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Floodplain Coalition Inundates D.C.

Floodplain Coalition Inundates D.C.

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Dr. Jacob Katz (seated left) and partners at the House Natural Resources Committee meeting room for their Floodplain Reactivation Congressional Briefing to congressional members and Staff

This September, California Trout’s Central Valley Program was part of a diverse coalition of water, farming and environmental partners that traveled to Washington, D.C. to promote the benefits of floodplain reactivation and discuss federal support for scaling up floodplain efforts. The coalition included CalTrout’s own Dr. Jacob Katz and leaders from Northern California Water Association, Reclamation District 108, Ducks Unlimited, Audubon California, River Garden Farms and several Sacramento Valley landowners. The group’s whirlwind D.C. visit included meetings with members of Congress, federal agency decisionmakers and culminated in a packed Congressional Briefing on Floodplain Reconciliation in the House Natural Resources Committee room.

The group educated national leaders on the floodplain reactivation concept outlined how the federal government could help expand floodplain reactivation and showcased an unprecedented partnership of water, farming and conservation organizations. Over the last year, the coalition has seen significant progress at the state level to support floodplain reactivation as a water and ecosystem resiliency tool, this invitation to brief Congress and federal agencies have laid the foundation for similar support and enthusiasm at the national level.

“While in D.C. we met with decisionmakers from across the political spectrum – one minute we’re meeting the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Interior and the next we’re having a glass of wine with Senator Feinstein!” said Dr. Katz. “Thanks to win-win benefits, floodplain reactivation has garnered bi-partisan and truly diverse support in an age of heightened political division. This federal outreach effort brought us closer together as partners and exemplifies the power and broadening support for floodplain reactivation in the Sacramento Valley.”

More Information

Maven’s Notebook – FEATURE: Reactivating our floodplains: A new way forward

EstuaryNews – Clout and Cool Science Push Land-River Connection

New Yolo Bypass Fish Passage project approved

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Yolo Floodplains

A big step towards the largest floodplain enhancement effort on the West Coast has just taken place. The Department of Water Resources’ Yolo Bypass Salmonid Habitat Restoration and Fish Passage Project has secured final approvals for implementation. The project will retrofit Fremont Weir to allow for more frequent inundation of Yolo Bypass floodplain, creating more floodplain habitat and allowing greater access to that habitat for  threatened Central Valley salmon runs.  Lowering the gate height of the weir allows more water and fish to flow out of the river and onto the food-rich floodplain during small storm events.

According to CalTrout Scientist, Dr. Jacob Katz, “This is a first-of-its-kind, multi-benefit project, that integrates a 21st century scientific understanding of fish and rivers into water management. It will allow baby fish onto floodplain wetlands to grow, and adults to re-enter the Sacramento River to spawn while protecting current agricultural and flood protection uses of the bypass. It’s a real win-win-win.”

Dr. Katz and CalTrout’s Central Valley Program have worked for nearly a decade on floodplain science in support of this unprecedented infrastructure upgrade. Their work shows that flood protection, farming and fish and bird habitat restoration are all compatible land uses on Yolo Bypass, the Sacramento River’s largest remaining floodplain.

Read below to learn more about the Yolo Bypass Salmonid Habitat Restoration and Fish Passage Project.

This article was originally published on the Woodland Daily Democrat on July 20, 2019

Work at Fremont Weir will allow salmon to travel between waterways

The Department of Water Resources has secured final state and federal approval for a project that will expand a migration corridor for fish to the Yolo Bypass, the Sacramento Valley’s main floodplain.

The project is part of the largest floodplain restoration action on the West Coast and demonstrates a commitment by DWR, the State Water Contractors, and the Bureau of Reclamation to protect native fish in California, while safeguarding agriculture, according to Erin Mellon, assistant director of public affairs for the DWR.

The project aligns with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent executive order calling for a Water Resilience Portfolio that creates a suite of actions to secure healthy waterways and ecological function through the 21st century.

The project, formally titled the Yolo Bypass Salmonid Habitat Restoration and Fish Passage Project, will enhance flood plain habitat for endangered species while protecting current agricultural and flood management uses of the bypass.

“This is the quintessential multi-benefit project,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “It improves fish survival and habitat while preserving the Yolo Bypass as a vital hub for agriculture and flood protection. We look forward to working with the region’s landowners on this win-win project for people, farms, and fish.”

The approximately $190 million project will construct a two-way fish passage gateway at the head of the Fremont Weir, a 1.8-mile concrete wall that provides flood protection to Sacramento and surrounding communities.

The 100-foot-wide gateway, or “big notch,” will open each winter, allowing juvenile salmon to move from the Sacramento River onto the floodplain and then back into the Sacramento River at Cache Slough. Providing fish access to the food-rich floodplain will expand survival rates for native fish on their migratory journey to the Pacific Ocean.

