River Partners Journal

Fall 2016 • Volume 13, Issue 3

River Partners acquires 285-acre Grayson Property for wildlife and people

River Partners and NOAA join forces to recover salmon on the Sacramento River

Lessons learned restoring the foundation of a healthy riparian forest in Fresno

River Partners will assist in Historic Flood Management Project at Hamilton City

Contents 3 Message from the Board Chair:

Establishing Wildlife Corridors

4 River Partners Acquires 285-acre Grayson Property for Wildlife and People

6 Update: Willow Bend Preserve Receives Funding From NOAA Fisheries’ Community-based Restoration Program

8 Lessons from Fresno: Bringing Back the Native Forest Understory

10 River Partners Will Assist in Historic Flood Management Project at Hamilton City

11 Organization Updates

Cover photo shows the Grayson Restoration Project property, Grayson, California.

River Partners TeamExecutive TeamJohn Carlon, PresidentGerald Dion, VP Finance & OperationsMona Dagy, Executive Assistant

Development TeamCam Tredennick, VP Legal & New BusinessMaggie Boberg, Regional DirectorMike Cook, Regional Director

Operations TeamStephen Sheppard, Operations DirectorRuben Reynoso, Field ManagerFrank Reynoso, Field ManagerBill Jensen, Field ManagerEligio Hernandez, Field TechnicianFrancisco Jaurgui, Field TechnicianAlfred Sweet, Field TechnicianFeliciano Degante, Field ForemanMarqus Cuison, Nursery TechnicianGreg Arnaiz, Field Technician

Accounting TeamDeborah McLaughlin, Senior Accounting Mgr.Miranda Lamb, Staff Accountant

Projects and Partners TeamMichael Rogner, Associate Restoration BiologistHeyo Tjarks, Restoration EcologistJeff Holt, Restoration BiologistDr. Tom Griggs, Sr. Restoration Ecologist, RetiredEzra Neale, Restoration Ecologist Kathleen Pollett, Restoration Ecologist

Board of DirectorsKara Baker, KVB, Inc.John Carlon, Sierra Cascade Blueberry FarmKen Grossman, Sierra Nevada Brewing CompanyAllen Hackett, Hackett FarmingMark Kimmelshue, Legacy AssociatesTom Lando, Lando and AssociatesJulie Rentner, Fmr. River Partners Dir. of Special Projs.Suellen Rowlison, R.N.Irv Schiffman, CSUC, Political ScienceMonroe Sprague, M.D.

info@riverpartners.org

www.riverpartners.org

The Journal is published by River Partners, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit public benefit corporation.

Our mission is to create wildlife habitat for the benefit of people and the environment.

Unless otherwise specified, all photographs were taken by River Partners staff.

Journal Editor: Julie Rentner

Journal Design & Layout: Chuck Lundgren

Boardmembers Ken Grossman, John Carlon, Monroe Sprague, and Irv Schiffman survey a project site.

“You see the growth, you see what’s possible with groups like River Partners coming in and partnering to restore an area like this. And because of the connection to the bikeway, it’s really a beautiful place for San Diegans to come and recreate.”— Arisa Aurora Quiros (San

Diego Foundation Center for Civic

Engagement) on River Partner’s

Otay Delta project

2 River Partners Journal

New Employee Kathleen PollettKathleen was hired as a Restoration Ecologist in our Southern California office in November. She has an MS from Utah State University and most recently has worked as a Partners For Fish and Wildlife coordinator/biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and also as a biologist for USFWS Ecological Services in Southern California.

Establishing of riparian wildlife corridors is a high priority for River Partners, as these corridors often represent the only remain-ing, relatively natural connections between remnant habitat areas so important to the movement of wildlife.

A wildlife corridor usually consists of native or restored vegetation that links two or more significant areas of similar wildlife habitat. Such corridors help to reduce or moderate some of the negative effects of habitat fragmentation by allowing wildlife to roam between two or more habitat areas.

Moreover, wildlife corridors that encom-pass rivers and streams allow terrestrial species safe passage to higher ground – an important feature in active floodplains and an environ-ment with a changing climate.

