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The Assessment The Watershed Physical Description Land Use The Scotts Creek Watershed Council The Salmonids Habitat Restoration & Conservation Projects Events Newsletter Contact Us |
Habitat Restoration and
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Projects in progress
A Cooperative Stream Re-Naturalization Project Underway in Santa Cruz County on Cal Poly’s Swanton Pacific RanchA riparian corridor restoration project is currently underway on Queseria Creek on Cal Poly’s Swanton Pacific Ranch north of Santa Cruz. Queseria Creek has experienced frequent problems during flood flows and has not met its habitat potential. The overall goal of the project is to improve the hydrologic performance and improve salmonid habitat. The project scope includes a re-naturalization of 1600-feet of previously straightened channel into a sinuous channel that includes in stream habitat features to benefit coho salmon and steelhead trout in this lower tributary to Scotts Creek. The project also establishes a native riparian corridor with plants indigenous to the Scotts Creek watershed. Invasive Eucalyptus trees have been removed to improve water quality and habitat conditions. The project includes the removal of three stream crossings replacing the Swanton Road crossing with a bottomless arch culvert, a ranch road crossing with a bridge, and the third crossing with a low-flow ford crossing. The replacement of the Swanton Road crossing meets Goal 15 of the Fishnet 4C implementation for the removal of fish barriers to salmonid migration. Monitoring and maintenance will continue for five years to ensure plant survival and monitor the hydrologic performance. Dr. Wally Mark, Director of Swanton Ranch and responsible for initiating the project, says “the opportunity to restore habitat and function to the lower portion of Queseria Creek was apparent after finding coho and steelhead in poor production years in numbers greater than any other Scotts Creek tributary even in its altered condition.” A unique aspect of the project is the cooperative involvement in the project by industry agencies, and university faculty and students. RMC Pacific Materials of Davenport donated over 300 tons of local rock used for the in stream habitat structures and the foundation for the Swanton Road crossing. Over 100 redwood rootwads were donated after being removed from a UC Santa Cruz Campus building site. The rootwads were transported to Swanton Pacific Ranch this past spring and planted in the Queseria Creek and lower Scotts Creek floodplains to aid in the revegetation effort and add stability and habitat benefits along the newly-constructed channel banks. Funding is contributed by a number of non-profit and government agencies including California Department of Fish and Game (SB 271), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Partners for Fish and Wildlife), Natural Resources Conservation Service (Wetlands Reserve Program), County of Santa Cruz Public Works Department (American Rivers grant), USDA McIntire Stennis research grant, and Cal Poly State Foundation. 
Cal Poly graduate student, Jason Pearson and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Engineer, Jeff Rose (see picture on right) layout for one of the rock j-hook vanes to be constructed from rock donated by RMC Pacific, Inc. to improve habitat conditions for salmonids while also protecting the channel banks from erosion. The project also provides additional educational benefits. Two graduate students from Cal Poly’s Natural Resources Management Department are involved. Jason Pearson has been largely responsible for the channel and floodplain design and will play an integral part in the overall project implementation. “It has given me a chance to be involved with a complex project from the design phase through to its implementation says Pearson. Alyson Aquino will be responsible for post-project monitoring and has been involved with the revegetation planning. Dr. Brian Dietterick, a hydrologist in Cal Poly’s Natural Resources Management Department and Co-Director of the project explains that “the project has not only afforded educational opportunities for these two graduate students, but will serve as a demonstration project on stream re-naturalization for decades to come.” Lower Queseria Creek is in a very unique setting offering refuge and possibly spawning habitat for salmonids. The re-naturalization techniques represent the current thinking in stream corridor restoration methods to benefit not only habitat conditions, but also the hydrologic performance by improving the channel condition and reducing sediment delivery to Scotts Creek during flood flows. The project is over 80 percent complete with final channel work and revegetation slated for this summer (2004). | |||
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The Little Creek Monitoring Study is a long-term paired watershed study designed to evaluate water quality and geomorphic conditions of a coastal mountain stream located in the southern-most extent of the redwood/Douglas-fir forest region. The primary goal of this study is to provide valuable information documenting watershed conditions before, during, and after single-tree and small group selection harvested watersheds. This information is intended to assist in determining the effectiveness of the current forest practice rules in their ability to regulate timber harvests that can maintain healthy and productive watersheds. The water quality monitoring utilizes the combination of paired watershed and upstream/ downstream study designs. In 1997 and 1998, three monitoring stations equipped with rated section flumes were installed on Little Creek. Water quality monitoring at the three stations began in the 200-2001 rain year. In 2001, a fourth monitoring site was established in a natural channel cross-section. At these locations, stage, turbidity, temperature, and event-based samples for lab analysis of turbidity, suspended sediment concentration, and electrical conductivity data are collected. Additionally, rainfall data from five gages is collected and will be used in the analysis of event-based water quality data and streamflow. The geomorphic analysis includes longitudinal profile surveys, cross-section surveys, a LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) analysis, roads and landslide inventories, streambank sediment source and channel stability surveys, and documentation of historic landslides throughout the watershed. The longitudinal profile and permanent channel cross-section surveys describe existing geomorphic conditions and will be used to evaluate channel changes over time. LIDAR provides high-resoulation, three-dimensional mapping data. Traditional ground-surveyed watershed and channel characteristics will be compared with those same features derived from the LIDAR data. Ground-surveys are repeated after significant runoff years to evaluate change over time. The streambank sediment source and channel stability survey describes actively eroding streambanks, landslides, and channel characteristics. This data will be used to monitor sediment source locations and characteristics throughout the study. Finally, historic landslide data will be used as an informative reference to which current geomorphic conditions can be related. Intergrated Watershed Restoration Projects (IWRP)
The projects selected for IWRP funding are those identified in the Scotts Creek Watershed Assessment as road repairs, re-establishment of the USGS gauging station on Scotts Creek and stream bank restoration of Mill Creek. Each one is discussed briefly below. Medium to high priority road sites identified in the Roads and Landslide Inventory (SCWC, 2002) are being revisited to determine the feasibility and urgency of repairs. Late in March, 2004 there was a site visit to Lockheed Martin Property to evaluate conditions of the highest priority road sites in need of repair. A follow-up visit in May, 2004 identified the most important sites out of these with photo and written documentation. A visit to the Swanton Road sites was undertaken by Kristen Schroeder, County resource planner and Joanna Becker at the end of April, 2004 to determine which of the medium and high priority Swanton Road sites identified in the SCWC Roads report lie within the County right-of-way. Most of these have been remediated, but there are three that might be possible for private-public partnerships which the County is preparing a report about. The six most important and feasible sites on Lockheed Martin property have been submitted to the IWRP team for review. Brian Dietterick met with U.S. Geological Survey representatives in April to discuss re-establishing the USGS gauging station on Scotts Creek so as to add to the data collected for more than 60 years. NMFS has expressed an interest in contributing to the gauging station costs and Swanton Pacific Ranch and Swanton Pacific Railroad would make an annual contribution but the other half of the operation costs must be confirmed before the project can be initiated. Restoration work must also be done on the preferred Scotts Creek site at the railroad bridge before the station can be installed. In May, 2004 there was a visit by the IWRP Integrated Technical Advisory Committee (ITAC) to evaluate the Mill Creek Sediment Reduction Plan developed some years ago by Carren Wilson. Brian Dietterick is developing modified designs for two of the sites based on the ITAC comments and site visit. |
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