Program Overview - Floodplains Reimagined

Vision

Improve floodplain function for multiple purposes through voluntary collaborative partnerships with private landowners, sovereign tribal entities, government, and non-government representatives.

Working in Concert

This program will work in concert with a constellation of efforts underway in the Colusa, Butte, and Sutter Basins in the Mid-Sacramento River Valley region to improve the floodplain functional connectivity to support salmon, birds, and agriculture.

Priorities

Floodplain functional connectivity complements the multiple priorities including:

Floodplain connectivity

Floodplain wildlife

Ecosystem health

Water supply

Flood control

Agriculture

Water quality

Indigenous cultural values

Economic prosperity

Recreation

Community way of life

Carbon as a greenhouse gas

Collaboration

Urgency

Resiliency and Flexibility

Principles

Voluntary, locally-driven program that serves as a hub for all floodplain related efforts in the region to ensure efficiency and promote coordinated actions.

Shared understanding of each other’s interests, joint investigation, and collaborative generation of options and evaluation.

Mutual respect and appreciation cultivated between sovereign tribal entities, private landowners, government and non-government representatives.

Respect and work within existing land ownership and uses; indigenous land stewardship and cultural resources; and flood management functions, including operations and maintenance.

Geographic Region

The geographic scope includes the historic floodplain of the Sacramento River from the Butte Sink in the north to the top of the Yolo Bypass in the south. The basins of focus within the historic floodplain are defined by current and potential accessibility by juvenile salmon.

Colusa Subregion

West of the Sacramento River
Defining infrastructure: Colusa Basin Drain
Northern most point: Delevan Wildlife Refuge
Southernmost point: Yolo Bypass

Butte Subregion

East of the Sacramento River
Defining infrastructure: Various diversions east of the Sacramento River and West of Butte Creek
Northern most point: M&T Ranch
Southernmost point: Butte Slough Bifurcation

Sutter Bypass Subregion

East of the Sacramento River
Defining infrastructure: Sutter Bypass East and West Borrows and adjacent properties
Southernmost point: Fremont Weir where Sutter Bypass meets the Sacramento River

Geographic Area

Floodplain Benefits – Existing

Phase I: Feasibility Study

RD108 has received a Prop 68 grant from the California Natural Resources Agency for Phase I, which is scheduled for August 2021 – July 2023. In Phase I, in cooperation with landowners the program will evaluate the feasibility of reintroducing low flows during the agricultural off-season, onto lands owned by willing landowners of the Butte Sink, Sutter Bypass and Colusa Basin.

The group will explore the feasibility of combinations of actions to increase floodplain function connectivity, which is reconnecting rivers to their historical floodplains. Potential actions might include modifications to multiple existing weirs, and gated outlet structures and/or construction of new structures, as well as and improving/creating flow conveyance infrastructure needed to reactivate floodplains.