Category Archives: safety

Bike Trail, safety

Tent City returns

Only a handful of tents are visible from Highway 160 this Monday evening. The air is dry and the sky cloudless as the sun dips above the camp sites. A small group of men on bikes with gruff dogs on leashes congregates at the entrance to the American River Bike Trail. Others head west along the trail.

A quarter-mile up, there it is: five, six, seven, eight—dozens more tents, zigzagging along the base of the river levy for what seems to be at least three city blocks.

“There were more,” says a man seated in a chair. His name is Brother Eli, who oversees a drug-and-alcohol free area of this new Tent City. Eli says that there were at least 50 more tents here last week—before city police showed up and told everyone to move out.

Officers handed out notices last Thursday afternoon: “It is unlawful to camp in the city,” it read. “This location is scheduled for immediate clean-up. … Any items not removed will be considered abandoned and removed accordingly.”

Campers say a few police visited on Sunday night, but kept their distance. Eli claims to have seen police along the west side of the camp, near North 10th Street and the bike trail, as recently as Monday afternoon.

More at newsandreview.com >>>

Bike Trail, safety, Water

Drilling begins on American River Parkway levees

A contractor hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is drilling into levees along the American River Parkway through January to collect soil samples.

Visitors to the parkway are advised to watch out for the equipment and give the crew working room.

This week, the truck-mounted drilling rigs and an equipment staging area are located along the river’s south bank, at Paradise Beach west of J Street in Sacramento. The work will continue eastward to Watt Avenue, on both sides of the river, through January.

More at SacBee.com >>>

Bike Trail, Events, safety, Water

Bike trail closed near Watt Avenue

A project to repair levee erosion along the American River has closed a portion of the bike and walking path in the parkway near Watt Avenue.

The repairs, overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of engineers, are part of the previously authorized Sacramento River Bank Protection Project, which addresses levee erosion on the Sacramento River and its tributaries.

The latest phase involves placing large rock, called rip-rap, along the waterline of the south bank of the American River at two locations between Watt Avenue and Larchmont Park. A section of public path atop the levee about three-quarters of a mile long will be closed until the expected completion of the work on Nov. 30. Foot and bike traffic are being detoured through the neighborhood south of the levee.

More at SacBee.com >>>

Bike Trail, Events, safety, Water, Wildlife

Parkway volunteers clean up trash at abandoned homeless camps

Volunteers for the American River Parkway Foundation are cleaning up trash left at abandoned homeless encampments along the parkway this morning.

About 150 volunteers hit the parkway shortly before 10 a.m., leaving from the Northgate parking lot of the recreation area.

“We want people to come enjoy the parkway,” said Dianna Poggetto, executive director of the foundation.

That’s hard to do when there’s a lot of trash, so the volunteers go out periodically to clean up what’s left behind by campers along the river.

More at SacBee.com >>
Bike Trail, safety, Water

Levee Improvements Begin In Sacramento

The construction is taking place along the south bank of the American River between Watt Avenue and the Mayhew Drain. About two dozen trucks will be making up to 150 trips a day.

Dave Cook is the project manager. He says the levee is eroding because of abundant Sierra snowmelt.

“When that happens the water speeds up and actually starts to tear the banks away and the sediment starts to transport itself down the river and it causes problems in the fact that if we had a failure it would obviously flood businesses and homeowners in that area.”

More at CapRadio.org >>

Bike Trail, safety, Water, Wildlife

Proposal to build flood control center along American River Parkway draws fire

A large new government office building, filled with 600 skilled wage earners, would seem to be a blessing for the economically depressed Sacramento region.

But some are treating a proposal to build one alongside the American River Parkway as a curse.

State and federal agencies want to build a high-security, 200,000-square-foot nerve center for California flood protection on a 25-acre parcel next to the state-operated Nimbus Fish Hatchery in Rancho Cordova.

Critics, who range from the area’s congressman to nearby homeowners, condemn the project as inappropriate for the American River Parkway, the region’s most treasured and scenic recreational asset.

There are looming questions about whether it makes sense to park a flood-control headquarters next to a flood-prone river downstream of Folsom Dam, the region’s largest.

More at SacBee.com >>

safety, Wildlife

Game warden holds out hope for troublesome bear family

After calls poured into the Placer County Sheriff’s Office as a family of wayward bears wandered into Roseville over the weekend, Fish and Game officials now hope they’ll stay out of trouble.

“I’m not sure of the outcome,” Placer Game Warden Brian Moore told the Fish and Game Commission Wednesday night.

Moore said right now a trap has been set for the bears if they return to Granite Bay. If caught there, they would be put down.

“It was requested by the homeowner,” Moore said. “A landowner that has property damage due to wildlife can request the depredation (kill) permit and we can’t refuse them.”

The four bears were last spotted Wednesday near Horseshoe Bar Road and Auburn Folsom Road.

Moore said the bears have been known to frequent the unsecured garbage of a restaurant near the I-80 and Foresthill exit in Auburn and for some unknown reason started the trek to Roseville.

The unusual location for bears spurred about 40 calls into the Sheriff’s Office reporting the black bear sow and her triplet cubs as they made it down to Granite Bay through Loomis and back again.

Rocklin resident Greg Janda’s wife Julie discovered the suburban spectacle Saturday morning – bears going house to house off Scarborough Drive in Roseville.

“They followed the greenbelt into our neighborhoods,” Janda said.

He told the commission he supported the bears and didn’t want them killed.

“They are not interested in you, they are looking for food,” Janda said. “Don’t invite them by having food around for them.”

Moore believes bear-proof trash cans are a great deterrent but doesn’t believe Roseville residents need to go out and get one.

“No, this is isolated,” Moore said. “I think over the weekend the bears were scared pretty bad. People were seeing them and they were scattering. I hope they come back up here go back in that American River Canyon and start eating grubs, berries and grass and be bears.”

More at the Roseville Press Tribune >>

safety, Water

Officials Search American River For Body

Two fire department boats were searching in the waters of the American River on Friday, attempting to recover a body, said a spokesman for the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District.The boats were located near the ramp at Negro Bar State Park.No additional details were released about the investigation or the body.

From KCRA.com >>>