Wildlife corridors are especially important in riparian forests which provide critical core habitat for a large number of species. Riparian vegetation along river channels are the prima-ry migration routes used by wildlife because these areas provide migrating animals with the food, water and cover required during their journey. When designing its restoration projects, River Partners considers the habitat needs of migrating wildlife, including plant varieties and structural features.

One example of River Partners attention to wildlife migration is our project in San Diego County. Located on Calif. Dept. of Fish and Wildlife’s Rancho Jamul Ecological Preserve and the Hollenbeck Canyon Wildlife Management Area, this 178 acre project includes the restoration of southern coast live oak woodlands as well as coastal sage scrub habitats. The goal is to restore habitat that was lost due to multiple wildfires and create a wildlife corridor connecting CDFW’s existing open space preserves with the Bureau of Land Management’s Otay Mountain Wildlife Area to the south, and the Cleveland National Forest to the east.

Wildlife corridors are further enhanced by the restoration of habitats along major migra-tory flyways and the elimination of barriers to effective fish migration.

For example, this Journal’s feature arti-cle River Partners Acquires 285-acre Grayson

Property for Wildlife and People describes our work protecting and restoring more than 5,000 acres of riverside lands along 10 miles of the San Joaquin River, downstream of the community of Grayson and 5 miles up the Tuolumne River towards Modesto:

“Long-time residents report that they’ve seen many more hawks and much larger hawks in the last 5 years than in they have in the last 60 in this region. [T]his is the effect of building a wildlife habitat corridor so large that it can support many self-sustaining prey populations. In this corridor, migrating songbirds have their pick of nesting sites, and wintering geese and ducks don’t overwhelm the wetlands. For anadromous salmon populations, this corridor provides stops along their epic migration to rest, forage, and grow strong before their trek out to sea.”

Riparian wildlife corridors established by River Partners contribute to ecological connectivity throughout the state. Main-taining and enhancing functional ecological connectivity across California’s riparian landscape is no easy task and River Partners is determined to remain part of the effort.

Irv SchiffmanBoard of Directors ChairCSUC, Political Science (Retired)

Message from the Board ChairEstablishing Wildlife Corridors

Early planting at River Partners’ Rancho Jamul restoration project.

New Employee Ezra Neale

Ezra was also hired as a Restoration Ecologist in our Southern California office in November. He has an MA in Geography and Natural Resources Planning from UC Davis. Most recently, Ezra has been a conservation consultant, and managed the implementation of REDD+, climate change adaptation, and marine conservation programs in Papua New Guinea for the Wildlife Conservation Society.

River Partners Journal 3

River Partners Acquires 285-acre Grayson Property for Wildlife and People

“I’m encouraging you guys to think big.”Those were the words president John

Carlon offered to the San Joaquin Region staff at the Grayson Restoration Project Kickoff Meeting.

The Grayson Restoration Project began following our acquisition of 285 acres of riparian habitat and degraded floodplain from a well-respected dairyman in Stanislaus County. The Wildlife Conservation Board, through their Proposition 1-funded Stream-flow Enhancement Program, provided fund-ing for the acquisition in part because of the property’s potential to provide water quality and water quantity enhancements to the San Joaquin River system. While this resto-ration project will contribute to stream flow enhancements, this is just a starting point for the range of benefits this project will provide to the local community and region.

Disadvantaged CommunitiesWhen John said to think big, he was asking River Partners staff to consider a type of proj-ect that we previously have not taken on – a restoration project located immediately adja-cent to a small disadvantaged community that has the potential to impart lifestyle bene-fits to those residents as well as the region as a whole. The community of Grayson is home to fewer than 1,000 people with a median household income of $28,000. Residents have reportedly been consuming drinking water containing three times the recommended nitrate levels, which the City of Modesto pays a hefty sum to treat through a large filtra-

tion system. In addition, Grayson lies within the floodplain, and is subject to potentially high levels of damage during flood events. Through this project, River Partners has the opportunity to directly address these issues.

The idea that we could improve water quality for our residential neighbors is a new one for our staff. The details need to be hashed out, but what we know for sure (thanks to innovative water use modelling work done at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo) is that retiring agricultural irrigation on 185 acres of this floodplain will result in a reduction of about 900 acre feet of water use annually. That’s more than seven times Grayson annual water use.

