Tuesday March 31, 2015 Jenner CA.
I sure didn’t want to get up this morning, but I knew they were going to open the river’s mouth and they weren’t going to wait for me, so I got up and got it going and drove on down to the Jenner overlook. As I approached Jenner, I could see the wind was already up to twenty or thirty miles an hour, which is doable and a lot of work.
Excavator is already working away
As I got out of my car at the overlook, I could see the excavator down there on the sandy beach doing it’s thing, opening a channel from the river to the ocean.
You can see the ocean waves were breaking over the beach which makes this a dangerous job as a big enough wave can push the machine and everyone into the river in an instant, which wouldn’t be much fun.
They hurried to get the channel dug to the ocean which they are just completing here. Note the big piles of sand and the small channel.
Lone kayaker
While I was watching, I noticed this lone kayaker down on the beach poking around. I could see it was John, a local guy. He paddled over to the overlook and climbed the cliff and came up to shoot the bull for a bit, before going back down and paddling into the wind.
Here’s the completed channel the excavator made with the big piles of sand you were supposed to notice in the picture up above.
The guys make a channel and then the river water flowing moves the sand in the channel until it really opens up, which it is just starting to do in this photo after about a half hour. Note the piles of sand are almost gone as the channel widens out until the channel opens wide and the river really drops much faster. I didn’t wait around for that to happen.
I shoot the bull with some of the guys down there and then went on back to the Jenner visitor center where the boat launch ramp is. As you can see the wind is up, so I was thinking of doing something else today.
Why open the river’s mouth?
One of the reasons they open up the river’s mouth is to keep this place from flooding as you can see the water level is just below the deck right now. Once the building is flooded, it wouldn’t have to rise much more to flood the highway and the town.
Opening the river’s mouth also lets the fish that need to get into the river or back into the ocean do so. Steelhead spawn and return to the ocean as well as all the other little fish from the year before that were spawned and need to get to the ocean to continue their life cycle.
Headed on home
I decided to head on home and either do some yard work or get some supplies to hook up the new water well.
Spotted those wild pigs
On the way home, I thought I saw some wild pigs by the roadside, so I turned around to have a look at this spot. Can you see the pigs up in the pasture corner, just above center? It’s a nice fence wild flower shot too.
Three big pigs showed themselves.
I took some pictures then got back in my car and looked back as I was driving away and saw all the little piglets come out that I saw the other day up on the hillside.
What to do?
When I got home, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do, so took a small little nap.
I finally decided to drive over and get some pipe supplies and do some checking in the store to see what they had to make what I need to do to hook up the water well happen.
That didn’t take too long and I was home again. I decided to gas the weed mower and do some weed mowing. I did that until the drive belt wore out on me so decided that was enough of that. I have a new belt, but I didn’t feel like messing with putting it on. I sure go through a lot of belts and am thinking that maybe the one I’ve been putting on is too small and not the right size that is supposed to be on there. I’ll have to investigate that when I install the new one I have.
That was my day.
Do they block the river to act as a temporary reservoir?
Hi Darrell,
Actually, they’d like to block the river to back it up as a reservoir for fish rearing, but the ocean seems to be too powerful and has a mind of it’s own, so it closes on it’s own. They’d leave the mouth closed if they could, but it would flood the town and the highway, so they have no choice but to let the water out before flooding happens.
Biologists are in the process of doing a big study on what’s good for the fish on the river, which they’ve been doing for a number of years now. I think they are starting to realize it’s better to have the river’s mouth open as that’s how a lot of the food comes into the river for the fish to feed on while in the estuary. Only time will tell on what they finally decide about how to manage the river’s mouth and in the process, they are learning that the ocean is way bigger then they are. Have fun on your travels up in Oregon.
Bob