NATIVE fish across the state are set to benefit from almost $550,000 worth of grants for on-ground fish rehabilitation projects, New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries, Katrina Hodgkinson, announced today (Tuesday). Ms Hodgkinson says Habitat Action Grants (HAGs) will be provided for a range of projects across NSW using funds from the NSW Recreational Fishing Trusts. “Twenty-five HAGs have been allocated this year to recreational anglers, community groups, landholders and local councils to restore and rehabilitate freshwater and saltwater fish habitats,” Ms Hodgkinson says in a statement. “The HAGs are another great example of how money raised from the recreational fishing fee is being used to support the improvement of fish populations across NSW. “Rehabilitation of fish habitat will provide long-term sustainable benefits for native fish stocks, which will ultimately provide a substantial benefit for anglers and provide more opportunities for rural and regional communities to promote local tourism. “Recreational angling is the backbone of many local communities, stimulating the local economy and bringing jobs and investment. “The ultimate outcome of these projects is more fish in our waterways,” Ms Hodgkinson says. The 25 projects to receive funding cover popular fishing spots in NSW, including: Opening up almost 100km of habitat for fish through the remediation of three fish passage barriers in the Hunter and Central West catchments; Enhancing in-stream habitat through river bank stabilisation and the installation of woody habitat such as the construction of snag complexes in the Macquarie Rivulet and the Hunter, Talbragar and Queanbeyan Rivers; Restoration of fish nursery areas such as significant coastal wetlands at Tomago Wetland in the Hunter Estuary, Belmore Wetland in the Macleay catchment and Tambourine Bay Wetland on the Lane Cover River; and, Salt marsh and mangrove rehabilitation in a number of coastal estuaries. Further information on HAGs at www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in science based, proven, fish protection. | ||
Tag: fish habitat
The Radford Becomes a Reef Creating fish habitat
What was once a 553-foot Navy destroyer has become the East Coast’s largest artificial reef. This summer, as tourism and natural resources officials from Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland looked on, the new “reef,” slowly sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The Del-Jersey- Land reef, (named for the three states involved in the project) took about four hours to make its 138-foot descent.
The USS Arthur W. Radford’s final resting place is roughly 28 miles northeast of the Ocean City inlet, midway between the Indian River and Cape May. The Del-Jersey-Land reef is a cooperative venture between the three states to enhance fisheries habitat through decommissioned and retired ships, and railway and subway cars. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in science based, proven, fish protection.
“It’s going to be a huge economic boost for Ocean City,” says Erik Zlokovitz, the artificial reef coordinator for DNR. “It is expected to attract bluefish, sea bass, weakfish, sharks and tuna, and that will attract charter fleets.”
The Radford was commissioned in 1977 and held a crew of more than 300. It patrolled Venezuela, Panama, Argentina, Brazil, Senegal, Oman, Bahrain, the Azores, Nova Scotia, Italy and Turkey. One of its final missions was deployment during Operation Enduring Freedom. The Radford’s homeport was Norfolk, Va.
The ship was named for Admiral Arthur Radford who served in three wars. He was onboard the USS South Carolina during World War I, in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations during World War II and was Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at the outbreak of Korean hostilities.
Jill Zarend-Kubatko is the Publication Manager in DNR’s Office of Communication.
Montana gets $131,000 for fish habitat projects
Montana is among the states receiving funding for improving fish habitat. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will provide more than $3.3 million to support 68 fish habitat projects in 36 states. An additional $9.9 million in partner contributions will go toward restoring and enhancing stream, lake and coastal habitat, as well as to improving recreational fishing and helping endangered species. The funding is provided by 15 Fish Habitat Partnerships. In Montana under the Western Native Trout Initiative, the state will receive $61,000 in Service funds and $70,000 in partner funds to restore 9 in stream miles in Four Mile Creek to benefit Yellowstone cutthroat trout. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in science based, proven, fish protection.
