SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A coalition of organizations is working together to reactivate the floodplains on the outskirts of Sacramento. It's something they say will benefit everyone and everything in the area.
The Floodplain Forward Coalition is made up of nonprofit organizations, farmers and government agencies aiming to reactivate these floodplains for better flood control and ensure critical habitat for fish and wildlife.
“The name of the game now is actually building off our bypass system, which is about a century old,” said Wade Crawfoot, California Natural Resources secretary.
He says this system moves water outside of the rivers to ensure communities downriver are safe. Crawfoot says restoring these floodplains would “benefit people, our economy and agriculture.”
Sacramento being the “farm-to-fork capital” has seemingly endless agricultural fields around throughout the county, those being the target of California Trout’s effort.
Floodplain habitat once covered millions of acres of California’s Central Valley, but now 95% of the Valley’s floodplains are cut off from the river by levees.
“We have to figure out how to modernize our water management and our water infrastructure,” said Crawfoot. “Expanding floodplains is a really smart cost effective flood protection strategy… (and a) multi-beneficial investment in our future.”
Some of those benefits include protecting communities under flood risks, restoring salmon populations and creating environmental habitats for birds, fish and other animals who are “more and more stressed from climate change.”
protects communities that are under flood risks, but then it also allows us to restore salmon populations and create environmental habitat as as birds and animals fish are more and more stressed from climate change
Nonprofit California Trout is one of the groups aiding the charge, aiming to reconnect fish to their food.
“With farmers and conservationists and people in government all working together we can show that a river valley that works, that functions, is better for people, for fish, for fowl, for everyone,” said Jacob Katz, California Trout lead scientist.
Some of their ideas have already proven to work and are in action today, like flooding rice fields.
“We can grow the nation's sushi rice right here just north of Sacramento,” said Tim Johnson, California Rice Commission CEO. “In the wintertime we can also provide habitat for all these millions of ducks and geese, shorebirds, salmon and over 230 species of wildlife.”
