stream restoration – Page 4

SuzanneJune 25, 2013Waterstream restorationLeave a comment

Sonoma County converting flood control channels to healthy ecoystems

Sean Scully,THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Life in Santa Rosa and surrounding cities is made possible by a vast fortress, the product of more than a century of civil engineering projects that hold at bay the floods that nature is trying to send sweeping across the vast plain of central Sonoma County.

The Sonoma County Water Agency, the inheritor of that enormous but largely invisible system of streams and reservoirs, is now engaged in an epic engineering project of its own: trying to create a healthy, natural-looking ecosystem in the network without unleashing serious flooding in the cities.

via Sonoma County converting flood control channels to healthy ecoystems | PressDemocrat.com.

SuzanneJune 5, 2013WaterCreek Master Plan, stream restorationLeave a comment

Santa Rosa Creek Master Plan community meeting

The City of Santa Rosa’s Creek Stewardship Program will be holding a community meeting on June 12 to make a presentation on a proposed update to the Citywide Creek Master Plan, answer questions and explain the public review process. The update will be heard at the City Council in August 2013.
Community Meeting details:
Meeting Date: Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Location: Finley Community Center – Willow Room
2060 West College Ave, Santa Rosa, CA 95401
Time: 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
If you have any questions or comments on the plan, please contact Erin Morris, Senior Planner, at emorris@srcity.org
Hard copies of the plan are available at City Hall, 100 Santa Rosa Avenue, in:
Room 3 (Community Development) Monday – Thursday: 9:30 AM – 2:30 PM
Room 10 (City Manager’s Office) Monday – Thursday: 7:30 AM – 5:30 PM
Friday (Closed alternating Fridays): 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
A hard copy is also available at the Sonoma County Public Library at the corner of E Street and Third Street.
The plan, maps, and other information is also available on the web at:
http://ci.santa-rosa.ca.us/departments/communitydev/pages/creekmasterplanupdate.aspx

SuzanneMay 11, 2013Land Use, Water, Wildlifenative plants, riparian, stream restoration, streams, tree removalLeave a comment

Sonoma County Updates Stream Protection Zoning

Press Release, County of Sonoma

The Sonoma County Permit and Resource Management Department announced it will hold an informational public workshop in Santa Rosa to seek input on proposed amendments to the Zoning Code to incorporate existing General Plan policies. Stream setbacks were established in the adopted Area and Specific Plans and in the General Plan 2020. Zoning code changes will not result in any new setbacks, not previously adopted.

What: Informational Public Workshop to seek input on proposed amendments to the Zoning Code to incorporate existing General Plan Policies

When: Wednesday, May 22, 20134:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Where: Sonoma County Permit and Resource Management Department
2550 Ventura Avenue, Santa Rosa CA 95403

Zoning requirements for properties with streams will be amended to be consistent with the Sonoma County General Plan 2020, any applicable Area Plan and the County’s existing Building and Grading ordinances.

via Sonoma County Updates Stream Protection Zoning For Consistency with General Plan 2020 | Press Releases | County of Sonoma.

SuzanneJanuary 20, 2013Water, Wildlifeendangered species, fisheries, Russian River, salmon, stream restorationLeave a comment

Projects to restore fish habitat get $2 million federal boost

Brett Wilkison, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Projects by private landowners to boost salmon and other fish populations in North Coast streams are set to receive an additional $2 million this year from an arm of the federal government.
Federal and local officials on Friday announced the commitment of new grant money for six major river basins stretching from Sonoma County — and including the Russian River — to Eureka, in Humboldt County.
Development, dams, logging and water diversions for farms and cities have harmed the region’s once-bountiful salmon and steelhead runs, with several species now listed as endangered or threatened.
via Projects to restore fish habitat get $2 million federal boost | PressDemocrat.com.

SuzanneJanuary 20, 2013Water, Wildlifeendangered species, fisheries, salmon, stream restorationLeave a comment

Dutch Bill Creek Fish Habitat Restoration Funding

Vesta Copestakes, SONOMA COUNTY GAZETTE
Natural Resources Conservation Service NRCS in California and the Gold Ridge and Sotoyome Resource Conservation Districts have teamed up with a number of local government agencies, nonprofit groups, agribusinesses and landowners to improve fish habitat in five northern California watersheds. The goal is to increase salmonid populations while also sustaining productive agricultural operations. California is one of three western states included in this program.
James Gore, NRCS Assistant Chief from Washington, D.C., attended a special event in Camp Meeker to provide information on the programs during a walking tour of the Dutch Bill Creek restoration project that has been in process since 2009. This work included removing an old fish barrier dam, constructing a new pedestrian bridge, installing rock wiers for fish migration, and other stream and habitat restoration efforts.
via Dutch Bill Creek Fish Habitat Restoration Funding.

SuzanneFebruary 11, 2011Agriculture/Food System, Land Use, Waterstream restoration, wine industryLeave a comment

When They Came For The Navarro

Will Parrish, ANDERSON VALLEY ADVERTISER

The North Coast wine industry has long acted out a pathological conviction that it is entitled to virtually every single drop of water in every watershed it touches. As in the case of Sonoma County’s recent frost protection ordinance, which I detailed in the December 14 Anderson Valley Advertiser, the industry routinely rises up as one — along with their local government allies — to quash any restrictions on its ability to draw water with accustomed impunity, though that particular ordinance is now threatened by disagreements, it seems, about the degree of non-regulation the big corporate growers find acceptable. Yet, there are few industries more in need of restrictions on their water use.

In the past 20 years, the North Coast’s alcohol farmers have dried up countless creeks and streams, while choking off rivers and filling in their spawning pools with monumental amounts of sediment (entire hillsides worth). They have, moreover, poisoned what water remains with the full menu of chemical fertilizers, soil fumigants, growth hormones, herbicides, defoliants, fungicides, pesticides, and systemic poisons most growers use to ensure the bounty and sterility of their crops.

via When They Came For The Navarro | Anderson Valley Advertiser.

SuzanneNovember 25, 2010Agriculture/Food System, Land Use, Waterstream restoration, vineyards, wine industryLeave a comment

Booze, A Banker & A Bailout: The Murder Of Mark West Creek

Will Parrish, ANDERSON VALLEY ADVERTISER

As the Director of Merchant Banking at America’s most politically well-connected investment firm, Goldman Sachs, Henry L. Cornell is accustomed to reaping the benefits of political oligarchy. (Webster definition: “a government in which a small group exercises control, especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.”) His company exerts a profound influence in the corridors of both national and global power, not only by shaping legislation to the benefit of the interlocking financial, real estate, and investment industries, but by helping set the rules under which policy battles are waged in the first place. The multi-trillion dollar 2008 bailout of the banking industry, authored by then-Treasury Secretary and former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson, is only the most famous example.

As with the US in general, the County of Sonoma is controlled by a disproportionately small group of people. On the whole, their purposes are selfish and corrupt. Whereas the political oligarchy that calls the shots nationally consists mainly of representatives of the financial, real estate, hydrocarbon, military-industrial, and agribusiness sectors, the oligarchs who set the overall agenda at 575 Administration Drive, Santa Rosa, are primarily representatives of a single business: wine.

via Booze, A Banker & A Bailout: The Murder Of Mark West Creek | Anderson Valley Advertiser.

Environmental Center of Sonoma County

Tag: stream restoration