Mattole Watershed Plan 2.0 TAC Presentation, November 13 th , 2008

1. Mattole Watershed Plan 2.0 TAC Presentation, November 13th, 2008 • An Opportunity to Provide Input on Strategies, Milestones, and Plan Gaps • Priority Issues andWhat is Missing? • Grasslands • Fire • Fisheries • Riparian Ecosystem Restoration • Water Management • Prioritization

2. Priority Issues Watershed Plan 2.0 structured around 9 “Priority Issues” that address – • Sedimentation and temperature increases, as well as potential increases in nutrients, pesticides, and fuel run-off • Decreasing per capita water supplies • Threatened salmonid populations • Invasive species • Tightly stocked second growth forests • Human population growth • Global climate change • Catastrophic, stand replacing wildfire • The lack of community involvement and participation

3. What Are We Missing? • Areas that we do not address? • What information or knowledge about the watershed conditions are we lacking? • What further research might we do to inform our actions?

4. Grassland Restoration Strategies • Prevent the introduction and/or spread of invasive species • Increase the abundance and diversity of native species through revegetation and vegetation management • Encourage habitat enhancement and preservation for rare and sensitive species • Conduct workshops/events and provide information on current conditions in the watershed. • Help to implement appropriate best management practices for resource conservation and land stewardship.

5. Grassland Restoration Strategies • Provide resources and programs to local landowners that encourage good stewardship while providing economic benefits. • Maintain agricultural/ranch productivity by promoting sound resource use throughout the watershed. • Identify priority areas for acquisition or conservation easements • Prevent further fragmentation of forests and other important habitat assemblages by promoting ecologically sound land management and working to reduce subdivision pressures • Continue fuel reduction projects throughout the watershed in high priority areas

6. Fire Strategies • Develop the organizational capacity to use fire as a land management tool • Increase the abundance and diversity of native species through revegetation and management and encourage habitat enhancement and preservation of habitat for rare and sensitive species. • Protect human structures and property by creating shaded fuels breaks and defensible space around homes and communities • Continue fuel reduction projects throughout the watershed, first in high priority areas, but also in lower priority areas where land owners are engaged and fuel levels are high

7. Fire Strategies • Support the use of prescribed fire where appropriate and consistent with the MRC Fire Policy • Work cooperatively with existing fire agencies, volunteer departments, councils and groups to plan and carry out controlled burns on both private and public lands and work towards a pervasive understanding of fire ecology • Increase the MRRP’s knowledge of the long-term (2-10 years) effectiveness of fuel reduction projects and their effects in different forest types

8. Fisheries Strategies • Strategy -- Identify limiting factors on stream conditions • High temperature, • Low water and summer flows, • Deficient cover and lack of complex habitat, • Sediment (turbidity, embeddedness, sediment transport, pool depth, and channel aggradation), • Specific critical habitat reaches, • Dissolved oxygen effects (headwaters and estuary/lagoon), • Critical cold water inputs and reaches, • Status of indicator aquatic macroinvertebrates, • Concentrations of toxins, nutrients, and fuel in the watershed • Presence and threat of invasive aquatic species

9. Fisheries Strategies • Strategy -- Reduce the impact of limiting factors on salmonids • Increase the number of large wood structures and percentage of riparian cover • Maintain cold water inputs to the mainstem • Maintain and increase access to spawning and rearing habitat, specifically cold water tributaries • Reduce sediment inputs • Improve estuarine conditions • Increase summer flows • If invasive species, pesticides, nutrients, and toxins are found to be a problem, implement education, eradication, and reduction programs • Rear salmonids over summer when rescue operations become necessary • Rear Chinook salmon over summer when estuary water quality conditions are poor • Increase important juvenile over-wintering floodplain habitat

10. Fisheries Strategies • Strategy -- Create a long-term monitoring program to measure trends in water quality, water quantity, and salmonid population response • Measure salmonid population abundance and growth • Measure spatial structure and diversity of species, as well as specific life-history strategies for each population • Measure specific limiting factors on an annual basis and identify main limiting factors for each life history stage for each species

11. Riparian Ecosystem Restoration • Priority Issue 1 • Sedimentation and temperature increases, as well as potential increases in nutrients, pesticides, and fuel run-off from expanding home sites and new residential development, will continue to impact the water quality and recognized beneficial uses of the Mattole River. • Riparian Sub-issues • A lack of canopy cover in stream reaches contributes to elevated water temperatures • Streamside landslides and bank erosion are significant sources of sediment in some Mattole streams, adversely affecting salmonid habitat

12. R.E.R • Priority Issue 3)   Existing salmonid populations are threatened by decreased habitat quality and severely diminished overall numbers, weakening their ability to respond to negative changes in habitat quality and ecological processes. • Riparian Sub-issues: • Historic land use and stream cleaning has resulted in a lack of instream wood, leading to reduced stream channel complexity, and reduced quality of winter and summer rearing habitat, especially important for juvenile coho salmon

13. R.E.R • Priority Issue 5) Current forest composition in the watershed is dominated by tightly stocked second growth Douglas fir and mixed hardwood forest • Riparian Sub-issues: • Tree size and species composition of most riparian forests is poor for recruitment of instream large wood, leading to a long-term gap in wood recruitment • In some heavily impaired streams site conditions are unsuitable for natural regeneration of riparian trees.

14. R.E.R Strategies • Successional Revegetation • Riparian Conifer Enhancement • Post-Thinning In-stream Wood Structures • Bank and Landslide Stabilization Using Bioengineering

15. Prioritization • Past Mattole Project Prioritization Approaches • 1992 Approach: A. Number of species of salmonids in the stream B. Degree of sediment production C. Number of projects planned or completed in the area D. Perceived need for data E. Access and public involvement

16. Prioritization • Riparian Ecosystem Restoration method from WP 1.0 • Salmonid presence (numerically based on number of species), • NCWAP refugia status (1-3, low-high), • Water temperature (higher ranking to streams with high water temps but high habitat potential, lowest ranking for streams with temps <64 F), • Riparian canopy cover and % coniferous canopy cover (highest priority to lowest cover ratings), • GRCC project activity.

17. Prioritization • Other Approaches By Species Geographically by habitat quality By Threat Projected response time Likelihood of positive response/chance of project success Longevity Treat cause or symptom of degradation Social and economic factors Information needs

18. Prioritization • Proposed Criteria for WP 2.0 • Does the project directly address known limiting factors for Coho or Chinook, in otherwise good habitat (such as Thompson Creek) or critical habitat (the estuary – its not good, but its critical). • Does the project improve marginal or potential habitat (few or no recent sightings) for Coho or Chinook (increasing instream wood in a stream such as Eubanks…) 3. How quickly will the projected positive responses be seen from the project (water storage tanks – quickly, riparian thinning – not so quickly) 4. How long-lasting will the positive effects of the project be? To what degree is it self-sustaining

19. Prioritization 5. How certain are we that the project will do what we want it to do? What is the chance of a successful outcome? (water bars – high, instream work - less high) 6. Does the project have the support of landowners and area residents? Is it considered important by residents? In many cases, if access is granted from one land owner, neighboring land owners will follow suit once they feel comfortable with the process and the projects. 7. Will the project contribute to priority issues 9 and 10? Does it empower and involve community members? 8. Will the project meet a number of priority goals for the sub basin (e.g will bank stabilization and/ or plantings help to improve cover as well as reduce sediment inputs?) 9. Has other work been done in this sub basin? Are there conservation easements or other land use restrictions that would leverage the benefits of the project?