CA Fish and Wildlife releases list of stream recovery grants
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife released its Fisheries Restoration Grant Program list of approved projects that proposed plans to help reverse the decline of Pacific salmon and steelhead. A total of $11 million was committed to 25 projects throughout California. Nine projects, funded for slightly more than $3 million, are located in Mendocino County.
Congress established the Pacific
Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund in 2000. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now contributes funding to California’s salmon recovery projects. Success in preventing the extinction of the 28 identified salmon and steelhead species along the West Coast is due to extensive habitat and watershed restoration often completed by local environmental groups.
The Eel River Watershed Improvement Group (ERWIG) received grants for three projects. The Willits Creek, Instream Restoration Project, received $535,947 to build fifty-four large wood structures along two miles of the creek located in Brooktrails. Logs with root wads and boulders will be part of the construction, and 100 native trees will be planted along the twomile stretch.
The South Fork Cottaneva Creek Watershed Habitat Enhancement Project, north of Union Landing, received two separate grants. One project was granted $535,645 to build up the amount of large wood in the South Fork and the tributary of Slaughterhouse Gulch. The shade will be part of the goal with the planting of 220 redwood saplings and 50 native bushes.
The second project for the lower South Fork of the Cottaneva Creek received $73,257 to add large wood structures along a 1.1-mile stretch. The purpose is to provide shelter for all life stages of salmonids by engineering pool depths, water velocity, refugia, and other elements for
spawning. Each structure will be unique to its site and its conditions.
Trout Unlimited, Inc. also received grants for three projects. Two separate projects will improve the stream habitat of Chimney Rock Creek, a tributary of Usal Creek. The upslope project, granted $503,244, will eliminate extreme sediment deposition by removing 3.5 miles of a logging road system that accounts for road sediment entering waterways.
The second Chimney Rock Creek project, with a grant of $407,235, will improve 1.7 miles of instream habitat. Large wood pieces will create pool areas for summering salmonids, and better velocity flows during the winter.
Trout Unlimited Inc. received its third grant of $323,535 to improve the habitat design in the lower Rail Dump Gulch adjacent to Big River. Improvements will be specific to site needs, such as restoration of the tidal marsh and side and off-channel creation for better fish passage areas.
The Conservation Fund received grants for two projects. In the amount of $221,793, Robinson Creek, south of Philo, will gain 38 wood features that will help increase spawning. The second grant of $98,373 will bring improvements to the Little North Fork of Big River, which partly travels through Mendocino Headlands State Park. To increase spawning habitat, The Conservation Fund will install 83 large wood debris pieces at 42 structure sites.
Finally, the Mattole Salmon Group was awarded $394,507 for instream improvements of Coulborn Creek, a tributary of Indian Creek, which is a tributary of the South Fork Eel River. A planning and design project involving a technical advisory committee along with the group’s scientists and engineers will complete the designs for a two-mile stretch of the creek. The plans will include at least 60 constructed log jams and four engineered wood structures “in high-priority stream reaches.”
In addition, two ongoing projects have received contingency grants awarding additional funds to Redwood Coast Land Conservancy and the Eel River Watershed Improvement Group (ERWIG). The Land Trust’s project received $403,943 to continue preparing the Habitat Enhancement Plan in the Gualala River Estuary for salmonid habitat.
The Eel River Watershed group received $608,168 to replace two culverts with bridges on Little Case Creek, west of Laytonville. Approximately a mile of the creek will allow passage for fish “at all flows and life stages.”
Other grants awarded in Northern California went to Del Norte, Humboldt, Marin, Sonoma, and Trinity Counties. Additional grants went to San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties and one grant to the Southern Steelhead Coalition for habitat restoration in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties.