Sierra Streams Institute is excited to undertake a new restoration project to supplement, improve and maintain salmonid habitat along a portion of Dry Creek within Beale Air Force Base located near Spenceville Wildlife Area. This is an exciting new project for SSI because all programs have an opportunity to work together on one project to monitor water quality, provide trail side educational resources, develop a volunteer/ stewardship relationship with people on base, and provide research level data about new approaches to restoration.
Background Information
The project area is located on Dry Creek, a tributary of the Feather River joining near Wheatland, CA. Sierra Streams has been doing water quality monitoring on Dry Creek above and below the Beale Air Force base since 2018 and is thrilled to expand the data set to include the area in the base. The Beale Lake dam was built in 1942 when under Army control, known as Camp Beale for recreation. In partnership with the Fish and Wildlife Service the dam was removed in 2020. Dam removal is a somewhat new field and restoration efforts after the removal are not always straightforward. The question comes up of whether to allow the river flow freely without guidance or form it to look a certain way.
Post dam removal, a contracted agency applied a primarily form-based restoration approach to the prior lakebed area where imported rock and tree trunks with root mass were used to form an idealistic channel with rock ramps for salmon passage upstream.
What is Next?
SSI is currently in the conceptualization and monitoring phase of the project trying to gather as much background data as possible including past salmon habitat type surveys, satellite imagery, and wildlife surveys. The Restoration team is also monitoring the survivability of plantings, surveying up and downstream to get a larger watershed picture, monitoring water quality with help from the in-house lab, and attempting to capture wildlife on camera. There is a heavy presence of beaver on Dry Creek who we hope to partner or assist with in creating or maintaining dams to slow the flow of the water and provide more willow to the stream banks using a more process-based approach.
The many goals of this project include increasing populations of special status species through improving habitat conditions, improving flood and erosion control, managing invasive weeds, and enhancing recreational opportunities for the base population by creating a hiking trail connecting the parks, both up and downstream from the dam area, lined with educational signs about stream ecology.
See the map below for a bigger picture of the project site including current beaver dam sites. We are excited to embark on this new project with the Air Force Base to allow for more ecological integrity on Dry Creek into the future. Stay tuned for updates!
Sounds Good- looks good- nice project- Steve Allen