Volunteers, environmental groups urge SAFeco to support creek cleanups and reconsider Corpsrock-trench design

Speakers at the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency meeting on July 17 urged the agency to join local efforts to clear decades of debris from creeks that feed the American River and to press the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for alternatives to a rock-lined bank-protection design in Contract 3B.

Community volunteers and nonprofit advocates said the creek channels near SAFeco property are clogged with trash and illegal-encampment debris that volunteers are removing by hand. Lisa Sanchez, a volunteer with River City Waterway Alliance, told the board, "We need a partnership of all of these agencies working together to include SAFeco to help us with that." Sanchez described removing an estimated 800-pound mattress and other heavy debris during a recent cleanup.

The public comments also focused on the Corps' planned bank-protection technique for the Lower American River, referred to in meeting remarks as "launchable rock trenches". Nancy Niskerin, a resident of College Greens East, cautioned against the approach, saying the design risks removing…