ESA is pleased to sponsor, present, and attend this year’s 41st Annual Salmonid Restoration Conference in Santa Rosa, California from March 26 – 29, hosted by the Salmonid Restoration Federation. ESA will lead guided tours of salmonid habitat restoration projects along the Napa River, Dry Creek, and the Lagunitas Watershed. Don’t miss our experts at our scheduled workshops and technical sessions, where we will share about our work leading collaborative project design and implementation, and successful tribal engagement.
ESA’s team of hydrology, biology, and restoration design specialists will be attending the conference this year and we look forward to connecting with you.
Paul Bergman
Jorgen Blomberg, MLA
Stephanie Clarke, EIT
Eric Ginney
Robin Hoffman
Michael Strom
We’ll be presenting at the following events, workshops, and technical sessions:
GUIDED TOURS
Napa River Restoration: Mid-Upper Napa River Field Tour
Wednesday, March 27 | 9am – 5pm
Tour guide: Jorgen Blomberg
Jorgen will be leading a tour of the Napa River Restoration Project, a 13.5-mile-large-scale river restoration project located in the mid-upper Napa River between St. Helena and Oak Knoll in Napa County. The Project restores spawning and winter/ spring rearing habitat for steelhead and Chinook salmon, and included removal and setback of vineyards; expansion of riparian and channel habitat through channel widening; floodplain, secondary channel, and alcove grading; and addition of large wood and boulder features.
Dry Creek Field Tour: Partnerships in Habitat Enhancement and Monitoring for Salmonid Recovery
Wednesday, March 27 | 9am – 5pm
Tour guide: Michael Strom
Supporting Sonoma Water, Michael will help facilitate an all-day tour of salmonid habitat enhancement projects and monitoring programs on both private and public lands within the Dry Creek Basin. The tour will also highlight enhancement strategies that address salmonid recovery and that provide resilient long-term solutions.
Lagunitas Watershed Tour
Wednesday, March 27 | 9am – 5pm
Tour guide: Stephanie Clarke
Supporting Marin Resource Conservation District and the Marin Water District, Stephanie will help lead a tour discussing how the project enhanced Coho salmon winter habitat over two miles of lower Lagunitas Creek by reconnecting historic secondary channels and installing large wood structures. Issues that will be discussed during this tour include evaluating impacts and benefits to existing habitat, understanding sediment dynamics when attempting stream aggradation, floodplain processes and evolution, revegetation planning, and working successfully with partner agencies.
WORKSHOPS AND SESSIONS
Community Outreach, Collaboration Tools, and Tribal Engagement Workshop
Tuesday, March 26 | Afternoon Session 1pm – 5pm
Presenters: Robin Hoffman and Jorgen Blomberg
ESA staff will be leading the afternoon session of the workshop, which will focus on providing the regulatory background for tribal consultation, highlighting the benefits of tribal engagement early in project development, providing best practices/processes for tribal engagement, and reviewing multiple case studies that address these issues. The afternoon session will include round-table and panel discussions, as well as presentations, with the aim to provide project proponents, sponsors, and agencies with additional tools to develop and implement approaches to successful tribal engagement and project design/implementation.
Did This Thing Come with Instructions? Exploring Design in Restoration
Friday, March 29 | 9am – 12pm
Presenter: Eric Ginney
Restoration is undergoing a paradigm shift, where embracing natural processes to create and sustain habitat over time has started to replace the immediacy of habitat construction. Process-based restoration and the need to increase the pace and scale are now well-established in theory and application underpinning habitat restoration. Society is demanding a faster pace to salmonid habitat restoration to support recovery, as evidenced by the recent unprecedented flood of restoration funding. This session will examine these factors, and others, and consider approaches to address these challenges including examples of ways to design and construct projects not commonly undertaken today.
POSTER PRESENTATIONS
Design of Riffle-Pool Wood Habitat Structures and Gravel Augmentation on Lagunitas Creek
Thursday, March 28 | 7pm – 10pm
Poster by: Stephanie Clarke, EIT
The Effectiveness of Channel Widening Towards Reversing Incision of the Napa River
Thursday, March 28 | 7pm – 10pm
Poster By: Jason White, PE
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