#Sacramento Delta

[rantsintechnicolor]

Now arriving…

The wind blew cool and moist up Market Street from the Embarcadero, but by the time it reached my nostrils it had lost all its shoreline odors. Now it smelled like nothing. The financial district was more scrubbed than the neighboring Tenderloin, though the occasional whiff of sewage was evident near the gutters and manholes. Some of these manholes hissed steam that smelled like laundromats, which I thought smelled very similar to gunpowder. I remembered what my parents told me when I was young: dragons in the sewers.

Arriving at the bus connection to the train, the other passengers were gathered and were rather subdued. Perhaps still waking up and waiting for their caffeinated beverages to invigorate them. Perhaps hiding their foul mood at being up so early, hiding that they were not morning people. They didn’t acknowledge anyone but the driver, who began giving instructions. 

“We will board the bus in two groups. First the six-fifty-five group. Then those of you with a ticket that says seven o’clock.” The driver had to repeat this a few times to passengers that hadn’t been close enough to hear. I waited and was the last to board the bus after a tall, skinny, bespectacled Asian man and an athletic looking black man. On the way through, I did notice a young woman, rail thin in an oversized, dark red Grateful Dead hoodie. Her hair hung straight and limp around her face, perhaps still wet after a shower. She had tears on her face and whimpered quietly. I wondered about this woman. What was her story? What happened to her? Did someone die? Is she going through a breakup? Is she detoxing and in withdrawal? Mental health break? More than one of the above? Will she be okay? I walked by toward the back of the bus, hoping her seatmate would be kind and gentle with the sad woman. I felt like I had been this woman once, on a coach full of strangers, unable to keep my emotions from making them uncomfortable, unable to keep them from spilling over and out of my eyes. My chest tightened with grief for this woman and the woman I had been.

Everyone continued to be silent on the bus, like you do with a bus full of strangers, as it slid confidently between the tall buildings. The horizon became rosy as we transited the bridge, the glow making the city sparkle, reminding all of us that she was gorgeous. Ferry building, Coit tower, Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate in one money shot that I missed while trying to be in the moment, and because my phone was deep in my pocket. On the other side of Treasure Island, the bay was dotted with ships and boats. The tiny pilot boat, larger tugs, and crane ships before the port of Oakland, bristling with cranes already working tirelessly in the hands of the longshoreman to unload the container ships. I saw the large hull of an EVERGREEN, a company infamous for one of their ships blocking the Suez during the pandemic, and the hot pink hull of ONE shipping company. I do love that hot pink was the color chosen by that company for their ships. Very hip. Very gay. I wondered how the landscape would change with the new fuel-efficient cargo ships with sales dominated the port.

On the hills a few landmarks stood out bright while still in shadow. The Mormon Temple looked like a spaceship with four tall spires equidistant around a taller fifth one. Then the Claremont Hotel, still a beacon of white as it had been when it was built. My eyes slid further south from these to the old gravel quarry that was now filled with houses. The house I grew up in was somewhere below that on the hill. My parents were probably finally asleep as they kept the hours of college students rather than those of a productive society-- but, well, retirement. Still much further in the distance to the east, Mount Diablo, a now dormant volcano, poked its peaks higher into the sky. It had dawned a very clear day indeed for it to be so easily viewed from the Bay Bridge. 

Traffic was light on the lower deck out of the city. It moved sluggishly on the upper deck, gridlocked at the toll plaza and backed up all the way to the interchange. There were already emergency and CalTrans vehicles en route to solve whatever calamity was already happening on the morning commute. Sun wasn’t even fully up yet. But our bus zoomed by on the freeway, almost smug.

