Abby Taylor-Silva

Last week my phone kept ringing with excited calls from farmers working in the Salinas River bed.

My most memorable call came from one who had just seen a redtail hawk fly down, pluck up a lizard, and fly away. A week earlier, that hawk wouldn't have been able to see a mountain lion, much less a lizard, in the overgrown brush of the river.

On Oct. 10 growers and landowners on the Salinas River began conducting maintenance work. This is significant since work hadn't been conducted since 2008 due to changes in the ways environmental laws and regulations are enforced. The river has become so overgrown with invasive species such as Arundo that fears of flooding in this part of the channel are constant and real, especially with the potential of major rains coming this winter.

Just under 12 river miles will benefit from this type of maintenance this fall, with work concluding no later than November 15, depending on when rains come. Three permits, approved by five agencies, are allowing for this work. What's changed from past channel maintenance however is the focus of the work on removing invasive species and avoiding sensitive habitats, and the multi-benefit approach that mitigates flooding but also protecting species and habitat.

A little more than a year ago the Nature Conservancy started meeting with local agricultural leaders and Monterey County Water Resources Agency to discuss a pilot project that focused on this multi-benefit approach. The result of that is the project we see in the river right now, complete with blue, yellow and red flags noting areas to be worked on and others to be avoided.

Why is this work important? Why not just let the brush grow? Turns out, the river and its native habitats are impacted by the pervasive Arundo and are losing its diversity of native riparian shrubs and trees. Here's why:

1. Without large winter flows, which are controlled due to the dams, brush and invasive species become increasingly dense and less diverse, thus wildlife is less able to utilize the river corridor to move and find food.

2. When Arundo donax and other invasive plants grow in the river, we lose water recharge into our aquifers, estimates vary but are significant and in the tens of thousands of acre feet (one acre foot alone is 325,851 gallons). Due to the pervasiveness of this reed, which can grow four inches a day in optimal conditions, the Monterey County Resource Conservation District has gained a permit to do removal work throughout the river channel, working with growers and landowners, in coordination with this pilot project.

3. When we don't manage the channel, water flows onto our farms and into our communities. Imagine a glass of water filled with straws, some of which are hollow, others full. Now imagine pouring water on top. Some of the water will seep into the hollow straws and around them, but the rest will look for another place to go, likely over the glass. In the river system, this water displaces into and around homes near the river, bridges, and farm fields. This flooding leads to a complex food safety and natural resources emergency, especially when homes and bridges are damaged, precious topsoil is washed down the river and crops are lost or can't be planted.

4. With the dead brush removed, biologists and farmers are beginning to see certain types of birds return, such as hawks. Without the ability to see through the brush to hunt, these birds might have moved on before. Now they have willows and cottonwoods to nest in while they survey the landscape for food.

5. Critical wetland habitat areas, such as cattail and tule are the last types of plants to hold onto water when rains cease, and therefore these plants provide important water and food sources for wildlife. These plants are marked off with red tape so that the maintenance operators know not to remove brush in those areas. With the Arundo donax removed, the next rain will provide critical growth to those areas, providing enhanced habitat to these species.

Over time we expect the benefits of this work to have many other, unexpected outcomes. Already there's discussion of the beach sand that will begin to flow down the channel now that the brush has been removed, once again rebuilding the Salinas River mouth sandbar, an important natural resource to the surfing community and the beach environment adjacent to the Salinas River National Wildlife Refuge. Rivers are dynamic systems and allowing flood flows room to flow will help shape a more diverse physical and biologic environment in years to come.

This pilot project is just the beginning. This 94-mile river channel corridor needs similar maintenance done throughout, especially in areas close to the City of Salinas where overgrowth is evident, such as the Highway 68 bridge. The Grower-Shipper Association is committed to working with partners in the agricultural community as well as Monterey County Water Resources and The Nature Conservancy to build river management units throughout the rest of the river over the coming year. For today however, we'll celebrate with a little bird watching by the river.

Abby Taylor-Silva is vice president of policy and communications for the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California. Contact her at abby@growershipper.com