River Partners is not the only organiza-tion to take recent interest in Grayson. With encouragement from the Mid-San Joaquin Regional Flood Management Stakeholder Group, Calif. Department of Water Resources

(DWR) and the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) have also identified potential benefits of investing in Grayson. Most recently, the Corps selected Grayson as a site to conduct a baseline study of geomorphologic and hydrologic conditions of the San Joaquin River and Laird Slough. In coordination with DWR, Stanislaus County is actively consider-ing funding opportunities to provide flood risk reduction to Grayson. The Grayson Resto-ration Project will complement these efforts by providing additional floodplain that can accept flood flows, potentially reducing flood elevations in Grayson.

Clean drinking water and reduced suscep-tibility to floods are important benefits to Grayson, but the most visible enhancements to the community will likely come through job creation, educational and recreational opportunities. River Partners maintains a strong partnership with the California

The Grayson Property provides an incredible opportunity to develop passive riverside recreation that could also stimulate the local economy.

4 River Partners Journal

your breath away. Pass by the tires, aban-doned vehicles, washed up flood debris and stands of giant reed on the edges of the prop-erty and you’ll see stately valley oak canopies dangling over the river channel with carpets of creeping wild rye and Santa Barbara sedge along the banks. Stands of box elder mix with

thickets of wild rose and mugwort remind us of the structural diversi-ty that once provided countless niches for riverside wildlife. The remnant vegetation here

is inspirational for ecology nerds and will guide the restoration planning process.

Riparian habitat types in the Central Valley are rapidly dwindling, reducing available migration corridors for many mammals, birds and aquatic species. Restoration at this site will expand the riparian corridor in this region, complementing restoration work at both Dos Rios Ranch and the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge. Since 1998, more than 5,000 acres of riverside lands have been protected and restored along 10 miles of the San Joaquin River downstream of Grayson, and 5 miles up the Tuolumne River towards Modesto. Long-time residents report that they’ve seen many more hawks and much larger hawks in the last 5 years than in they have in the last 60 in this region. We believe this is the effect of building a wildlife habitat corridor so large that it can support many self-sustaining prey populations. In this corridor, migrating songbirds have their pick of nesting sites, and wintering geese and ducks don’t overwhelm the wetlands. For anadromous salmon populations, this corri-

Conservation Corps and the San Joaquin Regional Conservation Corps (CCC and Regional CC). The CCC and Regional CC will play an important role in the restoration and maintenance at the Grayson Project site over the next 5 to 10 years. Corpsmembers come from a variety of backgrounds, and many

are from some of the small towns that our projects affect, including Grayson.

Part of the vision for restoration in Grayson includes the opportunity for resi-dents to step out their back door and have a safe, usable trail system that connects them to a natural place. Engaging the community in conservation will be a primary consider-ation in this project. It’s unique in the Central Valley to have a wild place so close to one’s home.

Ecological BenefitAs with all River Partners projects, the ecologi-cal benefits of this project are high priority and large-scale. 185 acres of the Grayson prop-erty are currently in agricultural production and will eventually be restored, however 100 acres hosts remnant riparian scrub and forest as well as oxbow wetland vegetation. Some of this relict habitat is degraded due to trespassing and illegal dumping, however the site hosts a community of native plants rarely seen on the banks of the San Joaquin River. Take a quick hike into the site, and it’ll take

dor provides stops along their epic migration to rest, forage, and grow strong before their trek out to sea. Foraging areas that are large enough that they can’t be destroyed by flood scour or inevitable fires are the only way we know of to provide resilience for recovering riverine wildlife.

As we challenge ourselves to think bigger on this and all of our future work, we encour-age our partners to help us refine the vision, and to work with us to make it happen. It is exciting and at times overwhelming to manage all the different aspects of a multi-benefit restoration project, but with the help of the larger conservation community, we are certain that the bigger vision is not only possible, but likely. From our perspec-tive, thinking bigger is necessary, and that is why we’re doing it.

The intact native grass understory at the Grayson Property is rarely seen anywhere along the San Joaquin River.

[This] site hosts a community of native plants rarely seen on the banks of the San Joaquin River. Take a quick hike into the site, and it’ll take your breath away.