We disembarked the bus at the end of the platform at the train station, passengers still moving silently, like ghosts, and some murmuring thanks to our driver. Some went inside while others preferred to stay out. It wasn’t that cold though some people hunched their shoulders. There were benches for sitting. Several folks trickled across the pedestrian bridge from the public market parking lot opposite the tracks to join those waiting. Some came out of the station with coffee cups. One old woman walked the length of the platform and back, banishing her arthritic stiffness or getting her steps in. The crying woman came out of the station still looking stricken and miserable, and was not seen again the rest of my trip. Large sparrows, California Towhees, foraged in the curbed and landscaped vegetation islands. When I approached they hopped to a higher perch and one of them was missing some toes on its right foot, which didn’t keep it from being aggressive toward the other Towhee. Crunchy leaves moved on the breeze, rattling and scraping on the pavement. A horn blasted in the distance and it sounded like it was coming from the north. Minutes later, the train came in from the south, heralded by the sound of bells where it crossed the road. 

The station agent ushered them onto the train over the loudspeaker. As we boarded, the conductor read the stops and instructed us on how not to be left behind. “Now boarding for Richmond, Martinez, Antioch, Turlock-Denair, Madera, Merced, Fresno, Hanford and Bakersfield. All aboard.” I loved him. His voice was crisp, joyful, and gay. I might have suspected he was using a “white voice” like from that movie Sorry to Bother You, but when I saw the rainbow Amtrak pin on his conductor's hat, I knew it wasn’t that-- well, maybe a little of that. He was a broad, round black fellow with a kind face that moved easily and confidently. He knew what he was about. Classy as fuck in his uniform. When he misspoke the stops and included one we had already passed, he made his mistake funny for the benefit of his audience but also to be clear so as not to confuse us. 

The sun crested the hills as the train left the station. It moved through mostly industrial manufacturing and warehouses before traveling along the edge of the delta. The trash in the silty mud was what you might expect; tires being the most numerous, followed by a few shopping carts, and a whole couch. In the small beaches dotting the shoreline folks were actually fishing and beach combing with metal detectors and a digging basket. Mostly the shoreline was rocky, dotted with small marinas, some better kept than others. The skeletal remains of piers, a few ruined boats, and even the twin engines and cam shaft of an old ship, as if the outer hull had just melted away and left the guts, or perhaps it had been cut down and sold for scrap. The industry along the water was dominated by oil, transport and refining, with refineries looking like a city scape at a distance.

As the landscape changed to marshes, the wildlife became more apparent. Great egrets, blue herons, Canada geese, black stilts, avocets, white pelicans, killdeer and mallards. A female Northern Harrier swooped low on the grasses, sedges, and rushes, hungry and hunting. Not much left in the mothball fleet that used to be in Benicia. All sold or repurposed as scrap. Only two or three (of what must have been thirty) ships remain.

Much of the fence line bordering the train tracks had a sign on it. “If you are thinking of Suicide please call 988,” it said. I guess a lot of folks try to take themselves out using a train. My mind went back to the crying woman and hoped she would be okay.

The landscape changed yet again into farmland. Corn, grain, grapes, but mostly almonds. Some farmers were clearly feeling the strain of the drought. One of the sections had almost dead trees. They had turned off the water. Later they would drag all the trees out of the ground and bulldoze them into large piles to burn when the weather was appropriate. The next orchard over was green. I saw a red-tailed hawk perched on the ground in one of the rows, serious and regal.

Each time the train stopped the conductor would say, "Now arriving..." I would stare out the window at the station stop and feel like the train was moving backwards. A strange sensation, though I knew the train wasn't moving. It's like getting off a ship after days (or even a few hours) at sea, and feeling like the ground is moving when you know it isn't. The conductor would call, "Now departing... All aboard," and instruct us where we should sit if we were able bodied and that there was no smoking on the train as the train pulled out of the station.

“Now arriving Hanford. If Hanford is your stop, please gather your belongings and make your way downstairs. Thank you for riding Amtrak.” I exited the train and paused on the platform to get her bearings. I looked back at the train and saw the conductor. I waved at him before I turned to leave the station. He waved back.

[cristinad61]

Dreams of the Delta

Along Elk Slough Today I’m taking a look back at an outing back in late October 2020, when the Big Guy took me down through the Sacramento Delta via roads I had never explored before. We stopped to look at the Old Sugar Mill on the Sacramento River in Clarksburg, and then meandered along to the Grand Island Mansion, sitting on a bend of Steamboat Slough. Eventually we wound up at Hogback Island…

[sherrylephotography]

The River Walk, Sacramento

As of February 7, 2025, Sacramento, California had received 10.89 inches of rain, which was 100% of its seasonal rainfall average. Next week we get more rain, the river looks high to me.

