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ALICIA HAMANN:

Welcome to the EcoNews Report. I'm your host this week, Alicia Hamann from Friends of the Eel River. And today I'm joined by some other friends of the Eel River, but they're known by a different name. I've got Dana Stolzman here, who's the Executive Director of Salmonid Restoration Federation. Hi, Dana.

DANA STOLZMAN:

Hi there.

HAMANN:

Katrina Nystrom is the project coordinator for Salmonid Restoration Federation. Hi, Katrina.

KATRINA NYSTROM:

Hey, Alicia.

HAMANN:

And Joel Monschke is a consultant with Stillwater Sciences. Hi, Joel.

JOEL MONSCHKE:

Hi, Alicia.

HAMANN:

So I think we should just start off with learning a little bit more about Salmonid Restoration Federation, or as you're more commonly known in these parts, SRF. So folks, if you hear us say SRF, that's who we're talking about today. Dana, would you like to tell us a little about the organization?

STOLZMAN:

Sure. So, Salmonid Restoration Federation is a California-based nonprofit organization, and our mission is to protect and steward wild salmonid populations. We do that through education, advocacy, and collaboration. SRF is most known for Salmon Restoration Conference in California, and we also do other technical education trainings in regards to sediment and erosion control, fish passage, bioengineering, and so forth. And about 10 years ago, we started looking at flow enhancement opportunities in the South Fork Eel Watershed. Even though we're a statewide nonprofit organization, we've always been based in Humboldt County and for many years in the South Fork Eel. And that work evolved when we were witnessing low flows, particularly in Redwood Creek, a 26-square-mile watershed that borders the Matole and flows into the South Fork Eel. And after many years of discussions with Sanctuary Forest and other fishery scientists and people that were concerned about Redwood Creek, we started low-flow monitoring about 11 years ago now. And that effort really evolved to include pretty grassroots when we started, but then we built that to include temperature and water data loggers, dissolved oxygen, a meter to do DO readings. And about five years ago, we started working with Stillwater Sciences to engage in planning efforts to identify potential flow enhancement and water conservation opportunities in this critical watershed.

HAMANN:

Great, that sounds like a lot of really important work. Talk about why the special focus on the Eel and particularly the South Fork. As you mentioned, you are a statewide organization, but the Eel is particularly important when it comes to salmonid restoration, is that correct?

STOLZMAN:

Absolutely. So we were concerned because, you know, in this time period, the coho salmon recovery plans, having multiple iterations and so forth. And it's clear that the South Fork eel is key to recovery of coho salmon in this evolutionary significant unit, that when you look at coho salmon populations on the North Coast and Southern Oregon, the South Fork eel is very significant. And you have a situation where you have many, many tributaries, and not a lot of municipalities. So the primary limiting factor for juvenile salmonids is lack of adequate in-stream flows. So again, there's all these forested tributaries, tributaries that could have really high restoration potential and recovery potential for coho salmon, but there really isn't sufficient flows for that stage of their life cycle. So partly we focused on the South Fork eel because it was the watershed that we were based in, and we had a lot of observation. There's a lot of people capacity in the South Fork eel, experts like Joel and Eel River Watershed Improvement Group is really active. Bill Eastwood, there's been a big legacy with Bill Eastwood and Harry Vaughn of the Eel River Salmon Restoration Project. So there was this sense that a paradigm shift or a change in the way people managed water could actually really make a difference for juvenile salmon.

HAMANN:

And in the time that you've been monitoring flows and living and working in this neck of the woods, have you seen that kind of cultural shift happen? Or are you hopeful that there's going to be more of that? Where would you put that bar on that shift in behaviors?

