Tricycle, a renowned Buddhist journal, has published an essay exploring Green Gulch Farm’s evolving relationship with coho salmon and Green Gulch Creek – a shift in consciousness that sparked restoration efforts designed by PCI in partnership with Green Gulch Farm and the San Francisco Zen Center, with funding from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Green Gulch Creek is a tributary to Redwood Creek in Marin County, one of the last streams south of Lagunitas Creek with a remaining wild run of coho salmon. The stream flows through Green Gulch Farm, one of California’s oldest continuously certified organic farms, and a meditation center operated by the San Francisco Zen Center. Historic realignment and hardening of the stream channel had degraded instream and riparian habitat.

The essay recounts the community’s ecological awakening upon discovery of a male coho spawning in the creek in the historically wet winter of 2004-2005. Author Bruce Byers writes:

The creek had shaped the valley and deposited the soil they were farming; and now, endangered salmon were trying to come back. “Our life as a community didn’t reflect the centrality of the creek to this place,” Sara [Tashker, Farm Manager and Longtime Resident] said. “That led us to a watershed view.”

PCI prepared a stream restoration design and assisted with securing the necessary permits and grant funding. Green Gulch Farm dedicated farmlands to the effort, which allowed the design to include a large meander through historically farmed lands. Without those dedicated lands, restoration efforts would have been limited.

Phase 1, recreation of the natural meandering channel at the downstream end, was constructed in 2014. Phase 2, reconnection of a tributary to flow back into Green Gulch Creek to restore sediment delivery and support summer streamflows, was completed in 2015. The primary focus of the project was providing summer rearing and winter refuge habitat for salmonids hatched in Green Gulch Creek as well as those rearing in the estuary area. The project also included construction of wood structures using redwood logs, rootwads, and trees salvaged onsite and revegetation of riparian and wetland habitat.

PCI is currently designing a streamflow enhancement project to improve summer rearing habitat for juvenile coho salmon in Green Gulch Creek. The project will replace on-channel storage ponds with a new off-channel water storage reservoir, eliminating the need for summer water withdrawals from Green Gulch Creek. The decrease in summer withdrawals for irrigation will provide increased water during critical times for salmonids and other aquatic wildlife. The effort is funded by the Wildlife Conservation Board and supported by Marin Resource Conservation District.

The essay describes these efforts and features a meditation on the myriad ways humans impact their surrounding landscape. Read it in its entirety here. 

Ecological restoration is an essential tool in addressing urgent concerns across California, including reducing carbon in the atmosphere and protecting residents from the impacts of climate change. But regulatory compliance requirements can be significant hurdles that slow the pace of restoration. The State of California has recognized this issue and is working to streamline the regulatory process for strategic, science-based restoration projects. Two projects on which PCI has collaborated are utilizing new regulatory compliance tools developed by the State’s Cutting the Green Tape Team. In fact, these two projects — The Nature Conservancy’s Garcia River Estuary Enhancement Project and the Sonoma Land Trust’s Lakeville Creek Restoration Project — are the first two Statutory Exemption for Restoration Projects (SERP) approvals in the State. Both projects are highlighted in a recent article from San Francisco Estuary Magazine and on the CDFW Statutory Exemption for Restoration Projects (SERP) website. Read the article here, and visit CDFW’s SERP informational page, here.

In September of 2021, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill 155, which provided a new California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) statutory exemption for restoration projects. PCI, along with partners at the Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, was instrumental in working with CDFW’s Cutting the Green Tape Team to develop the first statewide habitat restoration statutory exemption for the Garcia River Project. That project will increase the extent and value of in-channel and floodplain habitat for salmonids within the Garcia River estuary in coastal Mendocino County.

The Lakeville project in southern Sonoma County, pictured above, will restore ecological form and function that was lost from an alluvial valley due to channel incision, wetland draining, and decades of intensive grazing. The overarching project goal is to create a functioning coastal alluvial fan ecosystem that more closely resembles historic conditions, is self-sustaining, and is more resilient to climate change. The project will provide more diverse plant and wildlife habitat, allow for greater infiltration and storage of water, and increase the likelihood of sustaining wetlands into the future.