Salinas River Channel
NEW! See Bottom of the page!
The Salinas River is the largest waterway in the Central Coast Region of California and a vital public resource used for recreation, agriculture and residential water use along with being a vital waterway for the survival of fishes and animals that live in the adjacent riparian corridor. Riparian corridors not only provide vital habitat for flora and fauna, including endangered species like the California Red-Legged Frog, but also provide a very important vegetative buffer filtering runoff, both urban and agricultural coming from our cities and farms. Recently, the river’s riparian corridor has been under attack by agricultural interests in the name of flood control and food “safety,” with a plan of removing as much vegetation from the river corridor as possible.
The agriculture industry in the area uses theriparian%20removal.JPG) water from the Salinas River for irrigation purposes, much of which is for the purpose of growing leafy greens. The farms growing these same commodities are also driving the push to eliminate as much vegetation from the riparian corridor as possible claiming a potential flood may hinder their ability cultivate crops on their land due to food safety requirements. Their justification of the work is the potential for flooding cause by fires that occur in the upper reaches of the watersheds, especially that of Arroyo Seco which is a feeder river to the Salinas. More recently, there has been an emergancy permit applied for claiming the potential for “catastrophic” flooding due to several large fires during the Summer of 2008. To this point, Monterey Coastkeeper has monitored debris flow after several majore storm events, one including both rivers hitting flood stage, and has not found any evidence of “catastrophic” debris flow and little to any debris flow at all.
riparian%20removal.JPG) There are vast areas of the river that have already been scoured by heavy equipment losing important habit for Central Coast Steelhead, California Red Legged Frog and many other native species that call this habitat home.
The removal of all of this vegetation also is working against the goal of imporving the water quality of the river and watershed as a whole which has been listed as impaired by the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board for multiple constituants, many of which coming from these very farms that wish to remove all of the vegetation. (Above: Salinas River Channel near Chular. Notice the removal of riparian corridor.)
Monterey Coastkeeper is continuing to work to ensure the protection of this very important riparian corridor, showing that a healthy corridor can exist and is necesarry for the survival of a health Salinas River. It is our goal in to stop the loss of riparian vegetation along the Salinas River and to help promote continued preservation and restoration of important habit.
Monterey Coastkeeper is located at 475 Washington St, Suite A, Monterey, CA 93940. You can visit our website at www.montereycoastkeeper.org. For more information or give us a call at 831-646-8839
NEW! Salinas River Bulldozers Stopped
Salinas Valley farmers had made plans to bulldoze the river’s greenbelt and channelize 100 miles of the Salinas River. The plan would have devastated the last vestiges of river habitat and could have been disastrous for endangered steelhead trout. The Salinas River drains into the heart of Monterey Bay and sea otter habitat; otters near the Salinas River mouth would have been impacted by farm chemicals washing unchecked from fields. The Monterey Coastkeeper intervened and demanded comprehensive environmental review of the project—which has been granted. The project will not go ahead for at least a year.
The Monterey Coastkeeper temporarily stopped the Salinas permit by hiring watershed and fisheries consultants and forming a temporary partnership with the Stanford University Environmental Law Center. Coastkeeper submitted over 1700 pages of comments. We organized agency, nonprofit, and individual comment from the Sierra Club, Surfrider Foundation, California State Lands Commission, US EPA, Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, Monterey Bay Area Unified Air Pollution Control District, and more.
Experts stated that in early times the Salinas River meandered back and forth across the entire valley. When the river flooded, it had a wide swath to use. The consultants commented that people’s activities have forced the river into an unsustainable form and channelization would increase the river’s velocity and dramatically increase bank erosion.
In sum, WE WON!! The bulldozers never cranked up. Which begs the question, now what? We believe water quality, wildlife habitat and farming can peacefully coexist. As a next step, Monterey Coastkeeper would like to see water agencies, conservationists, fisheries managers and farmers come together and create a vision for a sustainable Salinas River. The River’s current condition has been shaped by one group of people (growers) with a fairly narrow focus. It’s time to consider all the beneficial uses of the river, and all of its beneficiaries, non-human and human alike.
Letters of Comment and other Communications
To Report Polluters: 831-646-8840
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