Maggie Boberg Regional Director, Central Valley

Cam Tredennick VP Legal & New Business

In the last issue of River Partners’ Journal (Vol. 13, Issue 2), we told you about our Willow Bend Preserve and how young endangered salmon were getting trapped on the property after the Sacramento River flooded. In that article, we also mentioned our plans to not only fix the fish stranding problem, but to also restore the site to high-quality rearing habitat, so small fish can stuff their faces at the all-you-can-eat buffet created by the inundated floodplain. At that time, we had the good ideas to help save these species from extinction – all we needed was the funding to make them happen. Well… just as that issue of the Journal was coming hot off the press, we were notified by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that a project proposal we submitted to their 2016 Community-based Restoration Program was selected for funding!! Whoop! Whoop!!

Our project, officially titled The Sacramento River Salmonid Stranding Reduction and Flood-plain Habitat Restoration Project at the Willow Bend Preserve (Whew! That’s a mouthful...) was one of only 17 projects selected from a nation-wide competitive grant solicitation admin-istered by the NOAA Restoration Center. Based in Silver Spring, Maryland, the Resto-ration Center is solely devoted to restoring the nation’s coastal, marine, and migratory fish habitat. Projects awarded from the 2016 program came from 10 states and territories, including California, Hawaii, Maine, Florida, and Puerto Rico. These projects, including

Willow Bend, were chosen to restore habitat for a variety of coastal and marine species, including three of the eight species identified by NOAA’s initiative known as “Species in the Spotlight: Survive to Thrive” – an intensi-fied agency-wide effort to save these species which have been identified as the most at risk of extinction.

Willow Bend will benefit Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), an evolutionary significant unit that is an iconic part of California’s natural heritage. Winter-run are particularly important and in need of recovery because they exhibit a life history found nowhere else on earth. They are unique in that they spawn during the summer months when air temperatures in the Sacramento Valley are usually at their warmest. Because of this,

they require cold water sources to protect their incubating eggs, which historically only existed in rivers and creeks fed by cold water springs in the upper watershed, such as the Little Sacramento, McCloud, and Pit rivers, and Battle Creek. However, the construction of Shasta and Keswick Dams has blocked access to nearly 50% of this historic habitat, causing the extirpation of the species that spawned and reared there. Today, the last remaining winter-run Chinook population has persevered because of timed cold water releases from Lake Shasta and artificial spawn-ing at the Livingstone Stone National Fish Hatchery. After the recent California drought, conditions in the Sacramento River have

been inhospitable for fish, and winter-run Chinook are now on the verge of extinction.

A large coordinated effort among many state and federal agencies, tribal groups, and non-profits is working to prevent this from happening. These efforts include adding spawning gravel to the Sacramento River near Redding and reintroducing a population of winter-run into Battle Creek. However,

Update: Willow Bend Preserve Receives Funding from NOAA Fisheries’ Community-based Restoration Program

River Partners planning team (from left Gerald Dion, John Carlon, Helen Swagerty, Ruben Reynoso and Michael Rogner) stand in the shadow of the state-flood control levee, reviewing maps and discussing how this innovative project might be constructed.

Several deceased juvenile Chinook salmon, like the one pictured above, were left strand-ed on the floodplain on our Willow Bend Preserve project after flood waters receded.

Winter-run salmon are particularly important and in need of recovery because they exhibit a life history found nowhere else on earth

simply giving these fish more access to places to spawn won’t recover their populations alone. Even after successful incubation and the baby salmon emerge from their eggs as fry, they still have to swim hundreds of miles in order to make it out the Golden Gate to the Pacific Ocean where they will mature into adults and spend the majority of their lives. And if swimming this far isn’t hard enough, they also have to find enough food along the way to sustain them on their journey and avoid all the birds and the bigger, faster fish who see them as a bite-sized snack. Running this gauntlet is much easier said than done for a fish that’s about the size of your pinky finger.