STOLZMAN:

I actually do think that there is a really heightened awareness about flow conditions. Part of that was really driven by compliance mandates and imperatives. So, for example, anybody who was becoming a qualified cannabis cultivator theoretically needed enough storage for their operations. But even before then, people were witnessing and experiencing that they didn't have the same amount of water availability that they had had when they potentially moved to this area. So I think in general, people's water needs increased as people grew more cannabis or tomatoes or what have you. And at the same time, we have been witnessing longer dry seasons. And I would say that I think one thing that's really a good indicator is how many people are voluntarily coming into compliance or at least storing and forbearing from diverting water. So this concept is that you store enough winter water so you can forbear from diverting water in the summertime during the dry season. So many people are doing that and have a formal storage and forbearance agreement and are registered water diverters. And my guess is there's many more people who divert water who are kind of under the radar. And even I would imagine that many of those people, it is in their best interest to have some water storage for their own water securities. I do think that people are certainly more aware of this issue. And now that cannabis is not such an economic driver, I think that it's hard for people to invest in the level of storage they need for their annual usage.

HAMANN:

Yeah, but yeah, I generally think you're right that it's really in everyone's best interest to during the abundant times prepare for the less abundant times. And anyone who has lived or worked alongside the eel knows that the term that I prefer to use is it's a flashy system. And what I mean by that is that in the wintertime, we often have an abundance of water, but that's definitely not the case in the summertime. And so even folks who aren't cannabis cultivators, I think would be wise to store whatever water they can in safe and appropriate ways. Absolutely. So you all have a number of projects going on in the South Fork. I know there's one project that's probably getting some attention right now at the Marshall Ranch out in Bryceland. Do you want to walk us through that project and what you're hoping to accomplish there?

STOLZMAN:

Sure, I'm going to do the broad strokes and have Joel, who's the senior engineer with Stillwater Sciences, describe, particularly because Joel is on the ground four or five days a week right now overseeing construction. We had a grant through the Wildlife Conservation Board, a planning grant, where we were looking at creating a flow enhancement implementation plan and identifying priority projects in the watershed for flow enhancement. A few years ago, Joel and Jay Stallman from Stillwater Sciences went out to the Marshall Ranch. They were at that time in the process of coming under conservation easement. It's the largest property in Redwood Creek. They have approximately 3,000 acres and the historic ranch has been in family ownership since the 1800s. And they are really wonderful restoration partners because they were negotiating a conservation easement, basically giving up development rights on their property to be able to have the property protected and conserved in perpetuity. And fortunately, they wrote the conservation easement to allow for a restoration project of this scale. So one of the reasons that the Marshall Ranch was a really viable project is its flat terrain, it's adjacent right next to Redwood Creek. It's in a part of the watershed that historically has become disconnected in the summer. And again, we have a very wonderful and receptive landowner that we're working with. As far as the specifics of the design, I feel like it'd be great for Joel to describe them because he's been involved with every step of the evolution of the project.

HAMANN:

And Joel, I'm just going to come in here with the silly question. If you could just start us off with what what does flow enhancement look like? Obviously, you guys aren't just adding water to the system. So if you could talk through like the basics of what exactly that means. Does it just mean storing water or does it mean doing other things that are going to help the water move slowly across the landscape? Or what does that all encompass?

MONSCHKE:

So there are definitely many types of flow enhancement approaches, and I think it's definitely also a new science in restoration fields, so we're learning a lot. The Marshall Ranch Project in particular is really what we're calling a direct flow augmentation project. So it is capturing water in the winter and releasing the water to the creek in the summer. So it is very, it is an engineered solution. There are a lot of other types of flow enhancement approaches that we're experimenting with that are less engineered, but also less certain in terms of the benefits and the results.

HAMANN:

And so what's the scale of this project? What's the amount of water, I guess, that you're hoping to capture in the winter?

MONSCHKE:

So the project is 10 million gallons. That's the total amount of off stream storage. It's mostly in two large ponds and also 200,000 gallons in water tanks. And so that that's enough water. When you factor in the expected operation, that's enough water to provide 30 gallons a minute to Redwood Creek for five months straight. So it's, it's a significant flow release. So just for point of reference, Redwood Creek, even on average years over the last decade, almost always gets below 10 gallons a minute and oftentimes it goes completely dry, usually with pools, but separated by dry areas.

