The california state coastal conservancy and central coast wetlands group are requesting 1,000,000 to complete phase i of the castroville to the coast project, acquiring 24 acres of property for…

The State Coastal Conservancy was awarded a $1.5 million Project Grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Program to complete Phase I of the Castroville to the Coast Project. Phase I involves acquiring 24 acres of agricultural land along the Salinas Reclamation Ditch and Tembladero Slough floodplain for future restoration. The project aims to provide flood attenuation, sea level rise resilience, water quality improvement, aquatic habitat restoration, and recreation opportunities. Specifically, the funding will be used to engage landowners, draft conservation easements, and acquire the initial 24 acres of property. Upon completion, the project is expected to reestablish floodplain habitat, integrate off-channel wetlands to filter agricultural runoff, and restore wetland and riparian habitat to benefit wildlife in the region.

The california state coastal conservancy and central coast wetlands group are requesting 1,000,000 to complete phase i of the castroville to the coast project, acquiring 24 acres of property for future floodplain restoration. The project will engage with three private agricultural landowners who own the 40 acres necessary to complete the multi phases project, drafting easement language acceptable to all three landowners, and acquire 24 acres from one landowner (ocean mist farms). The remaining 16 acres can be acquired in future project phases. Initial project designs for the full 40 acres project (30 engineering designs) will be completed by the time of grant execution and additional project planning is anticipated to occur concurrently with phase i acquisition. The salinas reclamation ditch tembladero slough was constructed in 1906 to reclaim lakes and flood lands of the lower salinas valley for row crop agriculture at a time when stormwater discharges from urban and agriculture drainage areas were far less than today. In 1998, monterey county water resources agency initiated a study to address recent flooding within the lower salinas valley which was no longer served by the antiquated drainage systems (REC ditch tembladero). The recommendation that resulted from the study was to construct a 13 mile concrete drainage channel from salinas to moss landing harbor. This recommendation catalyzed a multi stakeholder process (cassagrande and watson 2005) to avoid concrete channelization and identify alternative watershed management strategies that could reduce flooding while improving other water resource goals. In 2008, stakeholders established the greater monterey county integrated regional water management (irwm) program, aimed at developing multi benefit water resource projects appropriate for state water bond funding. In 2019, the irwm program developed the storm water resource plan for the greater monterey county irwm region that identified a number of projects aimed at improving five water resource enhancement goals water quality, flood protection, water reuse, aquatic habitat, community benefit. One of the top ranked projects within that plan is the castroville to the coast multi benefit drainage enhancement project (the project). The project aims to provide flood attenuation, sea level rise resiliency, water quality improvement, aquatic habitat restoration, and recreation opportunities which align with and support the goals of the ncwc grant program. The environmental objectives for this project in its entirety are to acquire and restore linear segments of flood prone farm lands along the reclamation ditch tembladero slough totaling 40 acres (figure 2) in order to 1) recreate floodplain habitat which will increase flood resiliency and reduce streambank erosion 2) integrate off channel wetlands to filter water within the gabilan watershed drainage (figure 1) and reduce sediment and nutrient concentrations from adjacent farms 3) restore wetland habitat on the floodplain and in the channel to support bird populations and fish species (steelhead and tidewater goby) 4) integrate floodplain enhancement with in progress development of habitat conservation plan for the salinas river lagoon to enhance connectivity among the fragmented river (salinas lagoon) and estuarine (elkhorn and moro cojo mpas) ecosystems and 5) provide recreational coastal access to the underserved community of castroville.