Conservation Commission hosts discussion on Irene
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Low Lake Level Allows Fish Habitat Improvements at Lake Fork
Members of the Lake Fork Sportsman’s Association (LFSA) partnered with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s (TPWD) Inland Fisheries Division staff in making fish habitat improvements at Lake Fork on November 30.
Taking advantage of drought-induced low water levels that have exposed shorelines, teams planted 400 buttonbush plants at various sites. Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), a native woody shrub commonly called “buckbrush,” was chosen in an attempt to establish woody cover for fishes. When inundated by water, it helps provide great bass fishing.
See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in science based, proven, fish protection.
Lake Fork has had a long history of relatively stable water levels. This has been advantageous in that it has mostly translated into stable aquatic habitat and fish production. However, during the recent drought the disadvantage of this stability became evident. The lake elevation has dropped to an all-time record low, exposing shorelines and reducing cover which provides young fish shelter from predation and ambush cover for feeding adult sportfish. Lake Fork will likely be subject to more water level fluctuations in the future as the City of Dallas increases pumping operations on the lake, especially if the current drought persists.
In lakes where there are prolonged draw-downs, communities of assorted plants will colonize exposed sediment. These include emergent aquatic plants such as smartweed, sedges and rushes, along with a variety of terrestrial plants including shrubs and trees. Woody plants such as willows will grow rapidly along the shoreline, and when substantial amounts of rainfall return to the watershed and the lake elevation rises enough, the plants can become partially or totally inundated. The “cover” that these plants provide creates shelter for fish and acts as a substrate for the establishment of many organisms in the aquatic food chain. Some of the woodier plants are persistent and will survive for many years and provide benefits to the ecosystem.
The first step in this habitat enhancement plan materialized in March 2011, when the LFSA purchased 1,000 bare-root buttonbush plants from a local tree nursery and planted them at selected locations throughout the reservoir. Survival of these small plants, most less than two feet in length, was low. At some of the planting sites they were trampled by feral hogs.
The second stage in LFSA’s habitat project began to take shape this past summer. The opportunity to purchase larger plants presented itself when a fish farmer in Columbus, Texas, approached TPWD looking for potential customers for 400 two-year old buttonbush plants. These larger plants should experience better survival. The LFSA agreed to underwrite the majority ($1,900) of the purchase price, and TPWD contributed $650. Bushes were planted at different elevations to hedge against future water-level changes.Written on: 12/02/2011 by: TPWD
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On the Net:
- Videos of the planting: https://www.facebook.com/tpwdif3b?ref=ts
Fish passage boasts jobs, increases fish habitat
Nearly 60 miles up the North Umpqua River from Roseburg, a huge effort is under way to increase and improve the habitat for the steelhead, spring chinook, coho salmon and Pacific lamprey that make their way up the Wild and Scenic River to spawn.
A fish ladder is being built at Soda Springs Dam so the fish will be able to swim beyond the dam for the first time in more than 50 years, exploring another four miles of the North Umpqua River and returning to the spawning beds of their ancestors in three miles of Fish Creek.
See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in science based, proven, fish protection.
Every aspect of the project takes the fish into account, whether it’s sealing the concrete or rounding out the inside corners of the fish ladder to ensure a safe and appealing passage past the 77-foot-high dam.
Of course, if the dam weren’t there, the native fish already would be swimming unimpeded through the narrow canyon of the North Umpqua. But since the North Umpqua Hydroelectric Project, which includes eight dams, has been in place since the 1950s and provides a substantial amount of electricity, the fish ladder is a compromise.
PacifiCorp expects to spend about $60 million on the fish passage at Soda Springs before it’s completed at the end of 2012. The fish passage is uniquely engineered for the geological features of the river canyon. The company estimated the cost of removing the dam, a solution sought by conservation groups, would have been about the same, but electricity rates would have increased because of the lost hydropower.