The project will also allow adult salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon to more easily access the Sacramento River from the bypass.

“California’s threatened fish species are the result of a water and flood system built before people understood how rivers worked or how fish used them,” said Jacob Katz, senior scientist with California Trout. “This first-of-its-kind, multi-benefit project integrates a 21st century scientific understanding of fish and rivers into water management and allows baby fish onto floodplain wetlands to grow, and adults to re-enter the Sacramento River to spawn. It’s a win-win-win for fish, farms and flood control.”

This week, the project’s environmental impact report received final approval from state and federal permitting agencies, allowing the project to move forward with final design and permitting before construction begins in 2021. This project is funded by the Bureau of Reclamation and through State Water Project funds supplied by the State Water Contractors.

“We are very supportive of the efforts to increase fish access to floodplain habitat, a step towards meeting the state’s goals of protecting the natural environment while managing water supply,” said Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors. “Greater access should help salmon grow bigger and increase their survival as they travel through the Delta and into the ocean, hopefully translating to increased populations.”

The project meets requirements of the state and federal Endangered Species Act, including the National Marine Fisheries Service 2009 Biological Opinion on the Long-Term Operations of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project. The project will be a critical component of obtaining the Incidental Take Permit of the California Fish and Game Code for the long-term operations of the State Water Project.

Applauding the Funding in the California State Budget to Help Reactivate Floodplains in the Central Valley

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A Broad Group of Conservation Organizations, Landowners, Local Governments, Water Suppliers and Academic Institutions Applaud the Funding in the California State Budget to Help Reactivate Floodplains in the Central Valley

June 27, 2019

We applaud the Governor and the Legislature for including $92 million in the 2019-2020 State Budget for important investments to improve public safety, enhance water security and provide fish and wildlife habitat. These initial investments in multi-benefit projects using funding approved by California voters in recent bond measures are a win for both people and the environment as these efforts–which include projects to reactivate historic floodplains in the Central Valley–will upgrade California’s aging water and flood infrastructure while simultaneously enhancing the function of our river ecosystems for the benefit of fish and wildlife populations.

We are a diverse coalition of conservation organizations, farmers, local governments, water suppliers and academic institutions who have come together to advance a new model for water management and land use. The old ways separated native species from the river environment. Many successful projects have shown that integrating a working 21st-century scientific knowledge of how rivers work into the management of farms, flood protection, and water infrastructure create a system that functions far better for fish, birds, wildlife farms and cities.

In addition to the budget, we are also encouraged the Governor called out reactivating Central Valley floodplains in his State of the State address in February and his Executive Order on April 29, 2019, specifically directs the state’s water resilience portfolio to “utilize natural infrastructures such as forests and floodplains.”  

Spreading out and slowing down flood waters across historic floodplains mimics natural flow patterns and provides multiple benefits year-round by allowing farmers to cultivate rice and other crops for humans during the spring and summer, habitat for wild birds, reptiles, and other fauna in the fall, and food for migratory birds and native fish species in the winter, all while continuing to provide critical flood protection for Sacramento and other parts of the Valley.

Examples of this multi-benefit approach are described in the attached document: Reactivating our Floodplains–A New Way Forward for California. The Sacramento Valley is fertile ground for developing this new path forward which integrates best available science about how river ecosystem’s function with the practical know-how of farm, flood and wildlife refuge managers.
Implementing these dynamic conservation strategies will build resiliency in both California’s environment and water systems by:

• supporting the abundant return of migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway;
• revitalizing river food webs and supporting the recovery of salmon populations;
• recharging precious groundwater aquifers;
• improving flood protection in an era of increasing storm severity and a changing climate.

Science and experience have shown that flood protection bypasses, farmland and wildlife refuges that occupy historic Central Valley floodplains can be managed to mimic the historic natural processes and patterns which create and sustain fish and wildlife habitat.

We all look forward to continuing our collaborations with the Newsom Administration and the Legislature to secure additional funding to advance these important win-win efforts. Together we can reactivate Central Valley floodplains and help build a more secure water future for all Californians, even those that happen to be finned and feathered.

Resources

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Reactivating our Floodplains – Speaker Event

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Date & Time: Monday, July 15th from 12:30 PM to 1:30 pm
Location: California Natural Resources Building – First Floor Auditorium
About: Please join Natural Resources Agency Secretary Crowfoot and a diverse panel of experts in a public conservation about efforts to reactivate the floodplains in the Sacramento Valley. Presentations will provide an interesting mix of fish and wildlife science, water management policy, and video highlighting multi-benefit projects that reconnect water and land, provide flood protection and create habitat. 

