'Lookout Slough' Delta Smelt Habitat Restoration Project

The Lookout Slough Tidal Habitat Restoration project began with Ecosystem Investment Partners' acquisition of three contiguous properties totaling 3,400 acres in the Cache Slough region of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Leading fisheries biologists have identified this region as essential for sustaining and restoring populations of the Delta smelt. The project is also located at the southern end of the Yolo Bypass which provides important flood water conveyance. EIP is building over 3 miles of new protective levees along the west and north edges of the property, which will allow for breaching of the existing degraded levee along the Yolo Bypass and the restoration of historic tidal influence to the site. Primary and secondary channels are also being constructed to convey water across the entire property. Tidal influence is necessary to provide food web and habitat benefits to the Delta smelt.

Hanford Arc's Giacomini Wetland Restoration Project restored tidal influence to one of the largest integrated tidal marsh complexes on the California coast. Located at the southern end of Tomales Bay, the historic estuary had been leveed in the previous century to create dairy pasture. The Project established habitat for numerous Federal and State threatened and endangered species, including Coho Salmon, Steelhead Trout, California Red Legged Frog, California Black and Ridgeway’s Rails, Point Reyes Bird’s Beak, and Humboldt Bay Owl’s Clover. The project also relieved flooding pressure on local homes as well as improved water quality in Tomales Bay.  In the years since tidal connectivity was restored in 2008, the impacts of the Project have been actively monitored. Combining with the extensive data that was acquired before, during, and immediately after restoration, establishes a picture of robust and unexpectedly rapid ecological and species recovery in response to the Project. 

The Elsie Gridley Mitigation Bank is the largest vernal pool mitigation bank in the State of California. It was established for the purpose of providing offsite mitigation opportunities for vernal pool grassland and riparian habitats as well as a number of associated rare, threatened, and endangered species. 

Wetland Resources, LLC received approval of the bank in 2006 and it has been amended twice. Three phases of vernal pool restoration have been implemented, and a fourth and final vernal pool restoration phase is in planning. Resource Environmental Solutions, LLC (RES) has been hired by Wetland Resources, LLC to conduct the bank’s ecological monitoring, design and implementation of future phases, compliance reporting, and credit sales.

The 1,815-acre Gridley Bank is located in rural Solano County, California, south of the City of Dixon and adjacent to the Solano Land Trust’s Jepson Prairie Preserve. 

Numerous wetlands and vernal pools are preserved or have been restored within the property, along with habitat for special-status species including California tiger salamander, vernal pool tadpole shrimp, vernal pool fairy shrimp, vernal pool conservancy shrimp, Swainson’s hawk, Delta green ground, Boggs Lake hedge hyssop, and others.

Key metrics of the bank:

- 100 acres of Army Corps Section 404 mitigation credits currently   constructed

- Additional 130 acres of Army Corps Section 404 mitigation credits in   design/planning phase

- Largest CTS conservation bank with over 1,500 acres of CTS upland   and aquatic credits

- Riparian and linear stream credits, vernal pool crustaceans, burrowing owl, and Swainson’s hawk credits

The Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement (KHSA) is a landmark pact signed by 23 parties to remove four hydropower dams on the Klamath River in Northern California and Southern Oregon. This agreement includes federal, state, and local governments, dam owner PacifiCorp, two Tribal nations, and nine conservation and fishing groups. The Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC) has been tasked to decommission the Lower Klamth Project (LKP), thus executing the largest dam removal and and river restoration effort in the world.

The overarching goal is to allow volitional fish passage from the Klamath River estuary at the Pacific Ocean, upstream more than 230 miles to Keno Dam in Southern Oregon. The project will ultimately restore access to  more than 400 miles of historical anadramous fish habitat, including critical spawning areas.  RES was selected to lead the habitat restoration for this ambitious effort, and is responsible for achieving the project’s long-term restoration goals.

To support this large, multi-state effort, RES is working collaboratively with numerous agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Oregon Department of State Lands, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, California State Water Boards, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Bureau of Land Management. 