Soda Springs generates enough electricity each year to power about 40,000 homes — that’s just short of the number of households in Douglas County. More importantly, company officials say it’s a regeneration dam that produces electricity that can be stored and used during peak demand times.
Despite its steep price tag, the fish passage is small compared to the many massive projects PacifiCorp is involved in throughout the Northwest. Rates are expected to creep by less than 1 percent to pay for the construction project.
That makes it like a stimulus strategy that came along at the right time. While the construction business has been slow elsewhere, the tiny village of Toketee has been bustling with heavy equipment, trucks and workers since the project began in 2010. General contractor is Todd Construction of Tualatin, which was previously located in Roseburg.
The largest subcontractor, Weekly Bros. Inc. of Idleyld Park, hired extra employees to work on the fish ladder. As many as 80 people were on the job this past summer for the company.
Even with winter setting in, anywhere from 50 to 100 people are working on the project daily, making the site appear as if it’s crawling with workers in reflective vests and hard hats.
Between the additional jobs, the promise of clean hydropower well into the future and the re-opening of historic fish habitat, this is a project that’s worth the effort and expense.
Mineral exploration is exploding, is the government assessing the environmental impact?
Critics claim mineral exploration in B.C. needs more accountability
Campaigning for the B.C. Liberal Party leadership, Christy Clark promised to put the controversial Prosperity Mine project back into play.
Mineral exploration is exploding in B.C., but critics claim the provincial government isn’t assessing the environmental impact.
Soaring global demand for metal has caused a surge in mining and exploration in British Columbia, and Premier Christy Clark has promised to open eight new mines by 2015. However, recent reports from B.C.’s auditor general and the UVic Environmental Law Centre suggest the provincial environmental-assessment office is not up to the task.
Mines, typically subject to both federal and provincial reviews, are extremely complex. They often require hundreds of millions of dollars in investment capital and promise high-paying jobs and a windfall in tax revenue, but their environmental footprint is equally dizzying, with potential long-term impacts on fish-and-wildlife habitat. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the industry leader in science based, man made and artificial fish habitat, proven to provide all fish with cover they prefer to prosper.
Currently, the 50-person staff at the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office (BCEAO) is weighing the socioeconomic benefits and environmental impacts of 60 projects, half of them for new mines, mine expansions, or old mines being resurrected, thanks to recent high mineral prices. Among them are projects like the Ajax Mine, a proposal by Abacus Mining and Exploration Corporation (in partnership with Polish mining giant KGHM Polska Miedz S. A.) for a massive 500-million-tonne (over 23 years) low-grade-copper property that was operated by Teck Cominco in the 1980s and 1990s but abandoned when copper prices were low.
This open-pit project on the doorstep of Kamloops is worth $550 million in capital investment, and is expected to have a 400-person full-time work force. It is undergoing both federal and provincial environmental assessments and has dominated public debate in this city of almost 90,000, just as the divisive Prosperity Mine, approved by the province but rejected by the feds, did and continues to do in the community of Williams Lake.
Vancouver-based environmental lawyer Mark Haddock, author of a report titled Environmental Assessment in British Columbia, published by the UVic Environmental Law Centre in November 2010, believes citizens have good reason to be wary of the process.
“I don’t think the B.C. assessment process is equipped to deal with these proposals,” Haddock says.
In his critique, Haddock called B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Act “weak and discretionary”, and wrote that decisions by the environment minister are often arbitrary and sometimes run counter to advice from government biologists and technical experts. Furthermore, the fact that the BCEAO hasn’t rejected a single proposal since 1995 further undermines public confidence in the process, according to Haddock.
For many, the Prosperity copper-gold mine, being proposed by Taseko Mines Limited for a site 125 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake on the Chilcotin Plateau, is the poster child for what’s wrong with B.C.’s environmental-assessment process.
