City Officials May Put Creeks Up for Adoption

Faced with a shrinking budget and a multimillion-dollar bill to keep the city’s creeks clean, city officials have proposed putting Redding’s creeks up for adoption.

The proposal is part of a plan to pay for federally mandated efforts to keep garbage and other items from fouling Redding’s 15 streams and the Sacramento River.

If it is approved, the clean-creeks adoption program would operate like the adopt-a-freeway campaign, used by many California cities and counties to keep highways free of trash.

Cities around the country are required to come up with plans to cut pollution this year under the Federal Clean Water Act. Once the plan is in place, the effort could cost $1.2 million a year starting in July, city officials said.