As we described last month, flooded floodplains are the feeding grounds for these fingerlings. Several studies from across the Central Valley have shown that fish foraging on the floodplain grow exponentially faster than those restricted to the river channel. The warm water and the emergent vegetation on the floodplain supports nearly inexhaustible quantities of invertebrates while slowing water velocities which allows these tiny fish to take advantage of the bug buffet. Larger fish have a much higher likelihood of surviv-ing their trek to sea and returning as adults to spawn. We’ve learned in recent years that seasonally-inundated floodplain ecosys-tems are critically important to conserving self-sustaining populations of Central Valley Chinook salmon.

With our new funding partner at the table, we hope to pull the trigger on the wild and unprecedented permitting and construction that will be required to allow the fish access and egress from the Willow Bend site. If we’re successful, we’ll have a functioning flood-plain habitat that not only does not entrap tiny salmon, but also helps them along their important migration to the sea. If this project works, it will serve as a model for what we can do on myriad other properties just like Willow Bend to effectively restore this important function back to our rivers. Who knows, we may even learn a bit more about

(Right) The Willow Bend project site is smack-dab in the center of the Sacramento River system. If you had your pick of locations to develop a rest area along this fish highway, this property is the prime location!

how other wildlife and people may use these reconnected floodplains too.

This past June, River Partners’ staff and NOAA Fisheries’ Sacramento Office toured the project site. Also on the tour was Ruth Goodfield, the Restoration Center staff member who oversees projects in the Central Valley and was instrumental during our proposal process.

“This project has the potential to signifi-cantly contribute to the recovery of Central Valley Chinook salmon and steelhead popula-tions, however there’s a lot of risk associated with implementing a cutting-edge project like this,” Ruth said while standing on top of the levee overlooking the project site. “A lot

Mike Cook Regional Director, Sacramento Valley

of thought needs to go into it to make sure it’s a success. Basically, it’s either going to be a hero or zero.”

We have to try to be a hero for these iconic fish.

River Partners Journal 7

The ecological function of forests across the globe is founded in the base of its food web – the herbs and grasses that provide food and cover for insects and small wildlife. We call this critically important forest component the “understory” but perhaps it should be called the “foundation”.

Over the past 150 years, California has lost almost all of its native riparian forests due to the conversion into agricultural operations including orchards, row cropping, and cattle grazing. In orchards and row cropping, the native forests were typically clear cut and routine repeated weed control (e.g. tilling and herbicide applications) was used to eliminate the foundational grasses and herbs. In areas that are grazed however, even if the trees were harvested and seedlings were destroyed by grazing, the understory may not have been completely destroyed. Although most grazed areas in California are now dominated by non-native annual grasses, we’ve been finding the relics of the historical understo-ries at a few of our projects.

One in particular is the Riverbottom Park and Schneider Property restoration site along the San Joaquin River in Fresno and Madera Counties. The project area straddles the ailing San Joaquin River in the northwest corner of Fresno and is surrounded by urban devel-

Lessons from Fresno Bringing Back the Native Forest Understory

opment and orchards. Early gravel mining activities have altered the topography of the lowest portion of the flood plain closest to the river, however the majority of the project site has never been tilled. The site has a histo-ry of cattle grazing, including up until last year when we began the 100+ acre restoration project. As we began the project, the area was dominated by a mixture of non-native, annu-

al weeds including ripgut brome (Bromus diandrus), Italian rye (Festuca perennis), Wild oat (Avena fatua), Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon), yellow starthistle (Centaurea solstitialis), and black mustard (Brassica nigra). Although a handful of native herbaceous species were sparsely found throughout the site, the annual non-natives were outcom-

peting the natives by absorbing soil moisture quickly in early spring, then dying back as thatch that shades native seedlings and keeps them from growing.

In order to create optimal conditions for the relic native understory, River Partners lightly tilled the project area in September 2015. Turning the thatch over into the first few inches of soil at the appropriate time of year created a bare soil surface that sped up the decomposition of the thatch. Over the next three months as the drip-irrigation system was being installed, California finally started receiving some much-need winter rains. However, with the rains came the germination of all the annual non-native vegetation. In order to keep these plants from reasserting their strangle hold on the project site, an herbicide application was used to control the non-natives shortly after germi-nation.

