Salt River restoration on hold for 5-10 years
At Ferndale’s City Council meeting on Dec. 15, the council heard an update regarding the Salt River Restoration Project, which due to land disputes is now paused.
The project, which has cost roughly $35 million to date, mostly from state and federal grants, aims to restore wildlife, decrease flooding and improve agricultural benefits along seven miles of the Salt River and 330 acres of tidal marsh. The areas the project has completed construction on will continue to have maintenance performed on them, but will not expand in the coming years. The project is estimated to be on hold for five to 10 years because the Humboldt County Resource Conservation District’s grant funds to pursue the project will close before the district estimates a deal can be reached with local landowners dotting the final 1.2 mile stretch of the river.
“We have reached an impasse where we are unable to advance a product at this point in time. ..A 2022 Salt River implementation season was just not feasible due to our issues on the ground being unable to advance the project,” Jill Demers, the executive director at the HCRCD, said.
The 1.2 miles of Salt River channel remaining would reconnect 57% of the watershed, and Demers added that completion would reduce the annual closures of Coffee Creek Road and diminish flooding of agricultural land.
The project might also not continue until a separate project in Williams Creek also progresses, but no grant funds have been acquired for construction
yet.
“The board has also directed me and the RCD staff to focus our resources as
much as possible on maintaining the constructed portions of the Salt River channel and that includes
the annual maintenance of Francis Creek sediment management area, but also work to explore and support management maintenance of the Salt River ecosystem restoration project in perpetuity. This project is very ambitious and large and it also was very ambitious in its maintenance goals,” Demers said.
The HCRCD Board of Directors is also requesting that Humboldt County explore the feasibility of establishing a Flood Control District sub-zone to help out with the maintenance of the project as it continues to be on hold.
The Ferndale City Council also unanimously voted to continue meeting virtually in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Try to protect your neighbor and lastly, try to protect yourself because that means you will be protecting yourself in a manner that actually could reduce the spread of this,” Jay Parrish, Ferndale’s city manager, said.