The story of Prosperity is convoluted. Given the mine’s considerable potential impacts on the Tsilhqot’in aboriginal people and on Fish Lake—home to more than 80,000 rainbow trout—which Taseko proposed to use for waste-rock impoundment, the mine met the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s requirements for a joint review panel that would unite federal and provincial authorities in a single entity.
However, in 2008 Taseko Mines wrote a letter to federal and provincial officials criticizing the joint-review-panel process for putting “the future of a billion-dollar project in the hands of three unelected, unaccountable individuals” and placing an “excessive emphasis on established or asserted Aboriginal rights and title”.
Soon after receiving this letter, the province opted out of the joint review and decided to conduct its own independent assessment. Consequently, Tsilhqot’in leaders and environmental groups such as the Friends of the Nemiah Valley (FONV) boycotted the provincial process, claiming that Victoria was biased in favour of the proponent. In January 2010, acting on recommendations from the executive director of the BCEAO—and despite concerns raised by provincial biologists about impacts on grizzly-bear and fish habitat—the province approved Prosperity.
Meanwhile, the federal review was still under way, participants poring over a raft of First Nations cultural and environmental concerns. Almost a year after the province rendered its green light for Prosperity, the feds rejected the mine and Taseko’s plans to replace Fish Lake with an artificial fish habitat, among other concerns. In a strongly worded decision, Jim Prentice, federal environment minister at the time, called the mine’s impacts on fish of “high magnitude and irreversible”, and wrote that the project would destroy “an important cultural and spiritual area for the Tsilhqot’in people”. The company went back to the proposal stage.
Two processes, two dramatically different results, Haddock says.
“The feds and the province were using the same data but with a different set of criteria,” he says. “It’s important that these assessments appear credible, and when you have two very different decisions, as in the case of Prosperity, it raises some very serious doubts in the minds of the public and participants.”
David Williams, FONV president, agrees, and he says it’s the reason his group didn’t participate in the provincial process.
“We didn’t take part in the provincial review because we didn’t think there was any point,” Williams says.
Wayne McCrory, a bear biologist and cofounder of the Valhalla Wilderness Society, also boycotted the provincial process but, like FONV, made submissions to federal reviewers. He says the contempt for unbiased scientific opinion that he believes underpinned the B.C. approval of Prosperity is something he has seen before: when, in 2004, the province approved the contentious Jumbo Glacier Resort project in the Purcell Mountains east of Kootenay Lake after a lengthy process that started when the proponent first filed an application in 1996.
“In the case of Jumbo, 11 biologists on the former grizzly-bear scientific advisory committee wrote a letter to the minister, opposing Jumbo. I was one of those members,” McCrory tells the Georgia Straight over the phone from his home in the Slocan Valley. “Valhalla [Wilderness Society] hired independent biologist Dr. Brian Horejsi to do an impact study on grizzly bears related to Jumbo. He did an extensive job, including a CEA [cumulative effects assessment]. A number of Ministry of Environment biologists were also opposed.”
McCrory says he believes the province’s biggest weakness is in assessing cumulative effects, which, by the federal government’s definition, are “changes to the biophysical, social, economic and cultural environments caused by the combination of past, present and reasonably foreseeable future actions”. McCrory believes that if the BCEAO conducted thorough CEAs, it would never have authorized the Prosperity Mine and the destruction of a culturally and environmentally significant water body like Fish Lake.
Although the BCEAO is finding few friends in the environmental and conservation community, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is considered more robust than its provincial counterpart, the last line of defence for the environment. It was the CEAA that ultimately rejected the proposed Kemess North copper-gold mine in 2007 as well as Prosperity, in both cases citing impacts on fish-and-wildlife habitat and significant conflicts with aboriginal rights and titles.
However, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the CEAA is under attack, according to Josh Paterson, a lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law. He says the Conservatives buried profound changes to environmental-assessment legislation deep within the 900-page March 2010 budget bill, giving the federal environment minister far more discretionary power to exempt projects from full environmental reviews. Then, last summer, the feds took the scalpel to the CEAA’s budget.
