More time is needed for new Interstate 5 concrete to dry, which means the project will now take longer to complete.

Changes in the schedule announced Thursday will offer motorists a break from all I-5 shutdowns in downtown Sacramento from early Monday through July 8, providing relief to travelers over the busy July 4 holiday.

But the overall road repair effort will now take about nine weeks instead of roughly seven weeks, California Department of Transportation spokesman Mark Dinger said. But the number of road closure days will remain at about 35.

The next stage of the project will not begin until July 8 to allow thicker-than-anticipated concrete time to cure before a sealant is applied.

Southbound I-5 is currently shut down from Richards Boulevard south to the Highway 50 interchange for the project, which includes repaving and other improvements. The southbound lanes are set to reopen on Monday.

The project, which is billed as one of the biggest road repair efforts in the capital in decades, began May 30 and has involved alternating closures of northbound and southbound lanes in the so-called boat section of the freeway.

"It is critical that this concrete be completely dry before applying the sealant and the final driving surface," Caltrans District 3 Director Jody Jones said in a news release. "To ensure a quality, long-lasting product, Caltrans and our contractor determined the safest course of action was to move Stage 3 to July 8 and avoid impacting the public and downtown area businesses during the busy July 4 holiday."

Caltrans said the third stage will involve closing the southbound lanes of I-5 between Richards Boulevard and Highway 50 beginning at 8 p.m. July 8 through 5 a.m. July 15.

After a short break, Stage 4 of the project will include closing the northbound lanes of I-5 from Highway 50 to Richards Boulevard from 8 p.m. July 17 to 5 a.m. July 24.

When crews began removing the old pavement, they discovered it was much thicker than anticipated, Dinger said. In some places, concrete was as thick as 48 inches.

This discovery meant the preparation process for the new, fast-setting slag-based concrete is taking much longer than anticipated.

Officials are ordering the boats out of the water at Folsom Lake because of dangerously low water levels statewide.

Folsom Lake is currently at half-capacity, or about 40 feet below normal.

The Bureau of Reclamation is moving up the pullout date from July 13 to July 2. They want boats currently stored in slips taken out and stored on land.

"We're dealing with a dry year, and in a dry year, operationally, we still have obligations downstream," Louis Moore from the bureau said.

Boater Glen Wilson recently removed his sailboat from Brown's Ravine Marina because of the order.

"We've had a poor water year, we've had no rainfall. And the lake's dropping because farmers need water, so it's just reality. I don't like it but what can we do about it?" said Wilson.

A boater said he's disappointed because he paid $1,150 for slip parking and won't be able to get his money back.

Area was cleared and residents were told to stay in their homes around a Rio Linda meat packing plant Thursday evening following an ammonia leak, according to Sacramento Metro fire officials.

Firefighters called a Level 2 hazmat situation and cleared residents near the Stafford Meat Company at 1545 Q Street around 7 p.m. Thursday after employees reported an ammonia leak, Sacramento Metro Fire assistant chief Greg Mugartegui said.

Workers at the plant called the fire department after about 50 gallons of anhydrous ammonia leaked and pooled inside the facility.

The corrosive chemical is used at the plant for refrigeration purposes and can be an irritant to both skin and lungs. "It is a very toxic substance," Mugartegui said.

While the leak was quickly capped, residents within 1,000 feet of the plant were asked to remain in their homes as a precaution while fire crews in hazmat suits assessed the clean-up.

No one was reported injured in the incident. Air monitors also registered no signficant readings in the air around the plant.

"Residents don't need to be concerned," Murgartegui said. "We have the situation under control."

Crews cleared the scene and deemed the area safe around 10:30 p.m. Thursday.

The leak wasn't the first time neighbors have had trouble with the plant. Last March, county workers were called to the scene after dirty water used to clean the plant began leaking into nearby Dry Creek.

There may be a break in the salmonella case: Food and Drug Administration inspectors headed for farms in Florida and Mexico on Friday, as new clues emerge to the possible source of salmonella-tainted tomatoes that have now sickened 552 people.

