R23AC00511

1. Award Purpose - The Floodplain Forward Program is advancing a landscape scale vision of early implementation projects that will improve habitat conditions for fish, birds, and other wildlife and advance actions to aid with their recovery. The recipient, Reclamation District 108 (RD108), will assemble the team necessary to develop and evaluate options, and produce an implementable plan to create wildlife benefits on historic floodplains.

The Floodplain Forward Program will help advance a collection of projects in the Sacramento River Basin, generally grouped in five (5) categories:
- River Connections projects that reconnect rivers to their historical floodplains
- In-River Function projects that enhance, restore, and create in-river function habitat
- Floodplain Flow Corridors projects that improve create flow conveyance infrastructure needed to reactivate floodplains and improve fish passage
- Floodplain Reactivation Fish Food projects that reactivate floodplains, provide fish rearing habitat, and or generate fish food
- Science Data Acquisition efforts that improve the knowledge base through research, experimentation, data collection, and advanced analytics.

2. Activities to be performed -
Objective 1: Technical Assistance
Objective 2: Habitat Restoration
Objective 3: Food for Fish

3. Expected deliverable or outcome - Benefits provided by this financial assistance agreement will include: RD 108 and its sub-recipients developing the technical tools and analyses needed to advance projects which improve floodplain function for multiple purposes through voluntary collaborative partnerships with private landowners, sovereign tribal entities. Assisting with the construction of 112 acres of riparian habitat restoration in the floodplain of the Sacramento River in Colusa County which will provide critical food source and migratory habitat for salmon in the Sacramento River. Developing a better understanding of food web and diet dynamics and their uses by juvenile salmonids. This will aid in better utilized restoration projects pursuant to the Salmon Resiliency Strategy.

4. Intended beneficiary (ies) - The recipient has proposed to Reclamation to develop and evaluate options and produce an implementable plan to create fish and wildlife benefits on historic floodplains. Today, 95 of the California Central Valley's historical floodplains are cut off from the river by levees. Built in the early 1900s to combat devastating floods, levees and bypasses were constructed to corral mighty rivers and push water quickly through the flood control system. Salmon populations started to dramatically decline with the construction of the levees. Simply put, the levees prevented out-migrating juvenile Chinook salmon from accessing floodplains, which are their primary rearing habitat and food source. A multi-year study led by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, Department of Water Resources, Department of Fish and Wildlife, Delta Stewardship Council, and California Trout found that zooplankton (which fish feed on) densities were up to 149 times higher in floodplain bypasses compared to tested sites in the adjacent Sacramento River. Juvenile salmon rearing on the bypasses grew 5 to 12 times faster compared to fish that only ate in the Sacramento River. This rapid growth among juvenile salmon is vital for the salmon's overall health, ability to evade predators, and the strength required for the species to reach the Pacific Ocean for the next phase of their lifecycle. The bigger and stronger they are as juveniles helps improve the chances the salmon come back to the river to spawn as adults.

5. Subrecipient activities -
Objective 2: River Partners
Objective 3: California Trout

Reclamation District 108

15.512 - Central Valley Improvement Act, Title XXXIV

USBR California-Great Basin Region, Sacramento CA (MP) [DOI - USBR]

California United States

State-Wide

R-R-CGB-23-038