The new year will bring a new bridge in Nevada City – eventually. This past August the Nevada City Council awarded a contract to Golden State Bridge Inc. of Benicia, CA for the demolition and reconstruction of the Nevada Street Bridge. This bridge crosses over the confluence of Deer Creek and its tributary Little Deer Creek at the intersection of Boulder, Sacramento, and Broad. The project is expected to be active between April and October.
(You can read the original announcement in the City’s Sept-Oct 2023 newsletter, along with an update in the Nov-Dec 2023 newsletter.)
Sierra Streams Institute was founded over the reconstruction of a different bridge over Deer Creek: the historic Pine Street Bridge was replaced in 1995, and concerned community members came together to monitor water quality in the creek during construction. We quickly recognized the need for continuous water quality monitoring across the watershed, and formed as Friends of Deer Creek that same year.
Here again, we have an opportunity to contribute to the health of the creek and to the existing monitoring plan for the bridge replacement. The contractors and consultants will already be doing some water quality monitoring as part of the project, mainly turbidity, pH, and visual assessments. Because we have such a long-term dataset on Deer Creek we are uniquely positioned to do some additional monitoring in the areas around the construction, as well as at our regular monitoring sites, which provide important baseline data.
Our success as an organization has always been dependent on the knowledge, wisdom, and enthusiastic participation of our local community, so we are calling for you to join us in composing and implementing a water quality monitoring plan for the Nevada Street Bridge Replacement Project. Where and when should we monitor? What parameters should we test for? Come to our community forum on Monday February 12 to contribute your ideas, or to throw your hat in the ring as a monitor!
Event: Community Forum – Build a Monitoring Plan
Date: Monday February 12, 2024
Time: 5:30pm
Location: SSI’s office at 117 New Mohawk Road Suite H in Nevada City
Thanks as always for being such a big part of what we do.