In 2016, PCI was approached by a group of homeowners along a local creek with a resource protection challenge. The homeowners shared a private driveway in western Sebastopol; a small tributary to Redwood Creek flowed through a steel culvert beneath their collective access route. The culvert had plugged numerous times, and in the summer of…

Green Valley Creek is a large tributary to the Russian River, with a drainage area of approximately 31 square miles above the project site. The Iron Horse Vineyards property is one of the largest single-owner properties on lower Green Valley Creek in west Sonoma County, and has provided a unique opportunity to create large, flooded…

In the summer of 2019, PCI’s construction crew removed a channel-spanning concrete dam on Lower Green Valley Creek at Iron Horse Vineyards in Sebastopol, CA. Green Valley Creek is a major tributary to the Russian River and has historically provided critical spawning and rearing grounds for coho salmon. However, coho populations have declined due to…

PCI designed and provided construction oversight on three fish passage improvement projects on Stuart Creek, a tributary to Sonoma Creek outside of the town of Glen Ellen, for Sonoma Land Trust. Stuart Creek is a fairly steep, cobble and boulder bed stream with high sediment transport potential. Three man-made partial or total fish passage barriers…

In 2013, PCI began working with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to plan and design projects to improve salmonid habitat value in the lower 1.7 miles of the South Fork Ten Mile River and 4.5 miles of the mainstem Ten Mile River in Mendocino County, California. The general premise compelling the Project is that off-channel rearing…

PCI designed and installed restoration measures in lower Tolay Creek and a severely downcut and eroding tributary as partial mitigation for the widening of Highway 101.  Various repair strategies were evaluated for each reach, and PCI worked with Sonoma Land Trust and Cal Trans staff to develop a mitigation repair strategy acceptable to the San…

The residents of Thomas Creek Ranch offered to host a salmonid habitat enhancement project along their stretch of lower Green Valley Creek, a tributary to the Russian River. In cooperation with the Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District and a Technical Working Group for the creek, PCI developed conceptual and construction plans to provide winter rearing…

As part of PG&E’s federal relicensing process for their Pit River hydroelectric facilities in Shasta County, PCI designed and implemented revegetation of over 20 acres, including three spoils piles, along the river. The sites include montane coniferous forest, oak woodland, and riparian habitats. The spoils themselves are very steep rock piles placed decades ago. Although…

In 2012, PG&E completed a seismic retrofit at Crane Valley Dam, the embankment that forms Bass Lake, a popular US Forest Service recreational area. A project-specific quarry was developed adjacent to the site on USFS property to supply the project. To restore both the 8-acre quarry site and the 32-acre stockpile and processing areas, PCI…

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 San Francisco Zen Center operates a meditation center and one of California’s oldest continuously certified organic farms on the property. Historic realignment and hardening of…