Before/After is a series where we highlight the long-lasting impact of our restoration work.

Vigorous willow growth and a notable uptick in wildlife recently covered by the Napa Valley Register are two indicators that Napa Creek – a project PCI worked on in 2013 – is becoming the revitalized, healthy waterway that project engineers envisioned two decades ago.

PCI was hired to work with Proven Management to assist with instream elements of the project, under Proven Management’s contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. PCI worked with Proven Management to install rock rootwad revetment structures, bank log pockets, log barbs and rock V-weirs throughout the creek in downtown Napa.

The City of Napa has historically been prone to destructive and deadly flooding events. According to FEMA, a total of 19 floods caused more than $542 million in residential property damage between 1961 and 1997; that total doesn’t include economic losses in the tourism industry, environmental damage, or loss of life. The Napa River/Napa Creek Flood Protection Project was voted into reality by the passage of Napa County Measure A in 1998. The half-cent local sales tax levy provided a funding mechanism for the local share of the project cost and funded flood protection, drainage improvements, dam safety, and watershed management projects, and helped to strengthen a partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Project engineers envisioned a healthy waterway as the centerpiece of Napa; PCI’s work in 2013 helped to make that vision a reality.

Fast-forward ten years, and the project area is thriving. PCI Principal Engineer Lucas Walton recently visited the site and observed that while the weirs haven’t changed, the rootwad revetment is no longer visible because the willows have grown so vigorously

“It is pretty amazing to see how the site has changed and how the local ecology is thriving as a result of the project,” he says.

See the before/after images, below.