SCH Number 2023030775

Project Info

Title

Butano Creek Backfield Floodplain and Streamflow Enhancement Project

Description

The San Mateo Resource Conservation District designed this Project to benefit Central California Coast coho salmon, Central California Coast steelhead trout, California red-legged frog, San Francisco garter snake, and other native species as well as implement recommendations from the Pescadero-Butano Sediment TMDL. The Project includes floodplain reconnection, improved channel complexity, and instream low enhancement components, all of which will have direct and indirect benefits to instream and adjacent floodplain and terrestrial habitats. The Project will create 4.2 acres of stage zero floodplain by lowering the current floodplain surface by as much as several feet, allowing the stream to access the lowered floodplain during winter baseflow conditions. The Project will place 15 to 20 habitat structures (roughness elements) within the newly created floodplain surface and adds in-channel habitat features, including one engineered logjam and several post-assisted log structures/living riffles to improve complexity and arrest incision. The Project will also increase dry-season (June-October) flows in Butano Creek by expanding an existing off-channel storage pond from 3.5 to 14 acre-feet, and establishing a forbearance agreement.

2 documents in project