Sugar Reach Restoration Preliminary Design

MSRF is requesting funding to advance project designs from conceptual to final (permit ready) design. The Sugar Project area extends from RM 41.25 to 42.75 and builds on prior conceptual designs developed for the Sugar Levee and Sugar Left sub-project areas.
The goal of restoration actions within each area will be to expand peripheral and transitional habitat, increase instream structural complexity, and improve natural function within the reach to benefit ESA-listed Spring Chinook and Steelhead. Specific actions will focus on levee modifications to increase floodplain connection, side channel enhancement and creation to provide rearing and refuge habitat, placed fill removal, ELJ and smaller wood placements to increase in-channel and side-channel complexity, and riparian plantings to increase buffers in previously cleared areas. Project designs will be developed for both the Sugar Levee and Sugar Left sub-project areas, and may be developed to allow construction over 2-3 distinct phases to increase certainty of success.
This proposal has been developed to include project design development and stakeholder outreach and permit agency coordination to ensure that the preferred alternatives will result in implementation of actions that will expand functional floodplain, reconnect side channel areas, and increase instream habitat in a phased effort during the 2023 and 2024 work windows.

The intent of this design project is to advance the current conceptual level designs to a preliminary design for a series of discreet but interconnected actions intended to restore floodplain connectivity, provide additional opportunities for channel migration, improve instream structural complexity, and improve riparian conditions to support creation of off channel and channel margin areas needed by listed salmonids.
Specific goals for developed actions within the project reach include the following:
Providing the river with increased opportunities for lateral migration and flood inundation — Lateral migration drives habitat formation, which is important for all species and life stages. Flood inundation provides feeding and rearing opportunities for juvenile Chinook (both yearlings and sub yearlings) and juvenile (age 1+) steelhead.
Increasing instream structural complexity through large wood recruitment/loading and retention processes — Juvenile (age 0+) Chinook and older juvenile Steelhead (generally age 1-3) rear in structurally complex habitats that provide advantageous velocity conditions and refuge from predators. Adult fish rest in scour pools under complex habitat features.
Protecting and improve riparian conditions (e.g., vegetative density, structure, species composition) along the river corridor to increase instream shading, replenish the large wood cycle, and re-establish more naturally moderated channel migration rates — Healthy riparian conditions