The ongoing furball in Redding about the Cypress Avenue Bridge repair project — which wasn’t designed with boat passage in mind and threatened to close the Lower Sacramento River to boat traffic — has taken on a new dimension as a city-council appointed panel has recommended partial closure of the river at higher flows:

Redding would close the Sacramento River through the Cypress Avenue Bridge construction trestle to all boating traffic when flows go above 10,000 cubic feet per second — or generally, during summer — should the city follow recommendations from an appointed committee.

Motorboats, kayaks, rowboats, drift boats and motorized rafts could follow the river beneath the bridge whenever flows are lower under the recommendations that were hashed out at a meeting Wednesday and are still in draft form.

I don’t see a clear reference to personal pontoon boats — the kind you often see floating the Lower Sacramento River — and the next paragraph doesn’t really make it any clearer:

The city would close the bridge passage to people in canoes, sailboats, inner tubes, nonmotorized rafts, air mattresses, sailboards and pool toys until construction is complete in late 2010, under the proposed recommendations.

Does a pontoon boat qualify as a drift boat or a non-motorized raft? And why would you close the river to a guide who uses a raft instead of a drift boat? Finally, does the Redding City Council actually have the authority to close the Sacramento River? I’ll bet not.

Closing the Lower Sacramento River at the Cypress would effective cut the most common daylong float in half, and I suspect we’ll see river guides getting a bit more creative come summer.

I put in a call to the Redding Fly Shop’s Michael Caranci, who serves on the citizen committee making the recommendation, and hope to get a clarification soon.

UPDATE: I spoke to Duane at the Redding Fly Shop, who says it’s all up in the air, but that the committee’s intent was to allows passage (below summer flows) to any craft with oars. That includes whitewater rafts, pontoon boats and kayaks (though they use paddles). Hopefully, the language will be made more specific before the Redding City Council votes on it.

UPDATE #2: A Web site for Personal Injury lawyers (huh?) weighs in on bridge closure. 

See you on the river (dodging bridge piers), Tom Chandler.

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