Capital Hornblower for those who like to take a cruise on the Sacramento River and hear a little history. Old Sacramento California

Delta King Hotel is an authentic paddlewheel riverboat that stays docked in Old Sacramento California

2/25

[themonsterthing]

[sonyachristian]

Let us pray for our communities in LA

Cover Page in the LA Times LA Times updates: https://www.latimes.com/california/live/2025-01-10/fire-los-angeles-california-eaton-palisades-updates Raymond Chandler in his 1938 book Red Wind famously describes the Santa Ana winds as a force that can “curl your hair and make our nerves jump.” That was my experience when I came to USC as a foreign grad student many decades ago. The wind speed is…

[sacramentohistorymuseum]

On July 20, 1934, construction began on the Tower Bridge, which was completed in December 1935. The Tower Bridge, at the southwest corner of Old Sacramento and 4 blocks from the Sacramento History Museum, is one of the most iconic and photographed landmarks in Sacramento today.

For today, Alex letterpress printed an image from a photo engraving depicting the Tower Bridge in 1935 with the Delta King steamboat passing underneath the raised bridge. This was printed with orange oil base ink using a 3x5 Kelsey tabletop printing press.

This print is available as part of our “Sacramento Prints” bundle in our Museum Store.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This is a big deal, ecologically speaking. California's Central Valley, largely now turned to dry agriculture and other development, used to be full of wetlands. It has offered key locations for birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway each spring and fall, and historically had great biodiversity of year-round species. From the 1780s to the 1980s it's likely that the continental U.S. lost 60 acres of wetland every hour, non-stop.

Now, most of the wetlands in central California are drained, and invasive species like eucalyptus trees also impact ecosystems across the region. But restoration projects offer chances to bring back some of what was lost. Because the land and its natural hydrology has been so broken up, and so much water is sucked down by agriculture, some restored wetlands--like those at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge--must have water piped in seasonally.

3400 acres, while the largest restoration to date in the delta, is a drop in the bucket compared to the massive amounts of wetlands that once covered large areas of the state. But it reminds us that we can restore thousands of acres at once, and hopefully someone will see fit to try to break that record.

[unplaces]

Off Delta Lane, West Sacramento, California.

[pookielious]

I just found out about Blanche nixon and her death i just thought I'd share the news articles !!

Below cut is the Transcript

(Picture 2 )

Miss Blanche Nixon, member of a socially prominent and wealthy San Francisco family. ended her life by firing a bullet into her head only a few hours before she was to preside at a cocktail party in her home yesterday.

Miss Nixon, 31, the daughter of Stanhope Wood Nixon and the late Mrs. Doris Ryer Nixon, was found in her bed in a sec- ond floor bedroom of the family home at 944 Chestnut Street.The bullet had penetrated her temple. A pistol was clutched in her right hand, police said.

Police and the coroner's office said the motive was not immediately determined. Miss Nixon's brother, Lewis, said his sister had been under medical treat ment for a depressed mental condition for some time.

Arrangements for the cock- tail party were completed Thursday evening, he said, after which he, his wife, Irene, and his sister retired. Miss Nixon apparently was in good spirits at the time, he said.

About 4:30 a, m., Nixon told police, he and his wife were [CUTOFF]

(Pictures 3 and 4— continuing from cutoff)

awakened by Miss Nixon, who said she could not sleep.

After an early morning snack, all retired again. The only noise heard that might indicate the time of death, police reported, was some time later when Mrs. Nixon said she heard what seemed like a door shutting. She did not note the time.

About 10:30 a. m., Mrs. Nixon went to her sister-in-law's bed- room to take a pet dachshund for a walk.She thought her sistern-law was sleeping, Mrs. Nixon said, and made no effort to disturb her when she opened the door to let the dog out,

A short time later, after re turning from the walk, Mrs. Nixon became concerned when she heard a telephone ringing unanswered in the bedroom.Going to the room, she turned back the covers, Mrs. Nixon said, and found her sister-in- law.

