Federal budget contains funding for Auburn Recreation Area
By Matt Weiser, Sacramento Bee
Buried in the Obama administration’s $3.7 trillion federal budget proposal is a gem for the Sacramento region. It would provide $2.7 million for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to continue managing lands in the footprint of the long-dormant Auburn dam project.
The money is more than double this year’s funding.
In the 1960s, the bureau purchased about 40,000 acres in the north and middle forks of the American River to build an Auburn dam – later scuttled by cost and earthquake concerns.
For decades, the bureau has paid the California Department of Parks and Recreation to operate the Auburn State Recreation Area on those lands as an interim public benefit.