Butano Creek Floodplain Restoration Project
The Butano Creek Floodplain Restoration Project was a multi-site/multifaceted channel and floodplain connectivity habitat restoration project located on Butano Creek just south of Pescadero in unincorporate San Mateo County CA. Butano Creek is a vital fresh water supply source for local farming and critical salmonid spawning and aquatic species habitat. The project was a partnership between the San Mateo Resource Conservation District (SMRCD) and the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) to reconnect Butano Creek to approximately 100-acres of historic floodplain disconnected from decades of channel simplification, erosion, and significant incision.
The project goals consisted of improving the salmonid passage, spawning, rearing and refugia habitat, reach stability and habitat complexity, and reconnecting Butano Creek to its historic floodplain allowing high flows to spread out and loose velocity. This approach was intended to promote floodplain function and improve water quality that has historically been impaired from erosion and sedimentation resulting in lower Total Maximum Daily Loading (TMDL).
Hanford worked in unison with the project design consultant cbec eco engineering implementing the design through a field fit process. Butano Creek was active and bypassed through a diversion and dewatering system for the duration of the project. Implementation consisted of multiple features over several sites including; construction of engineered log jams (ELJ), pilot channel excavation for channel breakout and floodplain connectivity, natural in-channel weir features to promote channel aggradation and prevent incision, install roughen channel and bank features to provide geomorphic stabilization and enhance habitat, recruitment and relocation/transplanting of living bank side alder trees, and riparian revegetation of plantings, floodplain roughness features, and in-channel habitat features.