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8/3/2019 March 2006 Greenspace Insider, Cambria Land Trust
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Volume 5, Number 8
The Insider
March 2006
Santa Rosa Creek Restoration Projects to Enhance Fisheries, Habitat and Water Quality
Greenspace has completed two major Santa Rosa Creek Res-
toration Projects. The first is a fish barrier removal project at the
Burton Bridge and the second is a creek bank stabilization project
near Coast Union High School on land managed by Larry Fiscalini
and owned by his family. Both projects were designed to improve
steelhead trout migration and improve fish habitat. The creek bank
stabilization project includes the benefit of stopping erosion of prime
agriculture soils. These eroded soils are deposited in the lower
reach of Santa Rosa Creek and the lagoon at the creeks mouth. The
soils foul the gravel beds and the aquifer with fine sediments. The
sediment layer restricts the water recharge of the lower basin thereby
affecting water quality and quantity and degrades habitat of migrat-
ing steelhead trout, and habitat for other fishes, reptiles, and am-
phibians.
Creek Bank Stabilization Project
The creek bank project was a partnership between the California
Department of Fish and Game, the California Coastal Conservancy,
National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, Greenspace, the San
Luis Obispo Department of Building and Planning, and Mr. Fiscalini.
All partners provided funds and/or services to the project. The
project is the first major restoration project on Santa Rosa Creek and
demonstrates that agencies, non-profits, and private land owners
can work successfully to-gether to improve fisheries
and, by extension, water
quality and habitat.
Greenspace was
awarded a competitive
grant through the Salmonid
Restoration Grant Program
to design, coordinate, and
implement all stages of this project. We worked with the California
Coastal Conservancy regarding project engineering; contracted with
the California Conservation Corps (CCC) to provide restoration ex-
pertise and hand labor; Winsor Construction provided expert heavy
equipment operators, machinery, rock and appropriate fill soil; Zo-
ologist, Galen Rathbun, provide
in-kind services with surveying
for California Red-legged frog.
There were literally dozens of
people and companies involved
with the success of this project
and coordinating the sequence
of work was made much easier
with the remarkable cooperation
by the participants.
The project was approximately
380 feet in length and covered about
2 acres. As you can see from the
‘before’ pictures, the creek changed
course and was undercutting a thirty
foot vertical bank and rapidly eating
away prime ag land and sending tons
of material downstream clogging the
creek and lagoon with sediments. The creek was realigned to an exis
ing overflow channel thereby removing the channel from the toe of th
vertical bank. A new flood terrace was built adjacent to the new cree
channel and the existing flood terrace and to the right of the new
channel was lowered. Thirty foot long root wads were placed at th
upstream reach of the project and placed at a sixty-degree angle to th
newly created creek channel. The root wads intercept the velocity
the creek during high flows and direct slower moving water to th
lowered floodplain. The project site was planted with hundreds
native plants and will repopulate the disturbed site with riparian plan
that will shade the new creek channel. The ‘after’ picture shows ho
the creek looks after the construction and the last picture shows th
creek during the 2006 New Year Storm.
Burton Bridge Project
This project removed an exist-ing low flow fish barrier (See Bur-
ton before photo). The barrier con-
sisted of an old concrete apron was
part of the previous bridge that
spanned Santa Rosa Creek. Con-
crete aprons were a common engineering practice in days pas
Greenspace was awarded a grant from the Pacific States Marine Fish
eries Commission and administrated through the California Depar
ment of Fish and Game. Again, we partnered with the California Con
servation Corps who did the bulk of the highly labor intensive projec
and the San Luis Obispo Public Works Department who were all to
happy to see the barrier removed. Briefly, the concrete apron was jac
hammered out. Two pneumatic air-compressed jack hammers and ongas driven hammer were used t
break the concrete into pieces tha
were then loaded into five-gallo
buckets (See Burton demolitio
photo). Each bucket was hand-ca
ried out of the creek and deposite
in a huge pile on the Greenspac
Creekside Reserve. The concret
was then mechanically loaded into dump trucks and recycled int
road base. The result is a free-flowing creek that lets fish and othe
aquatic species move freely up and down the creek.
Creek Bank Project - Before
Creek Bank Project - After
2006 New Year Storm
Burton Bridge - Before
Burton Bridge - Demolition
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