By aggressively controlling the first flush of non-native plant growth, we gave the native understory an opportunity to become established. Little did we expect that it would establish as well as it did. By early spring, the site was dominated by a handful of native perennial plants including dove weed (Croton setigerus), vinegar weed (Trichostema lanceola-tum), American wild carrot (Daucus pusillus),

Non-native annual weeds dominated the restoration site prior to the start of our project.

Although few signs of life were seen in the neighboring non-native grasslands, the native understory at our [site provided] food and habitat structure to numerous wildlife species throughout the summer.

8 River Partners Journal

Doveweed (Croton setigerus) is one of the native plants that provides support for invertebrates during the late summer when all of the non-native annual grasses are long-gone. Over time, the planted forest will grow up around this plant, and the dove-weed will give way to more shade-tolerant natives.

The neighboring non-native grassland (to the left in this photo) is brown and lifeless while the recovering native understory on our project site (to the right in this photo) supplies food for the base of the riparian forest food web. (Photo from June 6th 2016.)

Kellog’s tarweed (Diandra kelloggii), popcorn flower (Plagiobothyrs leptocladus), and jimson weed (Datura wrightii), to name a few. Although a few herbicide spot treatments were need to control a handful of later germi-nating perennial weeds, the native understory effectively took over. After the neighboring property’s non-native annual grasses were dead and dry in May, the native understory remained green and flowered throughout the summer – even through the weeks on end that were over 100 degrees.

Understories serve people as well as the threatened wildlife that depends on riparian forests across California. Well-established

native understories can protect the soil from erosion especially during floods, and can resist the re-invasion of non-native weeds which can lower maintenance costs for land manag-ers. The recognized ecological importance that the native understory plays for wild-life became abundantly clear this summer. Although few signs of life were seen in the neighboring non-native grasslands, the native understory at our project site was providing food and habitat structure to numerous wildlife species throughout the summer. Pollinators were plentiful throughout the site; seed eating birds such as dove, finches, and sparrows foraged in numbers; and native

lizards and snakes were able to bask in the sunny open spaces and forage for small mammals that were also taking advantage of the copious amount of seeds.

Over the years, we here at River Partners have been pioneering different approaches to installing native understories, often marry-ing agricultural techniques with ecological restoration approaches to gain efficiency and performance. We have noticed that lands which have only been grazed, and never tilled for crop, tend to still harbor relic under-story vegetation. Rather than undertaking the timely and more expensive approach of seeding a new understory plant community across the entire site, well-timed and targeted weed control efforts can control the non-na-tive annuals, giving room for the natives to thrive again.

Heyo TjarksRestoration Ecologist, Central Valley

River Partners Journal 9

Many riverside communities in the Central Valley are no stranger to living with flood risk, but for one small town in Glenn County, a new paradigm has evolved. With signifi-cant leadership from the local Reclamation District 2140, the US Army Corps of Engi-neers and California’s Department of Water Resources, the Hamilton City Flood Damage Reduction and Ecosystem Restoration Project has broken ground as a model multi-benefit river restoration project. And River Partners is excited to be a part of it!

Hamilton City (population 1,700, about 10 miles west of Chico) has been at high risk of flooding for a very long time. Residents have been evacuated six times due to flooding in the last 20 years: 1983, 1986, 1995 (twice), 1997, and 1998. The existing levee, commonly referred to as the “J Levee”, was constructed in the early 1900s and provides some flood protection for frequent events. However, this levee is prone to failure and expensive to maintain as it wasn’t engineered to current standards.

The new project will construct a 6.8-mile setback levee that will reconnect 1,480 acres of floodplain to the Sacramento River. The lands which had been farmed will be restored to wildlife habitat. Both the levee construc-tion and the habitat restoration will be completed in phases and is estimated to cost $65 million which will be shared amongst federal and state sources.

The plan includes restoration of riparian forest, scrub, oak savanna, and grassland habitat types. The reconnection of floodplain with the river will support the recovery of endangered salmon as well as other birds and mammals.

