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Ideas flowing for recreation opportunities at newly restored river channel;
Auburn Journal -
September
08,
2007
By Gus Thomson
Ideas flowing for recreation opportunities at newly restored river channel; Kayaking, rafting, boating companies looking at options
Auburn Journal – 9/9/07
By Gus Thomson, staff writer
While kayakers and rafters won't have access until early next year, the regional buzz is already spreading over the opening of a new stretch of the American River near Auburn.
Water started flowing Tuesday through a restored river channel at the Placer County Water Agency's pump station project site, signaling an anticipated influx - probably next spring - of kayakers and rafters to a river run that has been shut down for safety reasons since the early 1970s.
A hazardous half-mile-long diversion tunnel built as part of the now-dormant Auburn dam project kept boaters off that stretch of water.
Wolf Creek Wilderness, a Grass Valley store that caters to kayakers and whitewater-rafting river runners, is looking at the new American River run south of the confluence as another option opening up for boaters.
Ryan Wells, an instructor at Wolf Creek, said information about the new Auburn-area course - which is partly manmade, using giant boulders from the site fixed into concrete - is beginning to filter through enthusiast circles.
"There is some excited murmuring going on," Wells said. "We're all trying to figure out exactly what's there."
Adding to the anticipation, a slow season because of low snowfall and rainfall cut business for rentals and sales but didn't stop a surge in instruction, Wells said. That's created a pent-up demand for river boating.
"We're looking forward to having another option," he said.
Canyon Raft Rentals in Auburn is close to the Highway 49 drive down into the American River canyon toward the confluence, where most of the boats and kayaks will be launched. Canyon Raft owner John Hauschild said he's moving ahead with plans to provide not only rentals but a shuttle bus for customers into the canyon and out on the return trip from an entrance on Auburn's Maidu Drive. A bus could also travel to the Rattlesnake Bar boat launch near the inlet to Folsom Lake to pick up boaters farther downstream. Hauschild was biking in the canyon when the first flows of American River water began to move through the restored channel Tuesday.
"I went nuts when I saw water in the channel," he said. "I can't wait to try it out myself."
Hauschild said that he's been told that no guided trips will be allowed but the State Parks Department has no trouble with rentals.
"Up to now, I've been sending people other places," he said. "This changes my whole business model. Shuttle buses are going to be the key because it's hard to park at the confluence and the boaters will be on top of the swimmers."
Water began flowing through the reconstructed section of river on Tuesday, a milestone moment in a 15-year effort to provide the water agency with permanent pumps.
The restored river channel is part of an overall $75 million project that includes the return of a permanent pump station that will allow the agency to pump up to 35,500 acre-feet of water from the river canyon to water customers in Western Placer County.
The project also includes recreational access off Maidu Drive and road improvements into the canyon. The agency operated a pump station on the river in the 1960s and early 1970s but it was removed by the federal government to make way for the Auburn dam project. When construction of the dam was suspended in 1977, the water agency was left without a permanent, reliable and year-round pump facility to move water it has rights to into the then-agriculturally rich western section of Placer County. Since then, development has created an even greater demand for the water.
David Breninger, who has managed the countywide water agency for more than 15 years, said the pump station and river restoration project has been the agency's top water resource priority during his tenure.
With the full support of U.S. Rep. John Doolittle, a staunch Auburn dam advocate, the agency began over a dozen years ago to convince federal officials to build a permanent pumping station.
"Congressman Doolittle boldly defended the rights of the agency as well as securing federal funding for this project's success," Breninger said.
Work started in October 2003 and construction is expected to end in January. Until then, the project site will remain off-limits to the public.
Doolittle said Friday that the addition of more facilities in the American River canyon for recreation and water transportation hasn't lessened his resolve to eventually revive construction of a multipurpose dam. Recent federal estimates put the price of a dam at a figure as high as nearly $10 billion.
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