2008 Conference Workshops
Wednesday March 5, Workshops 
Fins and Zins Workshop and Tour, Workshop Coordinator: Kent Reeves Yolo County Department of Parks & Natural Resources Within the agriculture industry, California winegrape growers are considered leaders in the sustainable farming arena. However, how does one implement sustainable farming in their own vineyard? The classroom portion of the workshop will address the challenges of sustainable winegrowing, which are: 1) Defining sustainability; 2) Implementing sustainable winegrowing practices in the vineyard; 3) Measuring progress at the individual vineyard level; and 4) Certifying growers who meet specific standards under the LODI Rules! Certification Program. Examples of sustainable winegrape growing adjacent to riparian areas will be discussed. Presentations: Biodiversity and Agriculture , Jo Ann Baumgartner, Wild Farm Alliance Fins and Zins afternoon field tour: Following the morning classroom session we will visit three vineyards and a walnut orchard where riparian restoration, Integrated Pest Management, hedgerow planting for insectaries and other sustainable practices will be viewed and discussed. The day will end at the Lodi Wine and Visitor's Center with wine tasting from Lodi vineyards that are implementing land management that benefits fish and wildlife, and are certified through the LODI Rules! for Sustainable Winegrowing Program. Non-native Invasive Species: Preventing, Detecting, Monitoring & Managing, Workshop Coordinators: Kim Webb and Louanne McMartin, Fish and Wildlife Service The workshop will highlight practical information on control, prevention, and eradication of non-native invasive species (NIS), NIS management tools, resource materials to improve effectiveness in the field, training of HACCP planning for natural resource management, and provide networking opportunities with practitioners, researchers and government officials. Streamlining the Regulatory Process for Non-native Invasive Species Removal in Riparian Areas , Ajay Singh, Stony Creek Watershed Coordinator/Conservation Planner, Glenn County Resource Conservation District Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) as a Planning Tool that Identifies and Evaluates Potential Risks for Introducing Invasive Species , Jonathan Thompson, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Troubled Waters: Biological Invasions of our Water Systems , Kim Webb, US Fish and Wildlife Guidance on Minimizing Spread of Aquatic Invasive Species when Implementing Fish Passage Projects , Dave Hu, Habitat Restoration Coordinator, US Fish and Wildlife ServiceSuccessful Techniques for Removing and Controlling Invasive Specie s, Dan Efseaff, Restoration Ecologist and Christiana Conser, Restoration Biologist, River Partners
Habitat Restoration and Monitoring Projects on the Stanislaus River, Tour Coordinators: JD Wikert and Carl Mesick, Anadromous Fisheries Restoration Program, US Fish and Wildlife Service; Tim Heyne, Jason Guinard, and Fred Jurick, CA Dept of Fish and Game; and Jesse Anderson, Cramer Fish Sciences The tour will visit restoration and monitoring sites on the Stanislaus River including the Lover's Leap site that created 25 riffles and used large boulders and woody debris to create side-channel habitat and a lower floodplain bench. Participants will see the Knight's Ferry site to view ongoing gravel restoration and the potential floodplain restoration project and discuss the basin temperature monitoring/modeling project, escapement surveys, habitat modeling, and the weir. Mokelumne River Watershed Education Tour
Thursday, March 6, 2008 Fish Passage and Protection Workshop, Coordinators: Michael Love, Michael Love & Associates and Steven Allen, Winzler & Kelly 
Providing upstream fish passage and downstream fish protection on flow-regulated rivers and streams is technically challenging. For upstream passage various types of fishways are often used, and screening of water diversions is a common means of protecting juvenile salmonids from injury, stranding, and predation as they migrate downstream. Both fishways and fish screens are based on a hydraulic design approach, which must consider the hydraulic environment, sediment and debris loading, the swimming abilities and behavioral characteristics of the target fish, and the potential for increasing predation or poaching opportunities. Additionally, site and cost constraints frequently makes it infeasible to satisfy all existing design criteria over the entire design flow range. In these conditions the objective often becomes one of maximizing the range of flows that passage or protection can be provided. With all of these considerations, there is a substantial amount of uncertainty concerning the anticipated performance of a particular fish passage or protection project once it is constructed. Given that these types of projects are generally costly to implement, it is critical that we examine and learn from previous projects to maximize the potential for success. In this session speakers will present recently completed fish passage and protection projects on rivers and larger streams, with a focus on project design, implementation, and lessons learned. Presentations will also emphasize the various elements that were, or should have been, considered in the project design phases. Evaluating Suitability of Fish Passage Design Alternatives for the BART Weir, Alameda Creek. Kozmo Ken Bates Developing Fish Resting Pools for a Concrete Flood Control Channel on Corte Madera Creek, Marin County. Michael Love, Michael Love & Associates Hydraulic Modeling and Evaluation of Fish Passage at Rock Vortex Weirs. Denis Ruttenberg, Prunuske Chatham, Inc Design and Maintenance Considerations of Various Fish Screening Methodologies, a Historical Perspective. David Nichols, Northwest Environmental Services Fish Screen Design Examples of Several Installed Diversion Structures Mark Wharry, SJO Consulting Engineers/Winzler & Kelly Fish Passage and Screening Design Interplay, Hydraulic Design Challenges of Irrigation District Diversions. Steven Allen, Winzler & Kelly Afternoon Training: Using the FishXing 3.0 Software to design stream crossings for fish passage. If possible, bring a lap-top loaded with the software.  