“The federal government is now cutting funding to the environmental-assessment agency,” Paterson says, referring to a more than 40-percent cut announced in the June 3, 2011, speech from the throne.
Paterson shares McCrory’s concern about the province’s incomplete approach to assessing the cumulative effects of major projects. However, in fairness to the BCEAO, he says he believes that this type of analysis is complex and may be beyond the current capacity of the office, especially with metal mines that may face technically challenging and costly cleanup of toxic mine waste for years after they cease operation.
Though many critics are lamenting the weakening of environmental-assessment capacity at both federal and provincial levels, mineral exploration and mine development continue to explode. Developing economies like China have an insatiable appetite for metal, and we need it for the cars we drive, our electronic gadgets, and the appliances in our homes. According to Lyn Anglin, president and CEO of Geoscience B.C., the province has plenty of untapped mineral wealth. Geoscience B.C. is an industry-led organization created in 2005 to undertake geological-data-gathering projects with the hope of attracting more mining investment to the province.
Currently, the organization is spearheading surveys of the Quesnellia Terrane, a chunk of central B.C. rich in copper-gold porphyry and extending from the Gibraltar and Mount Polley mines near Williams Lake to the Mount Milligan copper-gold property northwest of Prince George. According to Anglin, the 2007 announcement of the project, which Geoscience B.C. dubbed QUEST, resulted in a frenzy of online claim-staking.
Zoë Younger, vice president of corporate affairs for the Mining Association of B.C., says the province hasn’t seen this much excitement around mining since the 1860s Cariboo gold rush. Regarding environmental assessments, Younger says she believes in a robust regulatory framework, but she is primarily concerned about wasteful duplication of efforts, which she says was the case with Prosperity. That’s why the association is cheering September’s B.C. Jobs Plan, which included a commitment of $24 million in funding to natural-resources ministries with the goal of reducing the time it takes to get decisions on permits and approvals.
Younger says industry opponents often overstate the environmental impact of mining and understate its economic importance. According to 2008 government figures, metal mining alone contributed $2.6 billion to the provincial economy, and that excludes what was generated from coal mining and other fossil-fuel extraction.
“The [environmental] footprint of a mine relative to its economic contribution to GDP is much lower than other resource industries,” Younger says, referring to industrial logging and commercial fishing.
Industry boosters like Geoscience B.C. and the mining association can rest assured they have the support of the provincial government. Christy Clark promised to put the Prosperity Mine back in play when she was campaigning for the B.C. Liberal Party leadership, and she has made mining one of the pillars of her jobs plan.
The province estimates that projects worth a potential $30 billion in capital investment are piled up in the BCEAO system. Of the 222 projects that the environmental-assessment office has handled since 1995, only one was rejected, while 115 were approved and the remainder either are still under review, have been withdrawn, or have been determined to be exempt from environmental assessments. Yet the annual budget of the BCEAO is telling: at only $8,754,000, it’s one-third less than what the province gave to Geoscience B.C. last May.
The provincial government may be able to dismiss criticism of its environmental-assessment record from NGOs and environmental lawyers, but it’s harder to ignore the words of its own auditor general. Last July, John Doyle, then auditor general of B.C., released a critical report on the BCEAO, saying that “adequate monitoring and enforcement of certified projects is not occurring, and follow-up evaluations are not being conducted.” He also said that information being supplied to the public is insufficient “to ensure accountability”. But what’s even more troubling is what Doyle referred to as the government’s “hostility” toward environmental assessments, as revealed in the February 2010 throne speech, during which the Speaker called the CEAA a “Byzantine bureaucratic process” that holds “jobs and investment hostage”.