A physician was summoned and pronounced the woman dead. Police listed the death as a suicide after an investigation by Police Inspector Ralph Mc Donald.

Miss Nixon, who made her social debut at the Cotillion Bal! in 1941, had been living in the family residence on Chestnut Street since her mother died June 24. 1948. For the last sev- eral weeks, her brother and sister-in-law have been visiting her from their home in Prince- ton, N.J. Her father resides in New York.

Since her debut, Miss Nixon had traveled abroad consider- ably and spent much of her time at her family's home in Santa Barbara, friends said.

Miss Nixon and her brother had inherited the bulk of her mother's estate, estimated at $1,456,064. The major item in the estate was a half interest in 6.600 acres of Sacramento River delta farm lands, includ- ing most of Ryer Island, near Rio Vista, Solano County.

[darkmaga-returns]

Here they go again, blaming the wildfire catastrophe in Los Angeles on Climate Change when the actual culprits are the very politicians who never stop howling about what is a monumental hoax.

In the first place, of course, the raging California fires, like those which have periodically gone before, are largely a function of misguided government policies. Officials have essentially curtailed the supply of water available to LA firefighters, even as they have drastically increased the supply of combustible kindling and vegetation which feeds these wildfires. The latter, in turn, are being amplified by the seasonal Santa Ana winds, which have visited the California coast since time immemorial.

The kindling at issue stems from forest management policies which prevent the removal of excess fuel via controlled burns, which are fires intentionally set by forest managers to reduce the build-up of hazardous fuels. As we amplify below, red tape and bureaucratic obstacles have frequently delayed or prevented these controlled burns, allowing brush, dead trees, and other flammable materials to accumulate excessively.

In this case, state and Federal politicians have simultaneously curtailed the supply of water available to Los Angeles firefighters in order to protect so-called endangered species. Specifically, southern California is being held hostage by sharp curtailment of the water pumping rates from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in order to protect the Delta Smelt and Chinook Salmon.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

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 CalMatters

WhatMatters

Your guide to California policy and politics

By Lynn La

January 22, 2025

Presented by Uber, Alibaba and Californians for Energy Independence

Good morning, California.

CA sues Trump administration over ‘birthright’ order

Attorney General Rob Bonta discusses the state’s efforts to protect the rights of immigrants at the San Francisco Public Library’s Bernal Heights branch in San Francisco on Dec. 4, 2024. Photo by Jeff Chiu, AP Photo

From CalMatters criminal justice reporter Nigel Duara:

Resistance state Round 2 officially began Tuesday when California filed its first lawsuit against the new Donald Trump administration.

Eighteen states, including California, filed a lawsuit in federal court, challenging an executive order by Trump that would revoke the right of guaranteed citizenship to anyone born in the country. 

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, at a Tuesday press conference: “I am deeply disappointed that we’re here, and also not at all surprised. This isn’t some theoretical legal disagreement. It would strip Americans of their most basic rights.” 

Bonta and the other attorneys general are asking the court for an immediate injunction to stop the order from taking effect on Feb. 19 while they litigate the case in United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 

The attorneys general sued on grounds that the order violates the Fourteenth Amendment and the Immigration and Nationality Act by denying birthright citizenship to children born in the U.S.

“Under the order, such children born after February 19, 2025 — who would have been unquestionably deemed citizens had they been born two days ago — will lack any legal status in the eyes of the federal government,” the lawsuit asserts. “They will all be deportable, and many will be stateless. They will lose the ability to access myriad federal services that are available to their fellow Americans.”

The order would also affect how, and whether, states can provide health care to low-income children who would be denied citizenship, the lawsuit alleges. In California, that’s Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid program and the federal Children's Health Insurance Program.

The executive order asserts that undocumented people are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., and therefore not protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Daniel Farber, faculty director of UC Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment, said the Trump administration’s argument likely faces long odds in court. 

