Fire Mitigation brush clearing

Here's the latest news about the brush clearing that's going on around Lake Natoma.

I got the following clarification from Jim Michaels. He is working with Matthew See (Federal Bureau of Reclamation and Capt. Greg Landin (Sac Metro Fire District) to coordinate the effort.

"There is both State land and federal land within Folsom Lake SRA (which includes the lands around Lake Natoma). Also there are areas of undeveloped land adjacent to Folsom Lake SRA that are either owned by the County, local park and recreation districts or homeowners associations.

The red line is that state park boundary. Within the boundary the areas with green cross hatch are state owed land. The area within the boundary with no cross hatch are federal property. As you can see from the aerial photo there are a number of areas outside our boundary that are undeveloped or open space lands. The current vegetation work is all occurring on either state land or federal land within the park unit boundary. Both Matt and Denali (State Park Environmental Scientist) are working with the same Sacramento Regional Conservation Corps (SRCC) crews to get the work done. This same crew has been working with the County in the lower American Parkway doing similar work for the past several months. The SRCC received a grant to fund this work in both the Lower American River Parkway and along Lake Natoma. Matt is providing oversight on the federal property and Denali is providing oversight on the State lands. In the past, the State might have taken responsibility for the project on both the State and federal lands within the park boundary. However, due to the State budget situation our District has not been able to fill a second vacant natural resource staff position, so Matt stepped up to take the lead on federal property. The crews will be working on both State and federal land over the next month.

Because we do not have unlimited crew time, the vegetation modification/fuel reduction is not occurring along the entire boundary. We worked with the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District to prioritize areas where the work will occur.

State Parks elected to notify property owners adjacent to the State lands where the work will occur with a letter. We sent out about 100 letters. Reclamation elected to issue a press release as a means of notifying the public."

Here is the map, along with a Google map of the same area.