Watershed Restoration Actions in Northern California focusing on the Klamath, Trinity River Systems and the Upper Sacramento Tributary, Clear Creek. October 17 and 18, 1997.
Mark your calendars now for an informative Fall Field Meeting to be held in Redding, California. You will receive updates on regional watershed management programs on the forementioned river systems. As in previous years a general membership meeting and technical session will be held the first day begining around noon and continuing into the evening. Saturday, October 18th will be focused on historical impacts and current restoration activities in lower Clear Creek, an important upper Sacramento River Tributary. This area consists of 31,302 acres of a 154,820 acre watershed. Clear Creek is an important anadromous fishery for Fall Run Chinnook Salmon and has significant potential to support Spring Run Chinnook Salmon. Clear Creek is the site of Whiskeytown Reservoir, part of the Trinity Division of the Central Valley Project. As such, Clear Creek is receiving restoration funding through the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA).
We hope members and interested public will come to learn about the interagency efforts to restore flows for fish habitat and instream restoration. Those who attend the field tour will visit water diversion sites, gravel injection areas, Chinnook spawning redds, historic gravel mined areas and proposed geomorphic restoration areas. At this time sponsoring agencies include NRCS, BLM, Bureau of Reclamation and the Western Shasta RCD. Call Bob Bailey (916) 246-5252 for information or email RBailey810@aol.com.
Two of Southern California's largest watersheds, the Santa Ana River and the Santa Margarita River, will the subjects of a WMC Field Trip on October 23-24, 1997. Hosting this impressive and ambitious tour are The Nature Conservancy (Temecula) and several Resource Conservation Districts (RCDs). Please put these dates on your calendar now and you won't be disappointed!
The Santa Ana River watershed (San Bernardino/Riverside/Orange Counties) covers 3.3 million acres and is the most urbanized of the two, with two dams, several concrete channels, and thousands of landowners all within the floodplain. Our tour will take us by bus to Big Bear Lake top view the upper watershed and local RCD programs, then to the Seven Oaks Dam for an overview of the project and mitigation strategies by the Corps of Engineers, on to San Bernardino County Flood Control District for a perspective on floodplain management, over to Hidden Valley Wildlife Refuge for talks on recreation and Team Arundo's invasive plant control successes and mitigation banking efforts, and finally to Prado Dam Basin for presentations on water conservation, habitat enhancement, and cowbird trapping.
In contrast is the Santa Margarita watershed (Riverside/San Diego Counties) which has its most dense urbanization in the upper watershed while the mainstem is mostly rural and still free-flowing. The Friday morning tour will start at the Fallbrook Public Utilities District for a presentation by the federal Watermaster on the river's water rights history, move on to the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in the lower watershed for a talk on their programmatic approach to habitat maintenance, and end at San Diego State University's research center to talk about their research and TNC's perspective on the watershed community and long-term river system maintenance.
With their numerous listed species and fragile habitats, the watershed in Southern California present a challenge to determine threshold levels and minimum natural processes needed to sustain native habitats while meeting human demands for growing populations, economic needs, and water usage. Our hosts believe that they are on the road to creating working groups within each watershed that can address all of the difficult issues and produce outcomes that meet both human and natural requirements for sustainability.
