After several years of successfully demonstrating the multi-benefit use of floodplains with our Nigiri Project, which establishes salmon habitat on rice fields — benefiting agriculture, flood protection, and fish, the precedent has been set and is now scaling up.
The article in The Sacramento Bee, “Endangered fish find unusual ally in rice farmers”, provides a great overview of a project in Knight’s Landing that will block salmon from entering the Colusa Basin Drain by building a resistance weir. CalTrout is facilitating this project along with several others to prevent the stranding of adult and juvenile salmon and enhance agricultural and wetland water management.
Much of these efforts are to aid in the survival of winter-run Chinook salmon who face not only dead end canals but also too warm water temperatures brought on by the drought. As the article states,
Officials estimate that only about 5 percent of last year’s winter-run Chinook survived long enough to migrate to sea. They died because water releases from Shasta flowed out warmer than federal models had predicted.
Read the full article by Ryan Sabalow here. To learn more about the floodplain projects CalTrout facilitates, click here.
