Lower American River Sunrise Side Channel Project

Lower American River Sunrise Side Channel Project

The project applicant is planning to modify a side channel of the American River to increase the frequency of inundation and subsequent steelhead reproduction and rearing. The project site is about 3.5 miles downstream of Nimbus Dam, just below Sunrise Boulevard Bridge. Approximately 1,200 linear feet of the side channel will be re-contoured. No material will be imported or exported from the site. All excavated material will be used on-site to fill in existing holes and depressions throughout other areas of the point bar that currently have the potential to result in fish stranding. Equipment will access the site using an existing maintenance road and trail, and construction staging will take place outside of the ordinary high water mark in an area covered with ruderal vegetation adjacent to an existing turf area. Invasive and other nonnative plant species will be removed from the grading area and disposed off site. After grading of the side channel banks, the area will be planted with native riparian scrub vegetation to provide cover habitat and refugia for fry and juvenile fish.