TAC Meeting Notes for Upper Middle Fork Feather River Complex Projects

(Long Valley, Smith, Raap-Guidici, and Boulder)

06/15-16/2006

Thursday, June 15, 2006:

Long Valley (Pre-project TAC review)- Reviewed Long Valley with Guy Chetlat, RWQCB; Dan Martynn, NRCS; Rose Willis, CalTrans; Dean Panfili, landowner; Todd Hillaire, DWR; and FR-CRM staff, Terry Benoit-Project lead, Jim Wilcox, Leslie Mink, and Gia Martynn. Landowner is supportive of this project and has already started purchasing the fencing supplies to fence out the project area. He is concerned with the aesthetics and what it is going to look like afterwards. Also, wants to protect the trees. Terry assured him any trees within the plugs or ponds would be transplanted. There may be some loss of pines that are in the floodplain due to wetter conditions post project. The first pond on Little Long Valley Creek just below the highway would capture the bedload moving through and would have to be periodically cleaned out to keep it from backing up and plugging the highway culvert. We did not get a chance to see the project below the confluence with Little Long Valley Creek.

Sulphur Creek Projects: (Pre-project TAC reviews)

Raap-Guidici- reviewed top half of project with Todd Hillaire, Dan Martynn, FR-CRM staff, and landowners: Robin (Guidici Estate),Terry (broker for Guidici Estate), Buzz McCann (Whitehawk developer rep), and Jay Skutt (CSD Board Member and Citizen Monitor volunteer). Landowners main concern was the area proposed for a borrow site. They were not comfortable with this site and wanted to look at alternatives. Also, brought up concern with an area upstream of the project area where there is high debris flows. Feels something should be done there. FR-CRM staff said they would take a look at this site at a future date, but needed to review the project currently being proposed.

Friday, June 16, 2006: (Pre-project TAC reviews)

Smith Creek- Reviewed Smith Creek project with landowners, Simm Shepard, and Scott and Belinda Warner; Joe Hoffman, USFS; Burkhard Bohm, consultant; Todd Hillaire, DWR; Dan Martynn, NRCS; and FR-CRM staff Terry Benoit- Project lead, Gia Martynn, and Leslie Mink. Landowners were very supportive of this project. Looked upstream of project area on Claim Creek. Large headcut formed this past winter, moving more bedload through the system and into Smith Creek. Concerns raised were dealing with the bedload and the view that the channel appears to be well vegetated and recovering on its own. Dan Martynn made the point to landowners that this isn’t the same kind of system that pictures of other pond and plug projects they have seen were done on. Based on NRCS 50/50 costshare programs, he felt we should do nothing unless landowners were willing to contribute more. The alternative of using logjams was briefly discussed but the channel is too wide to use this technique. The first pond at the bridge would capture the bedload and need to be periodically dredged out to maintain. Talked about landowners working out a deal with the County to remove the gravel and rock from the pond. Also, discussed maintenance responsibility??

Boulder Creek- Reviewed with the following TAC members: FR-CRM staff Terry Benoit- Project lead and Gia Martynn; Joe Hoffman, USFS; Todd Hillaire, DWR; and landowners, Paul Muhic and Buzz McCann (Whitehawk rep). No big concerns with this project were raised.