C) for the week centered on 30 July 2014. Anomalies are computed with respect to the 1981 - 2010 base period weekly means. Photo: NOAA
Average sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies (°C) for the week centered on 30 July 2014. Anomalies are computed with respect to the 1981 – 2010 base period weekly means. Photo: NOAA

The idea of an El Niño rescuing California from its devastating drought appears to be nothing more than wishful fancy.

Not only have climate scientists recently downgraded the strength of a potential El Niño, but a report released Thursday by the U.S. Climate Prediction Center indicates that the odds of an El Niño happening this year at all are down.

An El Niño is the much-watched warming of the Pacific Ocean that tends to influence worldwide weather and has had many in California hoping it will trigger a wet winter for the rain-starved state.

While Thursday’s climate report suggests that an El Niño is still likely, the chances of seeing one this fall or winter dropped from 80 percent – projected in early reports – to 65 percent.

The change, said climate scientist Michelle L’Heureux, comes as the warmer-than-usual surface temperatures observed this spring in the equatorial Pacific have cooled.

The same underwater swell that pushed heat to the surface, known as a Kelvin Wave, is having its normal counter effect, but that effect has been much stronger than usual and has moved more cold water up than expected, L’Heureux explained.

“We’re still banking on seeing a reinvigoration of El Niño,” she noted. “But with that said, we wanted to lower our projections because there are structural weaknesses that have made this El Niño less likely.”

The federal forecast calls for the El Niño to be weak or moderate. The consensus earlier this year was that the event would be at least of moderate strength – and some believed it would be really strong.

In Northern California, strong El Niño’s have correlated with wet winters. San Francisco’s biggest rain year in the last century came during the big 1997-98 El Niño.

Weak and moderate El Niño’s, however, haven’t translated into significant rain years in Northern California. (Southern California has sometimes seen wetter weather during moderate and weak events.)

The absence of a strong El Niño doesn’t sentence Northern California to a dry winter.

More at SFGate.com >>>

Boating, Fish, News from Other Watersheds, Rafting, safety, Water, Wildlife

Questions Surfacing On Lake Clementine Hydro Project

Questions are being raised by several Auburn-area residents about a proposal to build a hydroelectric generation facility at the North Fork Dam at Lake Clementine.

Speakers at a public session Monday on the privately funded project wanted to know about its effect on downstream recreation, potential drops in scenic flows over the dam and other potential impacts.

About 25 people attended the session at theCanyon View Community Center,  and the number of questions spurred the project proponent to schedule a special meeting at 6 p.m. Aug. 26 to provide an overview of the project and address queries.

Monday’s session was a public one but meant to concentrate on comments by government agencies and stakeholder groups about study plans by Los Angeles-based  American Renewables and Kruger Energy of Canada.

Project manager Dan Parker agreed to the question-and-answer session after a request for a separate meeting in the evening to allow Monday’s session with government agencies to move forward on time. The location for the Aug. 26 meeting has yet to be determined.

Answering a question Monday from Helga White of Auburn, Parker said that esthetic flows over and environmental flows to aid wildlife and plant life downstream would take precedent over power-generation flows. The picturesque dam was built in 1939 to hold back mining debris but allow river flows downstream.

The proposed 15-megawatt power-generation facility – designed to produce electricity to serve 3,000 households – is to be operated on a “run-of-the-river” basis. It would take advantage of higher flows in the rainy season and go offline in late July, August and September, when flows along the North Fork American River are low.

“We don’t get our water first,” Parker said. “We get our water last.”

Michael Garabedian of the Friends of the North Fork asked whether a survey was being planned – “not just conversations” – on canyon users’ reaction to the project. He was told a survey was planned on recreational use.

The original survey, conducted in 2006 by State Parks in the Auburn State Recreation Area, “didn’t show interest in this type of development or development of any kind, as I recall,” Garabedian said.

More at AunurnJournal.com >>>

Boating, safety, Water

Deadline Arrives To Pull Boats Out Of Slips At Folsom Lake

After a two-day extension, Sunday evening was the official deadline to pull boats from their slips on Folsom Lake.

The drought has resulted in low water levels, but slip renters got more time than some expected this season.

Marina operators said the water is approaching the 412-foot elevation level.

“When the lake gets to 412, we only have 6 feet under those docks and some of these boats draw 5 feet of 6 feet of water,” said Julie Christensen, assistant marina manager. “We like to get them all out at the same time and leave a bit of cushion.”

More at KCRA.com >>>

Boating, safety, Water

Boat Slips Closing Soon At Folsom Marina

Boat slips at Brown’s Ravine marina will be closing June 27 because of the lowering lake level.

There are more than 600 slips at Brown’s Ravine on Folsom Lake, and more than half still have boats in them.

Marina managers told KCRA 3 there is currently only about 12 feet of water under the boats. In about a week, some of the boats could be touching the ground.

“It was frustrating,” said Thom Scalzi, who after waiting eight years to get a slip at Brown’s Marina finally got one this year. “When my pass came up for the slip, they said you might have to pull out in two weeks. That was in April. But the water came up.”

The hundreds of people who rent boat slips at Brown’s marina aren’t the only boaters being affected by the lower lake level this year.

“Last year I came out 17 times,” said C.J. Lauria, a boater who lives near Folsom Lake. “This is my fourth time this year and perhaps my last. Last year we bought a season pass and this year we chose not to. It didn’t make a lot of sense. The levels were just too low.”

While the boats at Brown’s marina will have to be pulled from the rental slips at the docs by June 27, the ramps will be open a little longer.

And despite the short boating season, some said it was longer than expected.

More at KCRA.com >>>