Butte Creek Restoration Project

Butte Creek Restoration Project

The Butte Creek Restoration Project analyzes a 100-acre area owned and managed by one private landowner. The purpose of the project is to restore the functionality of 100 acres of effected floodplain and stream channels Butte Creek (see Figure-1a). Current conditions along Butte Creek are degraded, resulting in extensive gully networks that have lowered the water tables in the valley meadow, and concurrently changed the plant communities from mesic species to xeric species. This in turn has resulted in a loss of meadow productivity, diminished summer flows, and severe bank erosion. Remnants of the original meadow vegetative community now occur only near springs, hill slope sub-flow zones, and in gully bottoms. The objective here is to return stream flows to the original meadow/channel elevations utilizing the "pond and plug" technique along 1.5 miles of entrenched, eroding stream channels on private land. This, in turn, is expected to reverse the vegetative trend from xeric species and bare, compacted soils to a vigorous community of wet meadow species. The root system of this community, as well as the restored function of the floodplain, is expected to increase absorption rates, thereby attenuating flood flows, and increasing vegetation production and possibly summer pool retention times. The project is collaboration between the private landowner and Pit Resource Conservation District.

Lassen

Cal Fire, California Department of Parks and Recreation, California Department of Transportation, District 2 (DOT), California Highway Patrol, California Native American Heritage Commission (NAHC), California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Central Valley Redding Region 5 (RWQCB), California State Lands Commission (SLC), Department of Fish and Wildlife, Region 6, Department of Water Resources, Office of Historic Preservation, Resources Agency

Recreational (Wetland Restoration)

Habitat Restoration

Biological Resources, Cultural Resources