Two prominent ESA projects are featured in articles in the latest issue of Estuary News, a 25-year-old regional magazine of the San Francisco Estuary Partnership and its partners.
In Opening the Mouth of Walnut Creek, read about the long and meandering history and promising future of Walnut Creek. It took an Act of Congress in 2014 to open up the possibility of reconfiguring and restoring this 1960s-era flood control channel—just one of the twists along this project’s complicated story. Michelle Orr, PE, ESA’s project director for the restoration design, says our approach is “a new way of doing flood protection and a new approach to baylands restoration that builds in a lot of climate resilience.”
Next up, in one of the very first stories about the planned dam removal project, Rebooting the Klamath digs into the challenges of resetting ecosystem processes and sediment removal as all four dams are removed in succession. The story explores the significant benefits that this project will have in restoring salmonid habitat and passage through a significant section of the Klamath River. Jorgen Blomberg, ESA’s design team director and project manager, working in collaboration with a large, multi-disciplinary team, shared that the goal of the team is “focused on helping the river move as much sediment out during that one season as possible.” Learn more about this approach and why this is so important to the success of the project in the article.
We hope you have a chance to read the stories in full―some good news in the realm of restoration projects. Stay tuned for more updates for these projects on our News & Ideas page at esassoc.com.