HAMANN:

And so the hope is that this project would prevent that kind of drying and would ensure that the Redwood Creek remains connected throughout the entire year. Is that correct? Yeah.

MONSCHKE:

That's the goal. It's really just about adding water, I think, because ultimately the climate or the weather in a particular year is going to govern the background hydrology or the flows, when are flows dropping, when do we see flows rebounding in the fall. And so the idea is really that whatever the natural flows are, this project will allow us to provide a significant amount of additional flow. And so I think on the driest of years, like we've seen not last year, but the year before, where we barely even had any pools, the pools are almost all gone, dried up, and that's when you just have pretty much no survival of coho and steelhead in the creek when you have those conditions. And so under those conditions, 30 gallons a minute, it might not connect all the pools, but it will allow the pools to stay full. Under more normal conditions, like we saw last year, the pools stayed full and the fish actually survived last year quite well in the reach downstream of Briceland. But this project would have provided that connection between the pools. So it's really trying to think of it as incrementally improving the wetted conditions in the creek.

HAMANN:

channel. So speaking of the fish, I assume that you all are doing some amount of monitoring before and after to get a sense of how successful the project is and what other kinds of work might be necessary. Katrina, can you speak a little bit to more of what kind of conditions you've seen over the years and how you hope that the species might respond to this project?

NYSTROM:

Yeah, so I started stream flow monitoring in Redwood Creek in 2019 and that was a pretty wet year, which was kind of nice. We had a really big storm around Memorial Day and it kept the stream pretty good all season. And then I want to say 2021 was like the worst year. It was really sad. It was one of the first years that I had tried to do a snorkel survey to monitor fish. And it has been done in the past too. So there has been a couple of years of snorkel surveys. But we went out in July and there were beautiful pools. It was a surprising number of coho in reaches where we didn't really expect it. And then we were going to check again in September to check for survival. But it was, it came to a point where it wasn't, there wasn't a point in snorkeling again because there weren't enough pools to snorkel. They were completely dried up. Some of the pools that were there were like really black with like a greasy fill on top or something. And it was sad. And I had contacted CDFW being like, okay, can we maybe like move some of these fish? And they're like, yeah, we're willing to move fish if we can, if you can find a place to move them within the watershed. And I did. I like, I went around, I like went to pools to try to look for a suitable, suitable place to move them and there wasn't a place I could find with a decent like temperature and amount of dissolved oxygen for them.

HAMANN:

The EcoNews Report, where we're talking about flow enhancement projects on the South Fork of the Eel River.

NYSTROM:

But yeah, we went back again last year, 2022, and we snorkeled in July and September, and there were pretty good survival rates. Which was nice. And I think last year, what helped was we had little bits of rain storms almost every month that helped keep the stream flow up all season.

HAMANN:

Yeah, and you know, folks who aren't, aren't down in southern Humboldt, but are up in the northern part of the county might remember 2021 as the year that the South Fork and the main stem completely disconnected. There's only this second time, you know, I would like to say the second time ever, but maybe it happened sometime like back in the seventies, but it happened in 2014. And then in 2021. And so I think it's those kinds of extreme dry conditions are probably something that we should expect to continue, which is why projects like this are all the more important to really bring up that that baseline of the kinds of flows we're seeing in these extreme dry conditions. So this is not the only project that SRF has. Are there other other streamflow enhancement projects or other monitoring projects that you'd like to share with us?

STOLZMAN:

Sure, so what 1 thing I would like to mention, because we're very fortunate about the timing of this, the Marshall ranch, the implementation has begun. It's permitted construction has begun and concurrently we have a grant through the North Coast resource partnership to identify design and implement. 5 to 6 storage and forbearance projects downstream of the Marshall ranch. So we're really excited about this because what is very significant about the Marshall project and the flow augmentation is. It's the only project that we're aware of in California that's fully dedicated to in stream flows. There's other flow augmentation projects. In the North Coast or on the North Coast, particularly in Sonoma County, where they're using a percentage of the available pond water to augment flows. So, we are really concerned that we want to have conditions where nobody is tempted to divert that water and we're really excited. That thus far, there's a lot of interest in participating in a storage and forbearance program. Also, we've been monitoring. In Sproul Creek for several years, we took over the trout monitoring sites and we just passed out of the zoning administration hearing to get a conditional use permit for a project on the Wagner ranch in Sproul Creek and either Joel or Katrina. They're much more familiar with that project, but we're excited that we just finished that milestone and also still water sciences just completed the flow enhancement implementation plan for Sproul Creek. I know Katrina was just out there a couple days ago in Sproul.

HAMANN:

What, yeah, well you mentioned some fish monitoring stations, is that what you said in Sproul Creek? Can you tell us more about those, Katrina, and what you've been seeing out in Sproul Creek?

NYSTROM:

I have stream flow monitoring stations out in Sproul Creek. Yeah, it's pretty nice out there. It's like the majority of the watershed is under a conservation easement. And so it's definitely working lands. It's not like no human touch for sure, but it is also really forested through most of the watershed. And we have access to do stream flow monitoring. And we have quite a few years of data now for that. And I've gone out there three times so far this spring. And it seems like the flow is dropping almost by a third every two weeks. And similar to Redwood Creek, maybe Redwood Creek has like a little bit faster of a drop. Is it?

HAMANN:

Is that pretty typical for what you've seen in past years or do you feel like use is shifting at all this year? I think it's...

NYSTROM:

It's pretty typical for this time of year. Once it gets later in the season, we'll see like maybe a 50% drop every two weeks in Redwood Creek and then maybe in Sproul, more like 30 or 40%. Yeah, they have a little, they're a little bit different, like Sproul definitely doesn't have as much human use as Redwood does, but yeah.

MONSCHKE:

Yeah, I could speak a little bit more to the recommendations and the implementation plans that we've prepared for Redwood and Sproul Creeks. That would be great. So the implementation plans that have been prepared for Redwood and Sproul Creeks really look at a variety of flow enhancement options. And I've already talked about the direct flow augmentation approach, which is the approach for the Marshall Ranch. It's also the approach for the Wagner ownership of the project that's 65% design phase and just went through, received CEQA clearance from Humboldt County. And so those are really seeing those as like the best chance to get water in the creek in the next several decades. Beyond that, we're certainly looking at storage and forbearance. It's been a proven approach used by Sanctuary Forest and the Mottol. Dana mentioned we have our first set of five projects being designed in Briceland. We really see that as a really good option and something that needs to happen wherever people are living on the landscape. They should be storing the water that they need for the dry season. And it's expensive to do that. And so supporting them financially and with technical assistance is a really important approach. So that's certainly going to be ongoing for the foreseeable future. But it's also a slow process because you implement a few projects a year and it's hard to see measurable results. So that's why we're really focusing on a few larger projects in each watershed as well. And so then beyond those two approaches, so that the storage and forbearance and the direct flow augmentation, we're also looking at two more passive approaches, one of which is groundwater recharge and passive flow release. So these types of projects take many different forms. They can be leaky ponds. They can be in-stream work where you're installing log weirs or beaver dam type woody structures. But the idea is really to naturally slow the flow moving out of the watershed and get it to infiltrate into the ground. You can also do gully packing with brush and different lighter touch treatments. Some of these approaches show a lot of promise, but they also are very difficult to measure the actual flow enhancement benefit achieved by individual projects. So that's something we're wrestling with and working really closely with Sanctuary Forest in Stillwater's working with Sanctuary Forest in the Matole on some of these projects.

HAMANN:

Yeah, so that idea of really slowing the movement of water and spreading it throughout the landscape, I think that's a technique that people really all over the world have used to improve water storage and the capacity of that sponge landscape to really do its job. Are there other places where in the watershed where projects like that have been successfully implemented?

