Tuolumne River Report - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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TUOLUMNE RIVER TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEEHABITAT RESTORATION PLAN FOR THE LOWER TUOLUMNE RIVER CORRIDOREXECUTIVE SUMMARYmanagement, and engineering. The TuolunmeRiver Technical Advisory Committee, districts,regulatory agencies, and consultants provide thisinfrastructure.Adaptive Management and ImplementationEcosystem restoration is by necessity experimental,driven by hypotheses advanced by greaterunderstanding of physical processes and interactivebiotic responses. The Restoration Planrecognizes recovery will depend on adaptivemanagement by the Tuolumne River TechnicalAdvisory Committee (TRTAC) to regularlyevaluate project successes and failures, and thenrefocus objectives if needed. The recommendedadaptive management approach is similar to thestrategy outlined as Adaptive EnvironmentalAssessment and Management (AEAM) (Holling1978), which stresses explicit integration ofscientific, economic and social concerns intoefforts addressing resource problems. Objectivesfor adaptive management should include: (1) definepolicy and management objectives for satisfyingthe restoration principles, (2) document the statusand trends in chinook salmon populationdynamics, continuing with the outlined FERCmandated monitoring plan, and (3) intertwine thefirst two objectives, is to define restorationendpoints.These are ambitious goals for any program, butmuch more so for a program attempting largescaleecological restoration of a river the size ofthe Tuolumne River. We must acknowledge theinherent uncertainty of our actions, weighpossible outcomes with considerable caution, thenproceed with the best techniques available. Thereis no solution to this scientific uncertainty.Adding the social, political, and economicuncertainties makes river restoration moredaunting. But this daunting task does not justifyinaction, and the stakeholders involved in theimplementation of this Restoration Plan must bewilling to accept success with periodic setbacks,substantial amounts of time and money, and therisks involved in decision making.Copies of this report, or a 16 page Summary of the Habitat Restoration Plan for the Lower Tuolumne RiverCorridor may be obtained from:The Turlock Irrigation District333 E. Canal DriveTurlock, CA 95381(209) 883-8300xxii
INTRODUCTION1 INTRODUCTION1.1 GEOGRAPHIC SETTINGThe Tuolumne River is located in the CentralValley of California and is the largest tributary ofthe San JoaquinRiver (Figure 1-1).The Tuolumne Riveroriginates near11,000 ft elevationin the SierraNevada range,and flowssouthwesterlybetween theMerced Riverwatershed to thesouth and theStanislaus Riverwatershed to thenorth, draining 1,900square miles of westslopingmountains. Itjoins the San JoaquinRiver at RM 83.0,approximately ten mileswest of the City of Modesto.Runoff from the TuolumneRiver is typified by late springand early summer snowmelt,typical of other rivers originatingin the Sierra Nevada mountains.Annual water yield from theTuolumne River averaged 1,906,000acre-feet (af) from 1896 to 1999.The Lower Tuolumne River, extending from LaGrange Dam at RM 52.2 to the confluence withthe San Joaquin River at RM 0.0, is the riversegment under study in this document (Figure 1-2). The Lower Tuolumne River (henceforthreferred to simply as the Tuolumne River) isprimarily alluvial, with bed and banks composedof sand, gravel, and cobble, with occasionalexposed bedrock in areas where the steep bluffs ofthe valley wall confine the channel. Along itslongitudinal gradient the river traverses a varietyof geomorphic and land use zones, includinggravel and sand-bedded zones, the cities of LaGrange, Waterford, and Modesto, agriculturalareas (row crops and orchards), cattle grazing,and aggregate mining. A narrow band of riparianhardwood forest borders the river channel. LaGrange Dam is the lowest in elevation of severaldams constructed in the watershed. La GrangeDam is located at the base of the Sierra Nevadafoothills, downstream of most major tributaries.Dry Creek, which enters the Tuolumne River inModesto (RM 16.2), is the largest tributary in thelower river. During large winter rainstorms, DryCreek contributes significant but short durationflood flows to the Tuolumne River. Agriculturalreturn flows and canal spillways also contributeminor flow volumes to the river below La GrangeDam. None of the tributaries downstream of LaGrange Dam contribute significant volumes ofcoarse sediments; however, fine sediment contributionis often substantial during moderate andlarge rainfall runoff events.The Tuolumne River has been impacted byhuman activities, including gold dredging,aggregate mining, agricultural and urbandevelopment, and water storage anddiversion. These activities have decreasedthe floodway capacity, reduced oreliminated the low-flow andbankfull channel confinement,degraded the channel morphology,decreased the frequencyof large floods, decreasedthe variability of interannualand seasonalflows, eliminatedcoarse sedimentsupply, createdlarge in-channeland off-channelaggregate extractionpits, reducedriparian vegetationcoverage andstructural diversity,Figure 1-1. Location of the and increased theTuolumne River, Stanislaus distribution andCounty, California.abundance of nonnativeplant, fish, and wildlife species. Thecumulative effects of these changes has reducedthe quantity and quality of instream habitat forthe fall-run chinook salmon (Oncorhynchustshawytscha), made the salmon populationunstable, limited native riparian regeneration, anddiminished the quantity and quality of terrestrialhabitat. In short, the Tuolumne River corridorecosystem is heavily degraded.CHAPTER 11
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CHAPTER 3100Elevation (ft)110105100
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CHAPTER 3104Elevation (ft)195190185
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CHAPTER 3108Table 3-8. Wy 1970-1997
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134Relative elevation (ft)140130120
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CHAPTER 3136Relative elevation (ft)
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ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT5. ADAPTIVE MANA
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ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENTmonitoring progr
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ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENTWILDLIFE POPULAT
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ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT• Distribution
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REFERENCESREFERENCESAlderdice, D. F
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REFERENCESKjelson, M. A., P. F. Raq
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REFERENCESTID (Turlock Irrigation D
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APPENDIX AAPPENDIX AANNUAL HYDROGRA
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APPENDIX BAPPENDIX BTUOLUMNE RIVER
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VEGETATION SERIESNATURAL DIVERSITY
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VEGETATION SERIESNATURAL DIVERSITY
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Nature Conservancy Heritage Program
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215Scientific Name Common Name Loca
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APPENDIX BAPPENDIX B217
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Tuolumne River Report - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

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