SCH Number 2019049033

Project Info

Title

Dry Meadow Restoration Project

Description

The Dry Meadow project encompasses a 65-acre complex of meadows in the headwaters of Bull Run Creek, tributary to the North Fork Kern River located approximately 8 air miles northwest of Kernville, CA. The goal of the project is to improve the hydrologic connectivity and processes in the meadow complex in order to restore the physical and biological functions of the meadow, including flood flow access to the meadow floodplain, and restoration of the drainage regime, including sheet flow. The proposed project design would restore channel flow to existing remnant channels on the surface of the meadow floodplain by partially plugging the existing incised channels. 26,000 cubic yards of native soil material, cut from slopes on the meadow edge, and within the meadow itself, would be used to construct 19 gully plugs (4.84 acres). The base elevation of the restored channels would be anchored with a 0. 17-acre grade control at the bottom of the meadow, using 1,000 cubic yards of imported rock. The design would result in 8.34 acres of ponded water in the 17 meadow borrow sites, which would seasonally rise and fall with groundwater elevations. Plug surfaces are ripped to a depth of 12 inches, and topped with stockpiled topsoil, and then seeded with natives and mulched. All native vegetation recovered from the fill and borrow sites is transplanted to plug edges, surfaces, and key locations on the remnant channel. A temporary fence would be installed around the restoration site to allow vegetation to recover and exclude livestock for two to three years. Alternative 1 includes hand-thinning of conifers (less than 10 inches in diameter) along meadow margins in designated upland areas.

3 documents in project