Elkhorn Slough >> In a history-making partnership, Caltrans and the Elkhorn Slough Foundation have come together to permanently protect 167 acres of rare habitat. The exchange marks the first time a state agency has granted property and stewardship funds to a nonprofit in Monterey County, and it sets a precedent across the state.

The collaboration between Caltrans and the Elkhorn Slough Foundation has been 17 years in the making. It finally came to a head on Monday at the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, where representatives from both organizations gathered to officially sign the property over to the foundation and take a leisurely hike through the newly protected lands.

The preserved area, dubbed the Elkhorn Highlands Reserve, is intended to offset environmental impacts from a Highway 101 construction project completed back in 2014. Many diverse species of plants and animals call the habitat home, and rely on its unique characteristics for survival. This includes the federally endangered California tiger salamander. The splotchy amphibian lays its eggs in low-lying wetlands and makes its way to higher, drier woodlands in adulthood.

“Here is this estuary, this place where fresh water comes down and meets the sea, perched at the head of the largest underwater canyon in North America,” said Mark Silberstein, executive director of the Elkhorn Slough Foundation. “There are very few places on Earth where you can find that juxtaposition.”

Caltrans acquired the $4.5 million property back in 2008. At the time, the agency was preparing to renovate a dangerous stretch of Highway 101 through Prunedale known as “blood alley.” The Prunedale Improvement Project made the high-traffic road much safer by removing left-turn traffic onto and off of the stretch, introducing two new interchanges and building an overcrossing at Blackie Road.

“The (Prunedale Improvement Project) was a welcome improvement for the community of Prunedale, and that was years in the making,” said Richard Rosales, Caltrans’ District 5 deputy director of project management.

But highway improvements can come at a cost.

Large-scale construction projects take their toll on the surrounding environment, and it takes major planning to minimize their impact. Before breaking ground on a project, Caltrans must assess its potential environmental effects and make moves to mitigate them, Rosales explained.

“There are always going to be impacts as we improve our transportation infrastructure,” said Silberstein. Drivers need safer roads, but meanwhile, the environment must be conserved, he said. “We somehow have to figure out how to balance this equation.”

In the past, District 5 had few resources to sustain this balancing act, said Rosales. Senate Bill 436, which became law in 2011, was key to striking that equilibrium. It allowed Caltrans to transfer the new land to the Elkhorn Slough Foundation along with an additional $2 million in endowment and additional funds. That money will be put toward the land’s long-term management and restoration.

“We believe we are the first (example) of this kind of partnership in the entire state of California,” said Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo, who was instrumental in passing Senate Bill 436 during his time in the state Assembly. The legislation was passed with the Elkhorn Slough Foundation in mind, he said, and provides an example for similar partnerships in the future.

“They know this area better than anybody, they’ve been doing it for many years already — I always said, nobody’s better than the Elkhorn Slough Foundation to manage this property and other properties in the future,” he said.

Beyond protecting vital ecosystems, Senate Bill 436 should ease the permitting process for highway improvement projects and get them off the ground faster. Alejo once worked at a gas station along “blood alley” and said he witnessed many “tragic deaths” as drivers dared to cross the perilous road. He pressed the importance of continuing to improve California’s infrastructure while keeping the environment intact.

As the first beneficiary of the 2011 legislation, the Elkhorn Slough Foundation now has the means to protect 167 acres of habitat they had long established as high priority.

“That’s key: investing public resources in an already established plan,” said Kevin Contreras, land acquisition and conservation easement manager for the foundation. “They’re really putting gas in our tank, in a way.”

The foundation has already removed 800 tons of refuse from the reserve. Historically, the land had once housed an orchard and an abandoned air strip, as evidenced by lingering agricultural trash and concrete slabs. The next step will be to remove invasive plants like eucalyptus trees and the tufted jubata grass from the property, said Contreras. Down the line, the foundation may excavate the extra sediment hanging around from the reserve’s agricultural past. This might allow the ecosystem to revert back into the wet meadow it likely was, he explained.

But the goal is not to restore the reserve to its “pristine, original state,” Contreras clarified. To preserve the environment, the foundation actually has to disturb it — to an extent. For instance, there is a need to orchestrate controlled burns in the property’s oak woodlands, where invasive trees grow up among corpses of the natives. Maintaining walking trails is also critical to maintaining a variety of plant life.

“Most of the biodiversity is on the edges,” said Contreras. “Maritime chaparral looks a shrubby ocean, and only three (plant) species are dominant there.” But a variety of rarer plants crop up along trails at the ocean’s edges, he said. The federally endangered Yadon’s rein orchid and the federally threatened Monterey spineflower are two examples of interesting native plant species at the reserve.

Walking through the Elkhorn Highlands Reserve, it becomes clear what a unique environment it really is. “We’re going to go from these rocky, chaparral-covered ridgetops to the deep sea in the span of 5 or 6 miles,” said Silberstein. The partnership between Caltrans and the Elkhorn Slough Foundation ensures the land will be preserved for generations to come, he said.

“This land is protected forever.”