The FDA wouldn't say where in Florida and Mexico the hunt is centering. But officials stressed that the clues don't necessarily mean that a particular farm will turn out to be the culprit.

Investigators will pay special attention to big packing houses or distribution warehouses that handle tomatoes from many farms and where contamination could be spread, leading to what now appears to be the nation's largest-ever salmonella outbreak from tomatoes.

"It does not mean definitively the contamination occurred on a farm in Mexico or on a farm in Florida," said Dr. David Acheson, FDA's food safety chief. "This is not just the farms that we're inspecting, it's the whole distribution chain."

A surge of newly confirmed cases moved Friday's official count to 552 illnesses in 32 states, pushing the outbreak into record territory. In 2004, government records show there were three separate tomato-and-salmonella outbreaks that together totaled 561 illnesses, the largest of which sickened 429 people.

Most of Friday's newly reported cases were people who became sick in April or May but just completed testing to prove they had the outbreak strain of salmonella.

But the latest victim got sick on June 10, meaning the outbreak may not be over.

And Texas is clearly its center, with a doubling of known cases from 131 confirmed earlier in the week to 265 as of Friday.

"These 552 may actually represent several thousand illnesses in the United States," cautioned Dr. Ian Williams of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Previous research shows that for every case of salmonella reported to the government, 30 or more people get sick but don't see a doctor or undergo confirmatory testing, he noted.

The FDA continues to urge consumers nationwide to avoid raw red plum, red Roma or red round tomatoes unless they were grown in specific states or countries that FDA has cleared of suspicion. Check FDA's Web site -- http://www.fda.gov -- for an updated list. Also safe are grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and tomatoes sold with the vine still attached.

The FDA already had said that central and southern Florida and parts of Mexico were suspects because they supplied the vast majority of tomatoes sold when the outbreak began in April.

But Friday marked a big step in the monthlong investigation. Investigators have been tracking where the sick said they bought or ate tomatoes, and then where those retailers or restaurants in turn bought them. After a lot of frustrating dead ends, the probe finally yielded a set of clues -- a list of farms in Florida and Mexico that seem to have been at least part of that supply, plus records showing the packing houses and other distribution stops between farm and point of sale.

"A tomato that made somebody sick in Vermont has come a long way," Acheson pointed out. "A lot of suppliers and warehouses have potentially handled that tomato. ... It could be anywhere on that distribution chain where all these tomatoes were together at one point."

So FDA inspectors, working together with Florida state officials and Mexican regulators, will start at the farms and fan out to packing sheds and beyond, in hopes of finding spots where tomatoes from the farms of interest intersected.

FDA isn't aware of anyone in Mexico infected with the same strain of salmonella that is causing the outbreak, Acheson noted.

Sacramento County is breaking ground on the largest capital improvement project in it's history.  They're beginning construction on the new Terminal B expansion at Sacramento International Airport.

The $1.27B project includes construction of a new terminal that will make passenger drop off easier and cut down on waits in security.

It will also add new parking lots, a hotel, restaurants and even a light rail service.

But not everyone is happy with the project.  Major airlines complain the expansion will double their rent by 2013 and those increases will be passed onto the customer.

Sacramento residents will vote on a ballot measure this November that could put a tax on cell phone text messages. If voters agree to pay taxes on new technologies, taxes on traditional landline phones will be slashed.

"For text messaging on your phone calls you'll see your tax go up," said Russ Fehr, the Sacramento City Treasurer. "If you use voice-over internet calls, you will see the tax hit your bill."

The tax would apply to any number with a billing address in Sacramento.

"The city is packaging an increase as a tax reduction," said Timothy Bittle, from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Association. "Communication is a basic human right. It's a constitutional right. It's free speech. Why do we have to be taxed?"

For one Sacramento resident, texting is an addiction, and a tax wouldn't deter her from it.

"I couldn't stop," said Jenn Butler. "I'd have to pay it."