I don’t have much use for social media. Deleted my accounts years ago. But I’d like to see what TikTok can do with an Environmental Impact Report.
Despite their reputation as weapons exploited by self-interested neighbors and extortionist labor unions—all true—environmental reports dispense useful information. I’ve read dozens. Learned something every time.
Trouble is they are tough to read—ponderous, repetitive, silted. No narrative energy. No character development. Just facts presented in proscribed formats. Boxes checked, dry as cotton.
Which is why I waited three months to tackle the city’s new environmental report on the Sacramento River Parkway Project, otherwise known as the levee bike path.
I considered feeding the report into AI for instant gratification. But since it’s only 143 pages, a Post-it note as these things go, I sat under a grapefruit tree and read every word.
And loved it.
City Senior Engineer Megan Johnson and consultants who produced the report condensed the 50-year battle for levee access into five chapters. They set the scene and explained why the bike trail matters. They examined whether environmental problems could result from the pathway. They described how to resolve such problems, if necessary.
Brilliantly, the authors showed there are no environmental problems with the bike trail. Nothing to fix once people start walking and cycling along the river from Old Sac to Freeport. Nothing new since the last river bike path environmental report in 1997.
“On the basis of substantial evidence from the administrative record, (the city finds) that no subsequent or supplemental EIR or negative declaration is required,” the report says.
In other words, no reason to stop the bike trail.
As much as I enjoyed the report, I would have written it differently.
I would have pointed out the only reason we wasted 50 years waiting for a bike trail is because a few property owners in Pocket and Little Pocket swore oaths to keep the community off the levee.
The property owners decided they owned the levee. They ignored reality—the Central Valley Flood Protection Board holds title and controls everything that happens along the river.
No matter, a handful of residents begged, charmed and threatened city and state officials to block public access. They convinced politicians to support levee gates and fences. They created stories about their safety imperiled by marauding thieves and motorcycle gangs.
When those strategies collapsed, they resorted to legal threats. They warned they would sue the flood board for letting people walk on the levee.
Surprisingly, the flood board yielded. It allowed a new batch of temporary private fences to block levee access two years ago, after permanent fences were torn down.
On the bright side, flood officials haven’t approved requests for new permanent levee fences. The flood board wants the city to finish the bike trail and end the drama.
That’s what I would have written.
The city’s environmental engineering team took a smarter approach.
By making the document an addendum to the 1997 Sacramento River Parkway Plan, the new report destroys the opposition’s ability to raise challenges.
The report from 28 years ago is sacrosanct, immune from dispute. The 2025 report is simply an addendum. It proves the bike trail’s impact hasn’t changed. The authors leave no room for NIMBYs to file credible protests against the project.
At last, the gates are locked in the public’s favor.
“The proposed project does not require any revisions to the prior 1997 (report) because no new or substantially more intense or severe significant environmental impacts or potentially significant environmental impacts would result from the proposed project,” the new report says. There’s a killer sentence.
I was worried about the new environmental report. Worried it would give a few malcontent NIMBYs near the river another chance to delay the bike trail. Another chance to pour sand in the gears of public access.
See TikTok for videos of gears spinning freely.
R.E. Graswich can be reached at regraswich@icloud.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
