April 15, 2009
Since 2004, Sanctuary Forest has been working on several fronts in an integrated approach toward the goal of restoring healthy summertime flows to the Mattole River headwaters. Here we offer an overview of where our work so far has brought us, and what we see as the essential next steps in implementing an effective long-range solution to the low-flow crisis.
Water Storage and Forbearance
To date, the core of our work in this area has been an innovative program of providing large-capacity water tanks to landowners in exchange for their promise to forbear from pumping water in the dry season.
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In 2009, another six tanks (300,000 gallons) will be installed through five more landowner agreements.
An estimated seventeen additional landowners in the headwaters have independently installed large-capacity storage and stopped withdrawing water in the dry season.
This means that by the end of 2009, we expect at least twenty-six households--20% of an estimated 128 headwaters households--to be "off the river" and using only stored water through the dry season.
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One of these, the Whitethorn Junction reach, represents an inspiring success story and a sign of how a neighborhood can organize itself to make big changes over a short time. In 2002, residents of this area were some of the first to sound the alarm about the dire low-flow problems in their river reach, and to call on Sanctuary Forest, Mattole Salmon Group, and Mattole Restoration Council for financial and technical assistance to address the problem. Over the past seven years, this neighborhood has largely achieved its goal of ending pumping during the low-flow season. Today 85% of these households are in the process of developing storage and forbearing from dry-season pumping, with more than half in the Sanctuary Forest forbearance program. These participants include families, small farms, and a business.
Monitoring Stream Flows and Groundwater
Our monitoring of stream flows in the Mattole mainstem began in 2004, when it became clear that any solutions to the low-flow crisis need to be based on systematic data about the precise pattern and timing of flows in the headwaters. In 2006 we added regular monitoring of flows in fifteen headwaters creeks to our five monitoring sites on the mainstem. And in 2007, we began monitoring groundwater levels at six monitoring wells we installed and seven other preexisting wells in the headwaters. This program was added because our initial research had indicated that there is a close relationship between groundwater levels and stream flows in the Mattole headwaters, and that new projects designed to recharge the groundwater supply would probably be necessary in order to have a sufficient effect on restoring summertime flows.
Both of these monitoring programs have depended heavily on community members, who have not only volunteered in many monitoring tasks, but have also given us access on private lands to install monitoring equipment and test wells.
Some Key Lessons Learned
The minimum flow required to keep pools connected in the mainstem is 90 gallons per minute at MS6 (Bridge Creek); below this threshold, parts of the mainstem break up, and fish start dying.
Human water use takes between 20% and 100% of stream flows (depending on the severity of the dry season) when flows reach their lowest point each year.
Tributaries on the west side of the Mattole headwaters contribute significantly more water to the mainstem than do east-side tributaries, especially during the driest part of the year.
East-side tributaries stop flowing much earlier in the dry season than either west-side streams or the mainstem, which means that residents there will need to plan for more storage and a longer no-pump season. We estimate that the no-pump season for east-side streams will be at least six weeks longer than for the mainstem, resulting in the need to store water for 5 months instead of 3.5 months (approximately 1.4 times as much storage).
Groundwater levels decrease gradually over the dry season and correspond with decreases in stream flows.
Most soils in the headwaters never reach full saturation even in wet winter conditions, indicating that there is additional capacity for groundwater storage.
Water User Education
From the start, our work on restoring flows has been part of a broad-based community effort, which means that generating wider awareness of the problem and the potential solutions has always been an essential ingredient of success. Increasingly we are also providing technical assistance to landowners who are independently improving their water storage, on topics ranging from permits to water storage system design and fish screens.
Our water education work includes the following:
* Since 2006, a prominent sign at Whitethorn Junction informs the headwaters community of the current river flow throughout each dry season, and tells people when we've reached the critical no-pump stage. The main impetus for and maintenance of this sign has come from a concerned local resident.
* Low-flow updates throughout the summer via radio, newspaper, and our website keep the broader community informed about the condition of the Mattole River and its salmon population.
* Three special publications in 2007 and 2008 provided distilled technical information on such subjects as fish-friendly pumping and storage, permitting requirements, and legal tools for water conservation.
* We've organized two community meetings and a conference over the past three years to share monitoring results, discuss causes of and potential solutions to the low-flow problem, and receive input from the community.
Improving Public Policy
Water scarcity and impacts to fisheries in California are at crisis levels for many rivers. The agencies with regulatory authority over water, fisheries, and land use are tightening their existing authority and developing new policy to regulate water use and protect fish. While many of these regulations and policies are important and even necessary to protect fisheries, in practice they can often become obstacles to voluntary and collaborative solutions. These agencies do recognize the importance of finding better pathways to water conservation, however, and Sanctuary Forest is now working closely with the California Department of Fish and Game, the State Water Resources Control Board, and Humboldt County authorities to develop conservation variances, programmatic approaches to permitting, and other incentives that will make it easier for willing landowners to take meaningful steps to protect stream flows.
Groundwater Planning
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This document is now nearly complete, and an early version is currently available for public review through the Sanctuary Forest website. The complete draft plan will be submitted this spring to Humboldt County, which will initiate a formal public review process before deciding whether to approve the plan.
Looking Ahead: A Vision of the Future
In 2008 we experienced the worst low-flow year in the 59-year record of the Petrolia stream-flow gauge. The dry season started several weeks early, and we saw mainstem reaches and tributaries dry up that no one could recall drying up before--including reaches with no human use. This caused hardship for many people in our community, and there is reason to fear this summer may be as bad, or worse. But the one silver lining of this situation may be that more people have become concerned about water than ever before, which lays the groundwork for achieving collective solutions.
Our monitoring, research, and planning have convinced us that we can meet the goal of restoring summertime flows that are adequate for both people and fish, even in drought years. We have learned that to do so, however, will require both changes in our water use and finding ways to recharge the groundwater supply. It will require all of us working together--local residents, farms and businesses, watershed groups, and regulatory agencies, along with fisheries restoration and water security assistance programs. It will require time, and patience, and some sacrifices. And yes, it will require the rain to fall in the winter.
Our broad vision of what it will take includes storage and forbearance for every family, business, and institution in the Mattole headwaters, so that everyone can store the water they need for their livelihood and domestic use instead of pumping when flows are barely sufficient for fish. We estimate that a hundred families still need large-scale storage, which amounts to five million more gallons of stored water--50,000 gallons per family, enough to last 110 days. Businesses, institutions, and small farms will need an estimated additional 4.4 million gallons in total storage to last 110 days each dry season. This could include a combination of domestic-quality water stored in tanks and industrial/agricultural-quality water stored in water bags and/or off-stream ponds for irrigation, fire, and roadwork.
The long-term vision also includes approximately a hundred recharge projects to sink and store some of the winter rain in the ground and augment summer flows. These groundwater recharge projects will be distributed throughout the headwaters, augmenting flows in all fish-bearing tributaries and the mainstem. The goal is to build enough of these projects to generate September flows of at least 20 gpm in each low-gradient fish-bearing stream and 450 gpm in the Mattole mainstem.
We envision at least four different kinds of recharge projects being necessary: off-stream ponds and wetlands located in low alluvial flats; instream ponds located in low-gradient reaches upstream of fish habitat; infiltration swales (small check dams) located high in the tributaries; and infiltration areas (shallow basins or drain fields) located on alluvial flats or on ridgetops.
We believe that this community can and will rise to the occasion to solve the low-flow crisis. We hope you will join with us in improving our vision, by providing input into what the solutions may be and how to engage our community. We look forward to working with you to bring it about.
For more information: www.sanctuaryforest.org
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