John Mazure, the BCEAO’s executive director, says that although he would have preferred a “glowing report” from the auditor general, his office is taking it seriously. However, he takes issue with critics who continually point to the office’s green-light track record as a sign of fallibility. He admits that most applications that make it to the minister’s desk get approved, but he says that what’s missing from this statistic is the number of projects that are altered and improved in consultation with government specialists as they work through the assessment. Mazure calls it an “iterative process”, which is described on the BCEAO website as being intended “to address all issues satisfactorily such that there are no residual adverse impacts that would prevent an EA certificate from being issued”.
“I’ve heard everything, that we rubber-stamp projects without looking at them, but that’s simply not the case. What people don’t realize is that once a project reaches the minister, we’ve had a pretty good kick at it,” Mazure says. “Our specialists work with the proponents throughout the process on mitigative measures.”
The Prosperity Mine proposal, positioned as an economic lifeboat for the struggling Cariboo region, is like a festering wound for the province. The federal government’s rejection of Prosperity was a huge embarrassment for then-premier Gordon Campbell, who had been a vocal and enthusiastic supporter of Taseko’s bid. This fiasco also nags the BCEAO. Mazure refuses to second-guess his predecessor at the BCEAO, who recommended approval of Prosperity in spite of what appeared to be glaring environmental concerns.
He also says observers forget that the federal and provincial environmental-assessment agencies have different mandates: the former is focused primarily on environmental impacts and aboriginal rights and title, while the latter weighs economic, social, health, heritage, and environmental factors. However, Mazure admits that the mining boom has the potential to stretch the BCEAO’s resources.
“Fifty percent of our projects right now are mines,” he says. “It’s one thing assessing a mine that’s not near a water body, but when it’s metres from a water body, the environmental impacts are complex. They are very complicated and they take more of our resources. We’re very dependent on specialists from other ministries. And in these processes, not everybody will be pleased with the outcome. One side will be complaining, the other side will be celebrating.”
David Williams, of the Friends of the Nemiah Valley, belonged to one of those sides. He was heavily involved in fighting the Prosperity Mine and is now preparing for a renewed battle, as Taseko Mines has submitted a retooled proposal that could spare Fish Lake.
“Honestly, I think the Environment Ministry has been so watered down that they lack the capacity to handle these issues,” Williams says.By Andrew Findlay
Log Jams Left Behind By Irene for fish habitat?
(Host) Tropical Storm Irene washed trees and other debris into rivers and streams.
With winter coming on and the spring floods that follow, the state has launched an initiative to assess the location of debris that could dam up water flow.
But as VPR’s Nancy Cohen, reports there’s no state money to remove the logjams.
(Cohen) The Agency of Natural Resources is asking regional planning commissions to work with towns to identify what clean up work on which rivers and streams should be a priority. Natural Resources Secretary Deb Markowitz says there’s a concern about log jams
(Markowitz) “The trees around streams and brooks were lifted out of the grounds and now are in the rivers and streams. The towns are concerned that if they don’t act, it’s going to cause problems during the seasonal flood in the spring.”
(Cohen) The six regional planning commissions in the areas most affected by Irene are surveying towns, including the Windham County commission.
Chris Campany, its executive director, is in South Newfane, where the Rock River jumped across Dover Road during the flood.
He says the survey is trying to pinpoint where there are areas that are still vulnerable to flooding during winter thaws or spring flooding. Campany says the survey asks about debris jams in streams that may act like a dam during a thaw.
(Campany) “As ice breaks up or as water flows you basically wind up with a lake forming up behind that debris jam. And then it either finds its own course or it breaks through and suddenly you have that surge of water.”
(Cohen) Campany says big pieces of debris could cause big problems
(Campany ) “Some of the logs are going to be the battering rams that you have during the next flood event.”
(Cohen) The Agency of Natural Resources will send engineers and hydrologists to assess the debris jams that pose the highest risks. The agency can help decide how much debris should be left in a stream to protect fish habitat and how much should be removed.
But Justin Johnson, the deputy commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, says there’s no state money to help towns or private property owners remove the debris.
