The lower feather river (LFR) has been identified as a priority area for salmon and steelhead habitat restoration under the cvpia near-term restoration strategy

This $245,857 federal Project Grant award from the Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service (CFDA 15.648 - Central Valley Project Improvement Act) aims to enhance juvenile salmonid habitat in the Lower Feather River in California. The grant will fund a study to integrate data from existing rotary screw trap monitoring to identify locations for increasing side and off-channel habitats to provide refugia and feeding areas for emigrating Chinook salmon and steelhead. The project builds upon previous habitat restoration planning in the Lower Sutter Bypass and ongoing side channel restoration work in the Lower Feather River, with the goal of improving survivorship of salmonid outmigrants. The award was granted to the non-profit organization River Partners, which specializes in ecological restoration and habitat conservation projects.

River partners and flowwest understand the importance of increasing survivorship of feather river juvenile salmonids on their outmigration. Most feather river chinook salmon and steelhead emigrate before smolting, and IT is important for these juveniles to have refugia habitats for protection from predators, as well as habitat areas to feed before their long journey to the pacific ocean. The california department of water resources (DWR) currently operates multiple eight-foot rotary screw traps (rsts) in both the low flow channel (LFC) and high flow channel (HFC) of the upper 21.5 river miles of the lower feather river. The LFC extends from the fish barrier DAM at river mile (RM) 67.2 to the thermalito outlet (RM 59). The HFC extends from the thermalito outlet to the confluence with the sacramento river. This survey has been ongoing since 1997 with the objective of documenting general salmonid emigration attributes, such as timing, abundance and composition of salmon and investigating the influence of environmental factors thought to initiate emigration, such as flow, turbidity and water temperature. This proposal will integrate this data into this effort to find locations that increase side and off-channel habitats for juvenile salmonids in the LFR.flowwest was involved in the cvpia SIT process that recommended increasing access for juveniles to rearing habitat in the LFR and the sutter bypass. This was part of the motivation for developing the study and lfrsc project with river partners. Ideally, the lfrsc project is envisioned to connect side channel habitat from feather river mile 14.5, down through the nelson slough unit, through to the sutter bypass. Moreover, this study builds upon one of the cdfw requests during the river partners led lower sutter bypass anadromous fish habitat restoration planning project, which is performing additional analysis to determine whether connection between the feather river and sutter bypass through the nelson slough is a good investment. Our team is aware of several important constraints that exist which must be properly evaluated before such a reconnection project can be implemented. That evaluation is the goal and need of the study and dovetails perfectly with the previous study in the lower sutter bypass and the ongoing side channel restoration work we are doing on the current lfrsc project.