Bear Creek Riparian Restoration [ds2816]

The 100,541-acre Bear Creek Watershed, including Ash Creek, is an eastside tributary of the Sacramento River in Shasta County. In 2002 a group of landowners and residents formed the Bear Creek Watershed Group (BCWG) with technical assistance from state and federal agency liaisons and watershed coordination from the Western Shasta Resource Conservation District. The group’s mission is to “seek to promote a sustainable community, both human and biological, within the Bear Creek and Ash Creek watersheds.” The purpose of the BCWG is to:
ƒ
Promote a healthy, diverse resource–based local economy;
ƒ Educate the community about the value of wise watershed management;
ƒ Promote a safer watershed;
ƒ Maintain and enhance the water quality, fisheries, wildlife and wildlife habitat of the watershed;
ƒ Promote the removal of invasive exotic vegetation; and
ƒ Preserve the rural characteristic of the watershed.

The Bear Creek Watershed Assessment and Bear Creek Watershed Management Strategy were completed in 2006 with funds from a CALFED grant.

Bear Creek is a perennial stream that supports fall-run Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), steelhead trout (O. mykiss) and rainbow trout (O. mykiss). Steelhead trout are listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act. Central Valley fall-run Chinook are a candidate for Federal listing. Bear Creek is tributary to the Sacramento River which supports several threatened and endangered runs of salmon including winter-run Chinook and spring-run Chinook in addition to those found in Bear Creek.

On or about August 6, 2003, a penstock broke at the South Fork Bear Creek hydroelectric plant. The penstock break caused a landslide about 500 meters upstream from the power plant. The landslide discharged an unknown amount of sediment into Bear Creek. However an aerial survey conducted on August 8, 2003, showed that the water in Bear Creek was turbid all the way to the Sacramento River. This was a distance of 33,085 meters of measurable deleterious impacts for a period of several days.

In 2007 the BCWG was notified that as a result of the settlement approximately $7,300 could be used for a restoration project in the Bear Creek Watershed. The BCWG was advised that there were no restrictions in the settlement agreement that limited the type of restoration, but since instream resources such as salmonid rearing habitat were affected, the restoration project should benefit resources of the same type and in the same general location if possible. The purpose of this proposal is to outline a riparian restoration project wholly designed and implemented by the BCWG that the review committee will determine is a suitable use of these funds.