Dry Creek Habitat Enhancement, Phase III Part 3
The Dry Creek Habitat Enhancement, Phase III Part 3 restoration project was a multi-site/multifaceted channel and habitat restoration project located on Dry Creek just northwest of Healdsburg in unincorporate Sonoma County CA. Dry Creek is a tributary to the Russian River and a vital spawning and rearing location for salmonid. As determined and required in the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) 2008 Russian River Biological Opinion, six miles of spawning, rearing, and refugia habitat are to be constructed along the 14-mile Dry Creek reach for Coho salmon and steelhead trout. The project was a partnership between the Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) and several private landowners on both banks of the creek. Three of the six phases have now been completed with phases four through six scheduled to be constructed by the end of 2024.
The project goals consisted of improving the salmonid spawning, rearing and refugia habitat, reach stability and habitat complexity, and allowing high flows to primarily remain within the Dry Creek channel while overflow and low velocity flows inundate side channels and alcoves. This approach was intended to provide salmonid refugia while also providing flood protection and floodplain function.
Hanford worked in unison with the project design consultant Environmental Science Associates (ESA) implementing the design through a field fit process. Dry Creek was active and bypassed through a complex 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) and large woody debris (LWD) structures, excavation of over 2,400 liner feet of side channels and backwater alcoves, channel bed and bank stabilization features, grade control, boulder field, and riffle features, inset floodplain creation, and riparian revegetation of plantings, floodplain roughness features, and in-channel habitat features.