Improving Habitat for Endangered Salmon at the Yolo Bypass

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Yolo Bypass salmon study

“The Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources have evaluated options to improve fish passage and increase floodplain fisheries-rearing habitat in the Yolo Bypass, near Sacramento. These options explore how to benefit Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead and the southern distinct population segment of North American green sturgeon. The agencies released environmental documents that analyze six action alternatives including a headworks structure at Fremont Weir and downstream channel improvements. ”

The Yolo Bypass Salmonid Habitat Restoration and Fish Passage project reached an important milestone with the release of environmental review documents by the Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources.

For the last decade, CalTrout’s Central Valley Program and our partners have conducted foundational science in the Yolo Bypass to understand the benefits of seasonal floodplain habitat to salmon. With this release, we are one step closer to realizing a project that will improve seasonal floodplain inundation to mimic the natural process while also protecting our communities from floods and allowing farms to continue farming.

 

Restoring Floodplains for Fish Food and Flood Protection

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Fish, Farms, and Floods.

Today’s San Francisco Chronicle features an Op-Ed by author and former land-use planner Tim Palmer who writes about the need to rethink our relationship to rivers and their floodplains. Palmer correctly identifies increasingly costly and damaging seasonal flooding as a major challenge facing our country, and especially California, as the effects of climate change grow more and more severe. We at CalTrout wholeheartedly agree and have been working to help re-define the way people think about rivers and their natural tendency to spread beyond their banks.

Over the years, here in California as in the Midwest and beyond, we have re-engineered our waterways – channelizing them, building dams, dikes, and levies – in an attempt to control their flows and divert their waters for our benefit. In the process, we built too heavily in their floodplains and become too dependent on man-made structures to control flowing water, one of the strongest forces in nature. This has resulted in harm to migratory fish populations and tragic losses of property for those who have found themselves in the floodwaters’ path.

But there is a way forward and we have recently been working with some amazing partners in the scientific, government and agricultural communities to help reconnect California’s rivers to their historic floodplains so they can be a multi-benefit resource, instead of danger, working for people, fish, and other wildlife.

Reconnecting rivers to their floodplains not only protects communities from catastrophic floods, as noted in Mr. Palmer’s Op-Ed, it also results in multiple benefits for wild salmon, steelhead and other wildlife, including migratory birds. In order to achieve these benefits, California needs to update its water infrastructure and flood control operations in a way that reintegrates historic patterns of floodplain inundation in the Central Valley. To do that, we first need to understand how nature works and use that knowledge to guide our resource management plans.

For more than a decade, Caltrout has been conducting the science necessary to help flood managers make decisions that achieve optimal benefits for fish while still protecting communities and local economies. Currently, we are working closely with Governor Newsom’s administration to better prioritize flood and water management actions that incorporate the flooding process. By understanding large-scale natural processes and how to harness their benefits, we can achieve greater water resiliency for California. When we learn to make the land/water interface work on a number of levels, instead of just trying to keep the water at bay, walled in, waiting for it to spill over catastrophically, we can make it work for fish, for people, and for a more sustainable future.

Read more here:

“Gathering Storm: What California Must Learn from the Midwest Floods,” By Jacob Katz, Sacramento Bee, 04/07/19

Using Puddle Power to Find a New Way Forward

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On March 6th, Dr. Jacob Katz and our Central Valley partners presented to the State Water Resources Control Board on reactivating the Floodplain in the Sacramento Valley. California Trout, Northern California Water Association, Reclamation District 108, Audubon California and River Garden Farms spoke about how environmental groups, water suppliers and farmers are finding a new way forward by harnessing the power of the puddle.

Maven’s notebook recently wrote a blog that summarizes Dr. Jacob Katz latest presentation at the Bay Delta Science Conference on “Dark Carbon and a Return to Abundance: How Detrital Floodplain Food Webs Can Help Recover Endangered Fish”

 

Pictured (right to left): David Guy (Northern California Water Association), Dr. Jacob Katz (CalTrout), Lewis Bair (RD108), Meghan Hertel (Audubon California), Roger Cornwell (River Garden Farms)

 

To have a functioning river ecosystem capable of recovering and supporting robust populations of fish, birds and wildlife we need to manage the system to mimic natural patterns. In the Sacramento Valley, that means managing for winter-time puddles in the historic floodplain.

“All it takes is slowing water down, spreading it out on farms during a time of year when crops aren’t growing. Longer floodplain inundation creates a host of environmental benefits including more food and habitat for fish, while increasing water security and enabling farmers to continue growing food for people. We are working together with our partners to implement a portfolio of land and water infrastructure modifications to create a landscape that works better for people and the environment.” – Dr. Katz.