Farber: “I think there's virtually no support among experts for the view that people who are born in the U.S. and whose parents aren't lawfully in the country are somehow not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.”

Lawsuit tracker: With Trump’s term underway, CalMatters is tracking the lawsuits California is filing against the administration. Check it out here.

 How will Trump’s second presidency affect your corner of California? CalMatters is working with public radio partners to gather perspectives across the state. Share your thoughts here.Focus on Inland Empire: Each Wednesday, CalMatters Inland Empire reporter Deborah Brennan surveys the big stories from that part of California. Read her newsletter and sign up here to receive it.

 Other Stories You Should Know

 Trump seeks to overhaul CA water deliveries

An aerial view of the California Aqueduct on Dec. 15, 2021. Photo by Aude Guerrucci, Reuters

Besides the litany of executive orders, Trump also directed his administration Monday to route more water sourced from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to people in “other parts of the state … who desperately need a reliable water supply.” 

But his memo is causing confusion among some environmental experts, writes CalMatters’ Alastair Bland.

The memo calls for reinstating rules drafted during Trump’s first term in 2019, which would override an alternate proposal — unveiled in December but years in the making — developed by the Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom administrations. 

In comparison to this plan, Trump wrote his rules “would have allowed enormous amounts of water to flow” to the Central Valley and Southern California, and that currently, “enormous water supply flows wastefully into the Pacific Ocean.”

But there’s one hitch: The Biden and Newsom plan would actually send more water to Southern California than Trump’s, according to an environmental analysis of the plan.

Jon Rosenfield, science director with the environmental watchdog group San Francisco Baykeeper: “It’s not worded with any precision and it embeds a lot of false premises. It shows an incredible lack of understanding of how California water works.”

Read more here.

 

Budgeting for CA wildfire aid

A play area smolders at the Palisades Elementary Charter School in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 8, 2025. Photo by Genaro Molina, Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Lawmakers serving on the budget committees for the ongoing special session plan to consider today two bills that, together, would set aside as much as $2.5 billion in state funding for wildfire response and preparedness.

The proposals, which the Legislature could pass as early as Thursday, would provide $1 billion for cleanup and recovery for communities affected by the wildfires currently burning in Los Angeles County. The other $1.5 billion would come from the climate bond voters approved in November to prepare California for other natural disasters.

Of the $1 billion in recovery money, $1 million would specifically go towards rebuilding affected schools. As CalMatters’ Carolyn Jones explains, at least a dozen schools have been damaged, including at least five that were completely ruined.

Money from a recently-passed bond measure for repairing school facilities is also expected to help. The state is likely to prioritize schools devastated by the fires — meaning some schools still in dire need of critical repairs could miss out.

Read more here.

Wildfire newsletter: CalMatters is teaming up with PBS SoCal, LAist and KCRW to offer a free newsletter that delivers new and accurate information about the Southern California fires. Read an edition and subscribe.

 California Voices

CalMatters columnist Dan Walters: The L.A.-area fires add another layer to an already fraught relationship between the two egocentric political figures of Trump and Newsom.

California Voices Deputy Editor Denise Amos: As an intern working for the public transportation agency that employs her father, one L.A. college student aspires to lead the agency altogether.

 

 

Other things worth your time:

 

Some stories may require a subscription to read.

 Southern CA is about to get its first rain in months. Here’s what it means for the fires // Los Angeles Times 

With fires coming under control, LA preps for mudslides // LAist

Western Altadena got evacuation order many hours after deadly Eaton Fire exploded // Los Angeles Times

Trump’s choice for No. 2 education job has Sacramento ties // EdSource

Migrants waiting in Tijuana feel immediate sting of Trump’s border crackdown // The San Diego Union-Tribune

Mexican consulate ‘working tirelessly’ to protect immigrants’ rights in Central CA // The Fresno Bee

Two Americans freed in prisoner swap for Taliban figure held in CA // The Guardian

Huntington Beach is tackling libraries — again // LAist

Former San José police union director will serve no jail time for smuggling opioids // KQED

 

See you next time!