The lower Mokelumne River supports populations of naturally reproducing fall-run Chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead. The mitigation fish hatchery on site rears both species to mitigate for loss of spawning habitat associated with the construction of Camanche Dam. Participants will visit the hatchery facility and see how hatchery production plays a role in regulated river management. Wild population management is accomplished through a variety of projects aimed at increasing both spawning and rearing habitat for salmonids. We will visit a gravel restoration site aimed at increasing spawning habitat, and floodplain inundation potential. Participants will visit two engineered side channels designed to provide juvenile rearing habitat. Monitoring of wild fish populations' response to these on ground efforts is critical to evaluation of success and failure of projects. We will visit a juvenile migration monitoring station and discuss various aspects of fisheries monitoring on the river. Restoring Seasonal Floodplain Workshop and afternoon Cosumnes River Preserve Tour, Workshop Coordinator: Joshua Viers, 
Floodplains are among the most productive and diverse ecosystems on Earth and are now being recognized globally for the ecosystem services they provide; however, they are also one the more impacted ecosystems globally and are at risk of further degradation by a fusillade of anthropogenic stressors and consumptive demands. Natural floodplain ecosystems are a product of, and adapted to, highly variable hydrologic regimes - typified by droughts, catastrophic floods, and frequent periods of inundation - expressed across seasonal, yearly, and decadal dimensions. This hydrologic variability acts to reset various biotic populations within aquatic, riparian, and wetland ecosystems through disturbance, acting as an essential ecological process in maintaining complex ecosystem pathways. Multipath ecological relationships, expressed as trophic food webs or transition states, promote high biodiversity and biological integrity. In floodplain ecosystems, these ecological relationships are underpinned by the fundamental relationship between floodplains and river systems, forming a critical linkage that creates and maintains a mosaic of habitats for groundwater recharge, primary productivity and biogeochemistry, the reproductive cycle of fishes, nesting and foraging of birds, and regeneration of riparian vegetation. In the workshop, we will use the experimental restoration of the Cosumnes River floodplain to examine watershed dynamics and modeling (L Rodriguez), geomorphic response to levee breaches (J Mount), primary production in seasonal flooding regimes (E Grosholz), salmonid reproduction on floodplains (C Jeffres), and riparian vegetation dynamics (J Viers). For the field tour, we'll examine sites of experimental levee breaches, seasonal floodplains, and restored riparian forests located at the Cosumnes River Preserve. We'll be accompanied by botanists and birders for a multidisciplinary excursion. Tuolumne Restoration and Implementation Tour, Field tour coordinator: Scott McBain, McBain and Trush Over the past 10 years, considerable work has been done to rehabilitate physical habitat in the Tuolumne river downstream of the lowermost dams. Restoration efforts have included coarse sediment augmentation, spawning gravel augmentation, floodway expansion, channel reconstruction, gravel mining pit filling, riparian plantings, and fine sediment reduction efforts. Millions of dollars has been spent on these habitat restoration efforts, yet fall-run Chinook salmon escapement continues to decline, resulting in "soul searching" and acknowledgement by many that our restoration strategy may need to be revisited. This field tour will start out with an overview of the fishery flows and overall restoration strategies of the Tuolumne River and will visit several restoration sites where specifics of restoration approach, design, monitoring, and assessment can be discussed as a group. Tour sites will include the SRP 9 gravel pit filling project, the 7/11 floodway restoration project, the LaGrange coarse sediment augmentation project, and the Gasburg Creek fine sediment reduction project. |
2008 ConferenceWild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival
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The City of Lodi is offering a guided tour of Mokelumne River Watershed Education Murals, the Lodi Lake/Mokelumne River Nature Area and the Woodbridge Irrigations District's (WID) facilities. Four educational murals were funded by a CALFED grant and the City of Lodi. A professional artist teamed up with local primary and high school students to create these murals. The Lodi Lake/Mokelumne River Nature Area is a 58 acre reserve with walking trails. View the new WID dam on the Mokelumne River and new fish passage facilities. The tour will be on the City of Lodi's Trolley Car - seating limited to about 40 people.