For more information on the importance of floodplains watch A New Way Forward and Saving the Salmon: Growing Fish Food videos.

Fish Food Program Season Kick-Off

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Bugs (aka fish food) grown on the Rice Field. Photo: River Garden Farms

On October 25th River Garden Farm’s hosted the 2018/2019 Fish Food Program Season Kick-Off to celebrate the start of the field season for floodplain food web and salmon research in the Sacramento fields. In addition to CalTrout, the diverse guest list included farmers, state and federal resource agencies and other conservation partner organizations.

Dr. Jacob Katz explaining how reconnecting the floodplain on farm land can deliver fish food to endangered salmon populations.

This is the third field season CalTrout’s Central Valley Program will be partnering with River Garden Farms and other organizations for its Fish Food on Floodplain Farm Fields Program. This winter we will continue our pursuit of harnessing the power of the puddle by growing “fish food” on flooded rice fields and researching the best methods and places to deliver the food to salmon in the Sacramento River. Our team will also be out in the field conducting experiments to figure out what farm management practice that creates temporary floodplains lead to the most productive food-webs.

The Fish Food Project aims to reconnect floodplain-derived fish food to endangered salmon populations. The pilot project is a partnership between UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, CalTrout, Northern California Water Association, and California rice farmers. The group is using existing rice fields to produce an abundance of bugs that endangered salmon like to eat.

River Garden Farm’s Saving the Salmon video provides a great overview on the Fish Food concept. 

Photo (L to R): Josh Isreal (USBR), Heather Casillas (USBR), Roger Cornwell (River Garden Farms), Jacob Katz (CalTrout), Rod Wittler (USBR) and Donnie Radcliffe (USFWS). Photo: Megan Nguyen

Protecting the Best in California

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By Ted Yeager.

August 28, 2018
UPDATE:

Thanks to your voices, the Climate Resiliency bill AB 2528, championed by CalTrout, has passed the House and the Senate and is moving on to Governor Brown for signature. AB2528 will help California work towards building an effective climate resiliency strategy by “protecting the best” — Sierra meadows, Mt. Shasta area springs and other important areas like estuaries and strongholds.

Original post from April 19th, 2018:

California’s best remaining watersheds offer us a significant opportunity to secure our future water supply in the face of climate change, yet these areas are often under researched and under protected. The Sierra Nevada mountains, for example, provide 60% of California’s developed water supply, yet nearly half of the high mountain meadows that capture and store snowmelt and rainwater are severely degraded.

CalTrout and partners have been hard at work in the Capitol helping to create and champion legislation that protects California’s most vital source water areas. We are pleased to report that Assembly Bill (AB) 2528, a measure that incorporates four important state watersheds in California’s Climate Adaptation Strategy report, passed the Assembly of Natural Resources on April 16th. AB 2528, authored by Assemblymember Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), will help the state create more climate resilient habitats and protect the state’s largest estuaries and most pristine river systems.

We called upon our followers earlier this month to contact their Assemblymembers in support of AB 2528. Over 100 letters were signed and mailed! THANK YOU for taking action.

In the bill, four watershed zones have been identified as ‘habitat resilience areas’- salmon and steelhead strongholds, spring-fed source watersheds, mountain meadows, and estuaries. By adding these zones, the bill would require the Natural Resources Agency to research the importance of these resilient watershed areas in its next Climate Adaptation Strategy.

For more on AB 2528, read the Press Release from Assemblymember Bloom’s office:

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Building a green wall in California

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On June 5th, California voters approved Prop 68, the Parks, Environment and Water Bond, a record $4.1 billion bond package that will provide funding to a host of environmental priorities ranging from climate change resilience to stream restoration. This is a big win for protecting California’s natural resources and getting more people in nature, which is very important since you cannot steward what you do not know.

Prop 68 will likely be a boon for some long-delayed projects that have struggled to find funding. This is a significant start to help California’s fish and rivers recover. But only if the funds are put to work- and that’s where we come in.

Decommissioned & outdated Rindge Dam in Malibu Canyon.

Currently in our 47th year since establishment, CalTrout is working harder than ever: increasing the number and scope of projects, and therefore our impact, all over California. We will secure Prop 68 funds for projects like removing fish barriers in Southern California including Rindge Dam, which is a huge detriment to endangered Southern steelhead; and continuing to partner with farmers in the Central Valley on multi-benefit floodplain projects to help threatened salmon.

Staff Attorney for CalTrout, Redgie Collins, was recently quoted explaining how legislators and voters “are taking heed” of the policies and rollbacks coming out of Washington, D.C. The ballot measure, Redgie says, is part of “building a green wall in California.” (Read article from E&E News here.)

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Fish photo, Jim Inman. Water photo,Wyatt Horsley. People photo, Jacob Katz.

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