Redwood Reader

63. Mattole Stream Gauging
Yesterday (July 29) I received a request to write for restoration of funding for one of two Mattole River gauging stations. One has been in place for decades and a second added in 2001. These gauges are useful in reflecting conditions in the valley as part of the Mattole River and Range Project. It was clear this was a budget item. I wrote a couple of e-mails and requested more info. When the more info came, it had a request for letters deadline two weeks earlier than when I got it. It was reported each gauge cost 17,500 dollars a year to operate, and that the Department of Water Resources had only agreed to pay for operations for one funding cycle. The Mattole Salmon Group recognizes the importance of monitoring to audit restoration efforts, and submitted a proposal to DFG, which was turned down last year. The state will only be able to fund three of seventeen stream flow monitors this fiscal year. It is possible to move up the priority list. At the end a date of July 14 was set as the budget would be settled.
A letter from Randy D. Klein, a hydrologist from Arcata,states, “I am writing to urge continued operation of the two stream flow stations on the Mattole River. The station on the lower Mattole near Petrolia (No. 11469000) has been operating continuously since 1951, thus it provides a long-term data set conducive to robust hydrologic analyses. The other station is located at Ettersburg (No. 11468900) and has only been operating since 2001, but is in a key location for hydrologic analyses in the basin.
As watershed restoration efforts progress in the Mattole, critical low flows have become recognized as a major factor limiting salmonid recovery. This conclusion is documented in the Northcoast Watershed Assessment Project’s (NCWAP) Mattole River Report, in which your agency participated. Moreover, state biologist believe that the low flow issue could limit the effectiveness of land conservation and habitat recovery work of the past two decades, which represents an large investment of public funds.”
Tasha McKee of Sanctuary Forest wrote, “In recent years low flow conditions have emerged as the most significant threat to salmonid survival in the Mattole. This conclusion is documented in the NCWAP Mattole River Report that also emphasizes the need for stream flow data to address the problem. On a recent tour local department of Fish and Game stated that lack of action addressing the low flow issue could overshadow all of the habitat recovery work of the past twenty years. This represents an investment of approximately 13 million dollars in public funds for land acquisition and restoration projects to restore the health of the river for salmonid recovery.”
Cathy Blier of California Resources Agency recommended several alternate agencies for funding. A stop gap measure may exist in local community service funds or outside grant sources.
Discussion: There is a lot to learn from this little campaign. First off, long term funding has got to be applied to long term ongoing projects, as opposed to implementation projects. Monitoring is critical, especially at the money we are talking. A twenty or thirty year sunsetted program tied to restoration spending would do much better for Ettersburg. Local resource groups need to have a central project timeline and targeted funding for the duration of each of the projects, so that all go forward in unison. perhaps in the form of endowments that go back to the funder at completion of a project.
A second question is what is available at the federal agencies? There are several mentions of this being a USGS installation or device. Perhaps that is their contribution. BLM also now has a large investment in the Mattole and a responsibility to the estuary. NOAA also has become involved in fisheries restoration, and climate, precipitation, and runoff data may interest them aside from fisheries. This data should relate to them. US Fish and Wildlife could also be of assistance.
But behind all of this is the question: Why is the Mattole drying up? Precipitation has been average or better the last few years.
One thing I read years ago said if 15% of a watershed is paved or roofed, the watershed was impacted. 25%, damaged. 40%, dysfunctional. Let us add all places without glomalin storage-clearcuts, roads, river bars, lawns, annual grass rangelands and fresh slides and debris flow surfaces, together with the glomalin impaired areas like lawns, brush, cropland, second growth and select cuts. We are talking about old growth here and its capacity to store water in the root zone as the 100% historical storage mark, and several years worth of precipitation feeding the river year round to maintain the original flow regime. How much of this original storage is left in the Mattole? We can go directly to the vegetation maps, and a little research would let us put numbers on these. Ten year old ceanothus stores ten percent of 150 year old Doug fir, for example. Then we would know to expect ten percent of the historic flow next year and it would be important to take measures to increase that level on a community wide basis.
We also have the problem of drainages being impacted so that swales become overloaded and fail. We also lose water soaking into the ground because water is kept on the surface and made to run off into a catchment as fast as possible. The surface water carries loads of sediment into the stream, as opposed to the stored water made to percolate through the system. This last problem means even the stream channels can no longer act as storage because sediment has filled the pools and scour has removed the shade. Lots of water is being lost to evaporation. We are in danger of becoming a high precipitation desert.
I am afraid restoration will not be able to return conditions without thorough understanding of glomalin storage and the need for large blocks of big trees managed and protected from fire by thinning and water retention. You can read more about this in my article No.3 “Our Shrinking Watersheds” at www.redwoodreader.blogspot.com, April 29, 2004.