In coordination with the agencies mentioned above, RES’ design, construction, and project management professionals are leading design efforts for the restoration of the Klamath River and its associated tributaries. RES is supported in its design efforts effort by its subcontractors, which include Stantec Consulting Services Inc. and the Yurok Tribe and Karuk Tribe. 

The KRRC project involves the mobilzation/flushing of a large amount of sediment that has accumulated behind the four dams -- one of which is a century old--- and the stabilization of any sediment that remains after the initial evacuation.  RES is developing unique and implementable approaches to cost-effectively stabilize reservoir sediment that is not transported downriver.  All reservoir sediments remaining in the reservoir footprints will be vegetatively stabilized using native plant species. In addition, to help the Klamath River and its tributaries return to a healthy, natural state and create crucial microhabitats for juvenile fish, the project also involves restoration of tributary stream planform, profile, section, and aquatic and terrestrial habitat of the currently-innundated portions of five historically fish-bearing tributaties upstream of Iron Gate Dam. 

As the restoration lead for the KRRC project, RES is responsible for performing any required adaptive management and achiving all long-term restoration goals. RES has worked with the KRRC, the states of California and Oregon, and PacifiCorp to develop a unique contractual structure that transfers liability for achieving these long-term restoration goals to RES.

Tule Red Tidal Restoration Project restored 420 acres of marsh habitat on the eastern edge of Grizzly Bay in the Suisun Marsh. The project creates self-sustaining tidal marsh to benefit listed fish and wildlife species, including delta smelt, longfin smelt, and salmonids. The project has been a collaboration between Westervelt Ecological Services, State and Federal Contractors Water Association, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), and many other resource agency partners.

The restoration of Tule Red will contribute to the 8,000-acre tidal marsh restoration requirements for the Central Valley Project and State Water Project Long-term Operational Criteria and Plan (OCAP) Biological Opinion. The restored site will also help meet the objectives of the Suisun Marsh Habitat Management, Preservation and Restoration Plan (SMP), and support the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Tidal Marsh Recovery Plan.

With construction on the site now complete, WES is the interim site manager. WES will turn the property over to the CDFW, who will manage and maintain it in the future. The California Department of Water Resources will supply SMP funding to support the site in perpetuity.

The Upper York Creek project in Napa County, California included the removal of a 50-foot earthen dam, which was built in 1907 to create a water supply reservoir and had become filled with sediment. WRA’s design team worked closely with the City of St. Helena, lead engineer, Environment & Water, Inc. (EKI), and a host of regulatory agency stakeholders to prepare a design that called for a process-based approach, where the dam was notched and a pilot channel cut through the sediment to connect the upstream and downstream reaches of York Creek. Log structures were built in the channel below the dam to capture sediment and restore habitat for threatened central California coast steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss). The project also involved ensuring that an existing concrete overflow spillway supporting the adjacent county road be maintained, and that active landslide locations are avoided by construction activities. 

The project, completed in September 2020, restored access for steelhead to more than 3 miles of stream and was designed to reduce impacts to sensitive species including northern spotted owl and California red-legged frog populations. WRA provided final engineering design and regulatory agency permitting on an accelerated schedule due to funding requirements. WRA provided design oversight, compliance surveys, and biological monitoring during construction. The project site and its upstream watershed was burned by the Glass Fire only three days after construction completion. WRA has since assisted the City with post-wildfire assessments, retrofit measures of damaged log structures, and monitoring for possible secondary post-fire hazards.

Key Accomplishments

· Restored more than three miles of original stream channel

· Added 36 bioengineered log structures to improve fish habitat

· Relocated 103 juvenile steelhead and 29 rainbow trout prior to construction

· Removed 22,000 cubic yards of sediment to reduced future downstream habitat degradation

· Completed final design and permit approvals within seven months to meet grant funding requirements

· Avoided impact on seasonal habitat function by shortening construction period to five months