Recreation

Europe’s drought is still wreaking havoc on the river cruise industry, although recent rains have eased conditions and a week-long wet-weather forecast is on the horizon. “We are back on track with fast-rising water levels on the Rhine,” said Rudi Schreiner, co-founder of AmaWaterways, adding that recent rains have allowed the river cruise line to get back onto regular cruise schedules.

A sewage spill that federal officials said started Monday night south of the border continues to flood the Tijuana River with millions of gallons of raw effluent. A ruptured collector pipe in southeast Tijuana is leaking roughly 7 million gallons a day of sewage into the river, according to the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission.

California fish and game commissioners are poised to decide Wednesday on a proposal that would extend the closure on recreational abalone fishing another two years to give the ailing species more time to recover from a near-total collapse on the North Coast. The vote would extend until April 2021 an existing closure approved a year ago in the wake of a sharp, multi-year decline in the popular fishery, with no signs of a rebound, a key state official said Tuesday.

Pedestrian public access to the Lime Saddle Marina will be unavailable on weekdays through late January as the state Department of Water Resources works on trail improvements.

As early as March, visitors will be invited to explore Sonoma County’s newest regional park: a wooded 1,192-acre oasis north of Santa Rosa along more than 2.5 miles of upper Mark West Creek.

After nearly a year of public input on the issue, the Marin Municipal Water District is considering revising its electronic bike restrictions in the Mount Tamalpais watershed. … “We’re doing our due diligence to explore all the pros and cons of allowing e-bikes on fire roads,” said Crystal Yezman, the district’s facilities and watershed division manager.

Cross-border water pollution between Tijuana and South San Diego is not new, but in recent years, the problem has grown worse. The reasons are complicated: There is Tijuana’s topography, with its steep hillsides and canyons that drain towards the border; the factories that get away with illegal dumping; the city’s rapid population growth, aging wastewater infrastructure and inadequate garbage collection. In the U.S., funding cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency have prevented improvements to the Borderlands’ sewage system.

Workers hauled big rocks in to Capistrano Beach on Wednesday, placing them along a stretch that collapsed last Friday — the latest damage in an area prone to weather destruction through the years. Heavy machinery was being used to place the rocks along the shoreline, where last week waves and high tide battered the stretch of coast, causing a wooden walkway, sea wall, palm trees and light fixtures to collapse toward the ocean.

Nearly four months after the Carr Fire forced their closure, the National Park Service has re-opened three trails at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area.