Tips, insight or feedback? Email whatmatters@calmatters.org. Subscribe to CalMatters newsletters here. Follow CalMatters on Facebook and Twitter.

 

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[sherrylephotography]

@sherrylephotography 4/23

Delta King Riverboat was built in 1927. It was restored and docked at Old Sacramento in 1989.

Delta King has a quaint bar aboard. There was just the bartender and my husband and myself. My husband and I were sitting at a table and the bartender was behind the bar working, when we heard the candle center piece fall on to the floor from the table next to us. The bartender asked us if we did that. We didn't do it and the Delta King wasn't moving. The bartender went over and picked it up and put it back on the table. Was there only three of us there.

[thoughtlessarse]

As devastating wildfires continue to burn through Los Angeles, so far killing at least 10 people and forcing well over 100,000 people to evacuate, or try to, President-elect Donald Trump has decided to point his ire toward a fish. Not the severe Santa Ana winds that fueled the fires. Not the unusually dry weather. Not the steady march of home development into fire-prone areas. A fish. In a post Wednesday morning on Truth Social, Trump blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, for depriving the LA region of water because he wanted to protect “an essentially worthless fish called a smelt.” Trump chided Newsom for not approving a water restoration declaration that doesn’t exist, per Newsom’s office. He also implied that protections for the delta smelt — a small fish species found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, an expansive wetland in Northern California — caused some fire hydrants to run dry in parts of LA. (Earlier this week, fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood ran dry, not because the city had no water but because of water pressure and other infrastructure issues.) This isn’t the first time that Trump has bad-mouthed this fish. For nearly a decade now, the incoming president has claimed that he can solve California’s incredibly complex water problems by simply undoing regulations designed to help the delta smelt skirt extinction, as E&E News’s Jennifer Yachnin has reported. Those problems are not rooted in drought, Trump claims, but in Democratic rules that restrain private interests. In reality, rising temperatures have made California’s droughts even dryer.

continue reading

[stigmateo]

Felt a deep surge of delta patriotism today driving along the american river (sacramento) listening to grant lee buffalo (stockton)

[sonyachristian]

Wrapping up an academic year

I started my week in DC for a White House AI summit, and so did my Washington Monument photo ritual… Back in Sacramento, the executive team had a two-day planning meeting, and we also celebrated Deputy Chancellor Daisy Gonzales who is transitioning to lead the California Student Aid Commission: *** It was also a time to honor Juneteenth, a federal holiday to commemorate the ending of slavery…

[lboogie1906]

Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner (December 25, 1835 – January 14, 1923) was an African American clergyman and editor. He served as a Bishop in the AME Church and founded the Christian Recorder, an important early African American newspaper.

He studied for five years at Avery College, paying his expenses by working as a barber. He then studied for three years at Western Theological Seminary. He was appointed to Sacramento by Bishop Daniel A. Payne, but he could not afford to go, so he moved to DC where he organized a Sunday School for freed slaves in the Navy Yard. He became the pastor of a church in Georgetown. He was appointed principal of the Annual Conference School at Fredericktown, Maryland, and he organized a common school under the auspices of the Freedmen’s Bureau. He was elected chief secretary of the general conference of the AME church and founded and became editor of the church newspaper, the Christian Recorder. He was given an AM by Avery College and he was given an honorary DD by Wilberforce University. He was made editor of the AME Review, and he was the author of several books and pamphlets, including: ‘Apology for African Methodism;’ ‘The Negro’s Origin; and Is He Cursed of God,’ ‘An Outline of our History and Government;’ ‘The Negro, African and American.’

In 1889, he focused on missionary work in Haiti.

He was a participant in the March 5, 1897 meeting to celebrate the memory of Frederick Douglass which founded the American Negro Academy led by Alexander Crummell. He was a participating member of this first major African American learned society, which was led by scholars, activists, editors, and bishops like him. It refuted racist scholarship, promoted African American claims to individual, social, and political equality, and studied the history and sociology of African American life. He was the father of artist Henry Ossawa Tanner and the grandfather of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority First National President Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence