Dry Creek winegrowers look at habitat solutions

County Water Agency staffers called the coming year “a good
opportunity” for greater cooperation among bureaucrats and Dry
Creek Valley winegrowers at a recent workshop on Russian River
watershed fish habitat.
The Jan. 27 meeting at Dry Creek Winery was hosted by winery
president Don Wallace whose property is part of a potential habitat
enhancement pilot project needed to improve conditions for juvenile
salmon and steelhead trying to survive in the Dry Creek
channel.
The sometimes skeptical relationship between some Dry Creek
winegrowers and county bureaucrats over enforcement of the Federal
Endangered Species Act was apparent in opening remarks by Grant
Davis, the new interim general manager of the Sonoma County Water
Agency.
Davis and Water Agency staffers prefaced the meeting with thanks
to property owners who allowed agency staff and consultants access
to the creek over private property.
Last year “over 70 percent of the landowners we contacted
allowed our biologists and our consultant to go into the creek and
monitor the fish and assess the conditions,” said Davis. “That’s a
very high level of participation and it led to us getting baseline
conditions.”
The situation now looks “quite promising,” said Davis as the
Water Agency and the winegrowers try to meet goals of a U.S.
Biological Opinion from the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The upcoming 15-year effort to improve watershed habitat “is
going to require very close cooperation and coordination working
with the landowners, the regulatory agencies, the Water Agency and
the broader community,” said Davis.
“The bottom line I think for this group is that in Dry Creek
itself the biological opinion is going to require us to restore
about six miles of creek habitat out of the entire 14-mile
stretch,” said Davis.
That has required the Water Agency to seek landowner permission
for habitat biologists to come onto private property and assess
conditions. Most have cooperated, said Davis.
“I want to extend my appreciation for the landowners that have
been engaged,” said Davis.
“We really respect what you have to do,” Davis told the
winegrowers. “The product that you’re producing puts Sonoma County
on the map. It’s vitally important for our region. It defines our
region, quite frankly, and we do not want to be getting in the way
of your efforts. But collectively in order to continue working in
the valley we have new obligations that are upon us as a result of
the Biological Opinion that must by law be followed,” said Davis.
“We’re not going to able to do this without your cooperation and
your full support.”
When federal officials put the coho salmon on the endangered
species list it was “a defining moment” that required the agency to
change its operations, said Davis, including improving conditions
in Dry Creek.
A standing room only crowd of nearly 100 people gathered to hear
the Jan. 27 update on studies conducted by SCWA in Dry Creek in
2009 and to get a preview of 2010 activities, as required by the
Russian River Biological Opinion, said Water Agency spokeswoman Ann
DuBay.
In Dry Creek the Biological Opinion requires construction of six
miles of habitat enhancements, restoration work on several streams
that are tributaries to Dry Creek, and ongoing monitoring of fish.
In 2009, thanks to landowner cooperation:
• Biologists were able to monitor Chinook salmon, coho and
steelhead in Dry Creek;
• Several hundred feet of habitat and stream banks were restored
on Grape Creek;
• An inventory and survey of potential habitat enhancement sites
(known as the “Dry Creek Current Conditions Report”) was completed
by consultants Inter-fluve, Inc.;
• A habitat enhancement pilot project has been identified.
A videotape of the meeting is posted on the Russian River
Instream Flow and Restoration (RRIFR) page at www.sonomacountywater.org.