(Johnson) “If there’s a log jam or some kind of a debris jam that’s imminently threatening a public assets then we can usually get FEMA money to help remove that. But if it’s just something on private, sending water onto private land somewhere, it’s not going to affect a public asset we don’t have access to money to do anything with that .”
(Cohen) Private property owners might be able to get funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to remove debris that could cause a flood.
For VPR News I’m Nancy Cohen
(Host) Reporting about Vermont’s recovery from the floods of Tropical Storm Irene is supported by the VPR Journalism Fund.
See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the industry leader and only science based, man made and artificial fish habitat, proven to provide all fish with cover they prefer to prosper.
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Dry Creek fish habitat restoration plan approved
Nov. 21–The first stage of a habitat makeover for Dry Creek coho salmon and steelhead is one step closer to construction.
Sonoma County officials will unveil plans next summer to install side channels, boulders and logs to offer greater shelter for the endangered and threatened fish.
The work is part of a 2008 federal order to improve conditions for the two species in the Russian River watershed. On Dry Creek, which the county uses to deliver water for 600,000 customers but where fish are in need of more slow-water habitat, the efforts would cover six of the stream’s 14 miles and cost $36 to $48 million.
County supervisors last week approved the first phase of that project, on a one-mile stretch of the stream bisected by Lambert Bridge Road.
Eleven landowners in the area are working with the county to provide access to the creek for construction and future maintenance and repair. Total building cost is estimated at $6 million to $8 million, with an additional $413,000 for the purchase of short- and long-term easements.
County officials hope the work, including collaboration with an initial group of landowners, will lay the foundation for the rest of the project, which would run through 2020 if the early stages are successful.
The alternative is a costlier $150 million to $200 million fix that would lower flows in the creek through a parallel water pipeline running from Lake Sonoma to Healdsburg.
“To say the success of the first mile (of habitat improvement) is critical to the entire project is an understatement,” said Supervisor Mike McGuire, who represents the area. “Failure is not an option.”
Construction is set to begin in June and run through October, taking advantage of the dry season.
Excavators will carve out four channels off the main creek for backwater habitat, while workers in other areas embed boulder clusters and about 2,000 logs in the stream to slow water and provide holding pockets for fish.
See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the industry leader and only science based, man made and artificial fish habitat, proven to provide all fish with cover they prefer to prosper.
Non-native plants will also be removed and native bushes and trees installed.
The goal is about 114,000 square feet of improved habitat, said David Manning, principal environmental specialist for the county Water Agency, which is overseeing the project.
One grape grower participating in the project said the efforts were part of a renewed focus on fish-friendly farming in the area.
“We’re looking forward to working with the agency on Dry Creek projects now and in the future,” said Ned Horton, vineyard manager at Quivira Vineyards and Winery.
By Brett Wilkison, The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Big Musky caught on Fishiding artificial habitat in Minnesota
Customer Comments
Hey David,
Attached is a fish I caught right off the deep edge of the structure
you sent me…52 inch mama in September. Caught a few more casting
the deep side of the structure layout…needless to say I am sold on
your products and I will be getting more in the spring. I didn’t get
to fish much in October and that is usually my favorite month (too
many work and kid things going on) I am thinking your structures will
have the greatest benefit in early spring and late fall fishing
applications. These are the times when weed growth is low and your
artificial products will offer bait fish a shelter…and attract our
bass, pike, and muskies!
What benefits if any have folks seen placing them for ice fishing?
Maybe even in deeper water for walleyes or crappies in the winter? My
brain will be processing good spots to place structure…right now 25
yards off the end of my dock comes to mind so we can hammer sunfish
and bass with the kids. Would that be cheating? Hahaha
See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the industry leader and only science based, man made and artificial fish habitat, proven to provide all fish with cover they prefer to prosper.
Take care,
Paul
Legends Guide Service
Hunting, Fishing, and Outdoor Adventures
legendsguide@gmail.com
www.legendsguideservice.com