Ravine and creek can become Auburn's crown jewel

Protect American River CanyonsWhen I was a boy growing up in Ophir on the Auburn Ravine, life was as idyllic as a dream. Each summer morning I would rise, grab breakfast and head to the ravine through our back yard. What would the ravine provide for me to reflect on today? More rainbow trout, white fish, pacific lamprey eels, crawdads or giant catfish, green bullfrogs, turtles the size of flagstones, glimpses of muskrats swimming underwater to their burrows?Belted kingfishers, water ouzels and giant blue herons cruising for fish? The Bergquist and Thornton boys would appear shortly after I arrived, and the day would begin. Would we fish, swim, look for the bright orange and toothless salamanders we saw yesterday, or would we finish building the raft we had started a week ago from my dad?s supply of railroad ties and PFE boxcar siding? The raft we built anew each year because the winter floods would carry away the old one we carelessly left tied to our large weeping willow tree each fall. My little sister, Lita, loved the raft because it was her vehicle for swimming in the ravine before my mom?s-decreed start of swim season. Lita would walk to the house dripping wet after her early swim and say, ?Mom, Jack?s raft sank again and I got wet.? Lita knew mom would know the battle was lost and swimming season had begun. It was only years later that I realized Tom Sawyer and I were brothers. Human beings have a universal attraction to water and, in our area, water is usually creeks, ravines and rivers. We have done a great job in preserving the American River and its magnificent canyon from exploitation and destruction.But we have another resource in our community that we have not treated with the loving care it deserves. That resource is, of course, the Auburn Ravine. Although it flows through Auburn, the ravine is hardly noticed because it is largely paved over, culverted and generally ignored. It could be our greatest resource, a gold medallion hanging around our necks. For a model of a city utilizing its stream to advantage, we must look to Ashland, Ore., home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. What the town is loved for by the locals and veteran theatergoers is Ashland Creek, which like the Auburn Ravine, runs through the center of town. Ashlanders have created a park around the creek, with jogging/hiking trails on both sides. Near the theater are wading pools for children and benches and tables for their parents to use while they talk and visit and watch the fish and ducks.Swimming holes are provided for the larger children, historic monuments of the Lithian mineral waters, which first made Ashland famous, are erected for the history buff, and self-guided nature trails and a gorgeous, meticulously sculpted park with roses, flowering vines, walking paths and giant trees are labeled for the visitor. Ashlanders have made their creek the centerpiece of the entire town. With our well-known community spirit, Auburn could make the ravine its centerpiece. Since most of the ravine is now underground, the most visible part is the North Fork of the Auburn Ravine which flows through Ashford Park on Auburn Ravine Road (the South Fork is completely paved over). It flows west behind Katrina?s Restaurant. Paved walkways provide access off Auburn Ravine Road by Dr. Kenneth Fox?s famous statues. Then the stream flows underground and does not resurface until the junction of Highway 80 and Ophir Road. It is off Ophir Road that the greatest immediate potential for improvement of the ravine lies. Hiking/jogging trails and benches along the ravine a mile-and-a-half down stream to the Wise Powerhouse would be a first step in reclaiming our lost jewel. Every advantage a child could get such as those described in the paragraphs above would be instantly a reality. Some would say impossible, but it is my experience that anything we can dream, we can make reality. All we must do as Auburnites is to decide to reclaim our ravine, and we collectively will find a way. We need elected officials and citizens who value quality of life above all other considerations.Centerpiecing the Auburn Ravine would raise the general quality of life of our fine city. We must first create the vision before the reality can follow.We will not need to begin at the beginning because visionary residents have already realized the value of the Auburn Ravine and have taken steps to preserve and restore it. Auburn dentist Ron Otto, who lives on the ravine, has created Auburn Ravine Creek Preservation Committee, and he is working to clean up the water quality and to reestablish the native salmonoid run. Yes, the ravine has an existing native salmon run, and if the existing dams can be removed or modified with workable fish ladders, the salmon will once again perform their anadromous miracle before our eyes.The city of Auburn has in its past not only refused to highlight the ravine, it has concertedly worked at its destruction. Auburn was levied a very large fine for failure to stop dumping raw sewage directly into its waters. Only within the last decade has the state of California forced Auburn to rebuild and retrofit its Water Treatment Plant off Ophir Road to comply, and as a result the state of California now regularly monitors the affluent from the plant to see if Auburn is doing what it should do. The result is an improved water quality, which allows the return of crawdads, great blue herons, kingfishers and the occasional turtle. In spite of its horrid treatment of its crown jewel, Auburn still has the opportunity to turn a negative into a very large positive. Our challenge is deciding what each of us can do to help restore the Auburn Ravine to its rightful place as the jewel in Auburn?s crown.Jack Sanchez?s viewpoint represents Protect American River Canyons, an Auburn-based group formed to protect the canyon and surrounding environment.