Earlier today local, state, and federal officials gathered to celebrate the coming completion of the Knights Landing Outfall Gate (KLOG) Fish Barrier project—a $2.5 million project, the first of several in the lower Sacramento Valley to ensure safe salmon passage. In Knights Landing, the flows generated from the very large Colusa Basin Watershed enter the Sacramento River. Under certain conditions, salmon migrating up the Sacramento River to spawn are attracted to these inflows. The project provides a physical barrier that keeps salmon from straying into the Colusa Basin. As a result the salmon continue to swim up the Sacramento River ultimately reaching their spawning grounds near Redding.
This is the type of partnership that will get salmon projects and other similar projects done in the Sacramento Valley. Under this model, the local agency (Reclamation District 108 (RD 108)), is the project lead and its Board of Directors committed to fund the planning, permitting and design; while the construction costs were paid by several agencies including the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Department of Water Resources. In my view, the combined effort has led to an incredibly productive partnership, which provided an efficient use of public and private funds to benefit the environment, agricultural water users and public safety for the local community. It’s a project and partnership that we are very proud and which we think will continue to provide a template for further efforts in the Sacramento Valley.
Additionally, the project is one important component of the Sacramento Valley Salmon Recovery Program, a partnership of American Rivers, the Nature Conservancy, California Trout and Northern California Water Association (NCWA). Under this program, we are all working closely with the state and federal agencies in a concerted effort to implement on-the-ground projects to improve salmon in the Sacramento Valley.
Today was a great milestone in advancing this important project—we now have more work ahead…..we look forward to working with all our partners…..
