The California State Coastal Conservancy is restoring wetlands at Ocean Ranch along the Eel River with support from a $2 million grant from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Wetlands Restoration Program. The Eel River was once one of the Pacific Coast’s greatest producers of salmon and steelhead. Over the years, extensive human activities have reduced the Eel River Delta. As the estuary shrank, so did populations of salmon and other native species, and carbon sequestration rates. At the same time, non-native species proliferated.
To protect and enhance coastal wetland habitat, the State of California acquired a 2,600-acre property along the Eel River in Humboldt County in 1968 and designated it a Wildlife Area. Ocean Ranch, acquired in 1982, expanded the Wildlife Area by nearly 1,000-acres. This grant funding is supporting a project restoring wetlands at Ocean Ranch which will enhance healthy habitat for fish and wildlife, increase carbon storage, boost resilience to storm events and sea level rise, and support diverse native species.
The California State Coastal Conservancy designed this project to promote natural processes that create tidal marsh. Perimeter levees will be breached and lowered in strategic locations, pilot channels excavated to connect the wetlands to adjacent sloughs; and borrow ditches will be blocked to direct flows and restore hydraulic connectivity, encourage sedimentation, facilitate nutrient transfer, and promote water circulation. Following implementation, the marsh will evolve, and channels will adjust to accommodate the tidal exchange. The submerged habitat will provide a large expansion of aquatic habitat for native salmon and marine species.
“This landscape scale ecosystem restoration project offers so many benefits,” said the California State Coastal Conservancy Project Manager Michael Bowen. “It has been an amazing partnership that has brought this project to fruition,” added Bowen. “We’re particularly grateful for the involvement and input the Wiyot Tribe is providing to the project. The project is occurring on their ancestral territory, and their guidance on interpretation is adding so much value to the project.”
The project was designed to achieve greenhouse gas emission reduction of 5,223 metric tons in carbon dioxide equivalents, remove 90 pounds of nitrous oxides, and 129 pounds of PM 2.5 (small particles that cause serious health problems) while simultaneously providing co-benefits of habitat connectivity, increased wetland capacity to persevere under various environmental conditions including sea level rise, as well as improved community access to coastal and marine resources. The project is located within a disadvantaged community and provides jobs and enhanced socioeconomic benefits to the population. The restoration enjoys extensive and widespread support from many partners and anchors the broader restoration of the Eel River Estuary and Lower Eel River.