Proposition 68 – the Clean Water and Safe Parks Act on the June 5 statewide ballot – allocates $10 million for the Lower American River, its tributaries and the Parkway.

Proposition 68 authorizes $4 billion in general obligation bands that invest in coming years to address some of California’s most important water, park and natural resources needs.

Save the American River Association worked with a coalition of organizations, including the California Chamber of Commerce, to develop the Act. It had strong bipartisan support as it went through the Legislature and was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

Most lawmakers recognized that California faces growing challenges to our water supplies and natural resources. A changing climate has put our water supplies more and more in jeopardy as we face increasingly intense wildfires, droughts and floods. Much of the state’s aging water infrastructure is in poor repair and there have been limited expenditures in recent years to maintain parks and restore natural resources.

(originally published in SARA's 2017 Fall/Winter issue of RiverWatch)

Water quality studies in the Lower American River over the past decade have consistently shown elevated levels of E.coli bacteria near the confluence with the Sacramento River in Discovery Park that exceed the federal threshold for safe recreational use. Studies that ended in 2014 also found unsafe levels of E.coli in Lake Natoma near Nimbus Flat and the Sacramento State University Aquatic Center.

On the November election ballot, Sacramento County voters will be asked to approve Measure B – a county-wide, half-cent sales tax increase that would raise $3,614,000,000 over 30 years for transportation projects. Save the American River Association’s Board of Directors urges county residents to vote NO!

Last Friday, I rode to the Turtle Pond area to watch a Great Blue Heron and in comes this Green Heron making quite a racket.

A few months ago, I heard a radio talk show host say that the most successful park in California is Disneyland.  My lifetime of sensibilities towards parks felt shredded by the remark.  How could anyone confuse an amusement park with the concepts that gave us our treasured public parks?