Barriers to Fish Passage

• Modify or remove potential barriers such as deltas or boulder and/or debris accumulations that may impede upstream fish passage into tributary streams for spawning.

Flow and Water Quality Improvement Activities:

• Promote near stream conifer growth to reduce solar radiation and to moderate air temperatures along stream corridors. This will reduce heat inputs to Redwood Creek and its tributaries and help to keep water cool.

Erosion and Sediment Delivery Reduction Activities:

• Any reduction of sediment from upstream sources will benefit the lower mainstem Redwood Creek;
• In order to reduce sediment delivery to Redwood Creek and its tributaries RNSP should continue efforts such as road improvements (e.g., upgrading crossings, rocking native surface roads, outsloping, ensuring surface drainage does not flow directly into watercourses, etc.) and decommissioning (e.g., removing unstable fills, removing drainage structures and fills, restoring natural contours, blocking vehicle access, etc.) throughout the Redwood Creek Basin;
• To address accumulations of fine sediments observed in Elam, Bridge, and Forty-four creeks, Sediment sources from eroding stream banks and adjacent hillslopes should be identified and treated.

Riparian and Stream Habitat Improvement Activities:

• Where appropriate, land managers should use tree planting, thinning from below, and other vegetation management techniques to promote the development of large near stream conifers along mainstem Redwood Creek, Bridge Creek or other steam reaches with a low coniferous component in the riparian zone. Thinning to encourage conifer growth should be done with consideration of maintaining adequate shade canopy over stream channels;
• Instream LWD is needed for channel maintenance and shelter complexity;
• Strategically add wood into pools and flatwater units to increase pool depth and overall shelter complexity in Bridge, and Elam, Forty-four creeks and other streams within the subbasin that lack deep complex pools;
• Consider adding shelter complexity with wood to existing cool temperature refuge sites on Redwood Creek, and lower reaches of tributary sites. This could be done even on a temporary basis using small woody debris to provide escape cover for juvenile salmonids during summer season. The cool patches may be located in temperature stratified pools or adjacent to cool water inputs from tributary flows at Bridge Creek or near springs, and seeps.

Education, Research, and Monitoring Activities:

• The range of habitat conditions within the Lower Subbasin provides an opportunity to monitor channel and salmonid habitat recovery rates using habitat improvement treatments within a variety of channel types and conditions;
• Perform stream habitat surveys in tributaries throughout the Lower Subbasin to identify excessive erosion areas, assess salmonid stream habitat, identify deltas or boulder and/or debris accumulations that may impede passage for spawning, and to identify potential sites for improving habitat with restoration techniques;
• Monitoring in-channel sediment by measuring sediment size distribution, turbidity, V*, photo points should be increased; tracking of streambed levels with stream channel cross sections should be continued along the mainstem reach of lower Redwood Creek;
• A long term, concerted monitoring effort between the land owners, interested parties and responsible agencies is needed to determine the status and trends of anadromous fish populations in Lower Subbasin streams;
• Land managers and responsible agencies should increase continuous temperature monitoring efforts along the mainstem and at additional tributary locations to determine the impact of cold-water inputs from tributary and ground water sources;
• Although there were no formal stream reach surveys for LWD; observations of crews and findings regarding pool complexity indicate that there is limited instream LWD. Formal surveys for LWD loadings could be done to verify these observations.