Consultant points to history of land changes along Sacramento River
Chico Enterprise Record - 8/5/02
By Heather Hacking, staff writer

Fred Thomas of Cerus Consulting has been working with the Nature Conservancy for many years on revegetation projects.

Thomas has a farming background and has watched for the past 15 years as land has slowly been purchased along the river.

It's not just Chico's stretch of the river. Restoration projects are a priority throughout the state and nation, Thomas explained.

Since Shasta Dam was built, only a tiny percentage of the riparian habitat that once existed before the dam is left.

After the dam, better flood control existed and farmers were able to move their farms closer to the river, Thomas said.

Looking at maps from before the dam, Thomas noted that most of the land along the river was used to graze cattle because the river "flooded all the way up to Main Street."

Thomas said efforts to restore a limited river meander of habitat is only a "small sliver" of what once existed in this area.

He grew up along the Feather River and saw the same thing happen after Oroville Dam was built. Prior to the Oroville project, people just didn't farm along the river.

With the river tamed, huge tracts of land became farmable, Thomas said.

Before the area was populated with farms, oaks trees grew in the Llano Seco area as thickly as they do in Bidwell Park, he said.

Most of those trees were cut down to build steamboats.

After the dams, farmers slowly began filling in the sloughs that once carried rivulets of storm drainage across the land.

Over recent decades, these were filled in and agriculture eventually stopped just at the river's edge. Some of these sloughs look much like Pine Creek does today now that it has been restored to habitat.

These sloughs were "ecologically rich because they maintain the water." As much as 100 feet wide and 25 feet deep, the sloughs attracted a myriad of different birds, including as pelicans and herons.

Having farmland near habitat is important because it serves as a buffer from urban development. Some rivers have been taken over by development, such as the lower Sacramento where homes are built on stilts, or the Russian River, Thomas said.

In Modesto, there's even a golf course right along the river.

Part of the Sacramento River can be different, and state and federal agencies have made a choice to have some areas where habitat is continuous.

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