New funds OK’d for Dry Creek work

Sonoma County Supervisors approved spending more than $4 million this week on a new phase of the ongoing Dry Creek habitat restoration project they hope will help bring back the Russian River’s native fish population.
Work will start in June on Dry Creek enhancements in the vicinity of the Lambert Bridge where property owners and the Sonoma County Water Agency are finding cooperation and seeing good results, said 4th District County Supervisor Mike McGuire.
“This project as we all know is built off of trust with private property owners,” said McGuire, who praised Water Agency fishery biologist David Manning for his work with Dry Creek winegrowers.
“David Manning is going to become an honorary Dry Creek resident,” said McGuire at this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting. “He has been spending so much time in the valley working with residents, literally kitchen table by kitchen table working on those long-term relationships.”
The Dry Creek habitat work is mandated by a federal Biological Opinion issued in 2008 directing the Water Agency to change some of its Russian River management practices in order to improve conditions for the River’s native salmon and steelhead trout. The fish have been designated under the federal Endangered Species Act as threatened or endangered with becoming extinct.
  Water released from Warm Springs Dam in the summer to supply the Water Agency’s Wohler Bridge pumps flows too fast for spawning and survival of juvenile fish downstream in Dry Creek, said the BO. One proposed solution is to build a Dry Creek bypass pipeline, a project estimated to cost $250 million. That expense that would fall at least in part on the Water Agency’s 600,000 customers in Sonoma and Marin counties.  
If the creek enhancements succeed the pipeline won’t be necessary.
“When you look at $250 million for a pipeline versus what we’re looking at right now, it is a tremendous savings,” said McGuire.
This week’s vote awards a $4,085,512 contract with a local company, Hanford Applied Restoration & Conservation. Hanford will continue construction of multiple “habitat enhancement features” to approximately 3,500 linear feet along Dry Creek in the vicinity of the Lambert Bridge, said David Manning of the Water Agency.
The work area extends approximately a half a mile upstream to a half a mile downstream of Lambert Bridge, said Manning.
Construction activities are to begin on June 15, and in-channel work must be complete by October 15, in order to comply with the requirements of the environmental permits.