Construction of the setback levee and removal of the J Levee began earlier this year. River Partners was recently awarded the contract to install the first phase of the ecosystem restoration portion of the project over the next 3.5 years. Being no stranger to large-scale habitat restoration and located so close to the project site, our team was a natural fit for the job. Many of our partners

River Partners Will Assist in Historic Flood Management Project at Hamilton City

Looking north towards the community of Hamilton City, the Sacramento River flows past the project site and CDFW’s Pine Creek Unit (in fore-ground). During this initial phase of the project, a new setback levee will be constructed to provide greater flood protection for the community and the existing “J Levee” (where the gravel road can be seen in photo) will be removed to reconnect over 500 acres of floodplain to the river. Once completed, River Partners will restore approximately 770 acres of former ag land to high-quality riparian habitat. (Photo by Stephen Chollet)

have also been very supportive of us winning the contract, including The Nature Conser-vancy and Reclamation District (RD) 2140. “I am overjoyed that River Partners received the Restoration Award for the Hamilton City Flood Damage Reduction and Ecosystem Restoration Project! River Partner has been a long standing partner and neighbor for a majority of the time it has taken us to get to this point in the project. RD 2140 is excited for our future to complete the project together,” said Lee Ann Grigsby-Puente, President of RD 2140.

If we have been doing projects like this for so long, how can we call this one a new paradigm? It comes down to the way the local community has partnered with environ-mental interests to make its case for funding. According to federal expenditure require-ments, the US Army Corps of Engineers must consider the cost versus the benefit of any federal expenditure in flood management. Construction of large engineered levees is very expensive. The assets being protected

10 River Partners Journal

Mike Cook Regional Director, Sacramento Valley

by them often need to be very high value to justify the cost. A small community like Hamilton City is already at a disadvantage in the cost-benefit equation merely because of its size. By including the value of the restored ecosystem as part of the “benefits” side of the equation, this project was able to not only meet the federal requirement, but blow it away with a benefit-to-cost ratio of 1.8. If we can successfully place a reasonable value on ecosystem recovery that can be used ratio-nally as is the case in Hamilton City, we’d see considerable movement of the needle on the gauge of ecosystem recovery in the Central Valley.

River Partners Annual “End of Season” 2016 – Broadening PerspectivesMany thanks to all those who helped to make this year’s staff retreat an enriching event! After a scenic float on the American River, staff were treated to a night tour of the Sacramento Zoo. As a major partner in the recovery of Riparian Brush Rabbit, the zoo represents a completely complementary although distinctly different perspective on wildlife conservation. Our staff, versed in horticulture and wildland ecology, got to visit with veterinarians and zoo personnel who interface daily with a public that might not get out into the wild very often, but who love wildlife and value conservation. What a fantastic partnership opportunity!

Special thank you to our visiting speakers:

• Jon Donnelly, Executive Director of the Wildlife Conservation Board

• Dan Strait, Program Manager for the Central Valley Project Improvement Act Habitat Restoration Program at the US Bureau of Reclamation

• Campbell Ingram, Executive Director of the Delta Conservancy

California Conservation Corps 40th AnniversaryCongratulations to the California Conservation Corps on 40 years of service to California! Since 1976, the CCC has been working hard to protect and restore wildlands and respond to disasters while enriching the lives of young people across California. Although River Part-ners’ relationship with the CCC is only a few years old, we are ecstatic to have such a strong partner to help leverage big outcomes for river conservation. To learn more about the CCC, please visit ccc.ca.gov.

(Above) Drone photo of the River Partners staff near the American River.

(Above) CCC crew and River Partners staff at the Dos Rios project in the Central Valley.

River Partners Journal 11

Creating wildlife habitat for the benefit of people and the environment.580 Vallombrosa AvenueChico, California 95926(530) 894-5401info@riverpartners.org riverpartners.org

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Help save our water, rivers and fish!Your contribution to River Partners would help us restore rivers in communities like Grayson, Chula Vista, Hamilton City, or your community.

Your contribution will support River Partners as we find solutions for our water management conflicts through expanding floodways through setback levees and easements, planting filter strips of vegetation to keep our rivers clean, provide valuable habitat for wildlife, and establish thousands of acres of forests which sequester carbon and reduce the impacts of greenhouse gases.

Become a supporter of River Partners todayOak Supporter: $ 1,000/yearSycamore Supporter: $ 500/yearCottonwood Supporter: $ 200/yearWillow Supporter: $ 100/year

Contact us to design a planned gift that furthers river conservation in your community.

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