MONSCHKE:

You know, so we have not implemented any of those projects in Redwood Creek. Stillwater, like I mentioned, has been working very closely with sanctuary forest in the Matole. And we're finding that those types of projects are very, very challenging, given our climate and our soils and our geology. The water, it's certainly easy to slow it down and get it to spread out a little bit and into the ground. But the problem is that it wants to run off in like a month. We don't have really thick soils. They're very porous. And so the water goes in the ground and very quickly drains out. And so we're really wrestling with how to deliver flow benefit during the time when we really need it, which is August, September, and oftentimes October, November, depending on when the first rainfall occurs. The other flow enhancement approach that we're starting to experiment with is forest thinning. And that's definitely like a multi-benefit approach that obviously has the benefits of fire safety. And like the direct flow augmentation, figuring out how to potentially measure benefits. And there's a lot of complications associated with that. We're also, we have a pilot project started on two properties in Redwood Creek that we're starting to dig in and look at that approach and really try to develop studies that help us determine the efficacy of that approach.

HAMANN:

That's really encouraging to hear. Friends of the Eel River about, oh gosh, like maybe six or seven years ago now, had a study done by Riverbend Sciences, where Eli, our good friend there, actually helped us really understand how these young, thirsty forests that we have, which are kind of a legacy of all the logging that's been done on our landscape, actually aren't really great for the watershed because they, like I said, they're young and thirsty, and they're having similarly aged trees across the landscape, really contributes to a lot of water loss. So that's great to hear that you guys are evaluating a wide range of flow enhancement projects.

STOLZMAN:

We're really excited that Eli will be on our technical advisory committee for that project and some other really excellent scientists like Matt O'Connor and others who have been really digging into this issue. I would love to mention that all of these restoration techniques are really going to be highlighted at the 25th annual Coho CONFAB that's going to be in the Matole this year. We're going to be pouring some of the sanctuary forest projects that Joel and Tasha have worked on in the Matole headwaters. We're going to look at some of the Matole Restoration Council forest thinning and Hella wood restoration projects. And I just confirmed yesterday, I'm so excited that Brock Dolman of Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, the Water Institute, he's going to be coming and facilitating an open forum about a lot of these restoration techniques to slow and spread water, including beaver dam analogs, the process that they've gone through in Sonoma County to be able to introduce beavers as our restoration partners, and also some of the gully packing that they've been experimenting with. So many of the techniques that we're looking at are techniques that have been experimented with in western Sonoma and are relevant for our coastal tributaries as well. That's it.

HAMANN:

Great. And tell us when is the Coho ClonFab? Yeah kettlethon.com

STOLZMAN:

It's August 25th through 27th in the Matole. We're about half sold out. Our events tend to sell out and we're renting the Matole Retreat Center. So we'll be on this beautiful stretch, private stretch of Matole River. And it actually coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Matole Restoration Council. So they're kind of inviting everyone from the CONFAB to come and enjoy the great square dancing band that they'll be having at the Grange. So I think it's going to be a really incredible experience.

HAMANN:

Wonderful. Folks, I just, I can't say enough good things about the restoration community building events that SRF hosts. In addition to the confab, there's also the annual conference, which we just had back in April up here in Fortuna. But if you're looking for a good place to maybe do a little bit of job searching or learn about restoration techniques or see some of them firsthand or like rub elbows with some of the restoration rock stars, people who have been doing this for longer than I've been alive, do attend these events because they are just really, really packed full of excellent opportunities. Thank you, Alicia. Yeah. Well, it's been really great having you all on here. And now folks, if you hear a little bit of construction noise or something happening down around Marshall Ranch or elsewhere in the watershed, you can hope that it's one of these wonderful projects that SRF is a part of. Is there anything you all would like to add before we close out?

STOLZMAN:

I guess I'll just mention that a lot of the resources that we mentioned, the basis of designs for some of these projects and the implementation, enhancement implementation plans are available on our website and that it really takes a watershed to do restoration. And we're very grateful for all of our restoration partners and for the stewardship values that so many landowners share in the South Fork Union.

HAMANN:

All right, well you heard it here first, it takes a watershed to do restoration. That's beautiful Dana. Thank you all. Okay, thanks. And that's all for the EcoNews Report this week. Be sure to tune in at the same time and place next week to hear more environmental news from the North Coast.